The Post about Miscarriage

(Not to worry anyone…current pregnancy is still healthy!)

Last week, while talking with a friend, the weird taboo around miscarriage came up. People just don’t talk about it, even though it’s so common. I was once in a room with ten women when the subject came up. Nine of us were still in the midst of toddlers/babies/more pregnancies. Someone asked, “How many of us have had at least one miscarriage?” Eight of us raised our hands. What?!

My first miscarriage was quite recent when the show of hands happened. I was shocked by our percentage. Maybe we weren’t a statistically representative sample, but maybe we were. All the online reading I did after having one early miscarriage pointed to how much more common it is than most people realize; definitely more common than you hear about. It made me think that some of my own “oddly a day or two longer than my very-regular ‘normal’ pre-pregnancy” cycles could have been very early miscarriages…but I’ll never know for sure, because I didn’t take a pregnancy test any of those times.

Anyway, the conversation I was having last week reminded me of this blog-style stream of consciousness I wrote out while going through my second miscarriage last year. Trigger warnings and all that. I’ve left it unedited to be as true as possible to how I felt.

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Natural Family Planning. You can’t live in blissful ignorance anymore. I’m in tune enough with my body that I know a slightly later period is probably not a period after all. I’m currently having my second miscarriage this year. It started on day 39 of my cycle. I had taken a pregnancy test—positive—on day 30, because my cycles are always 27-29 days, and we’d been “trying” last month. In May, I took a pregnancy test on day 33, because it took me a couple extra days to realize that, although we weren’t “trying” at the time, I never have a 33 day cycle, unless it’s the first cycle after my fertility returns after having and nursing a baby. This was cycle #8 since return of fertility. Never.

In May, I took the positive pregnancy test on day 33. It was a complete surprise. I texted my family for last minute babysitting, and Justin and I went out to dinner to celebrate that very night.

The next morning, I started bleeding. Within a week, blood tests confirmed miscarriage. It was so early. I’d had less than 24 hours to go from “suspecting pregnancy,” to “I’m pregnant!” to “I think I’m miscarrying.” I didn’t have any baby fever at the time, just an intellectual knowledge that I wanted more children eventually. Statistics say one miscarriage is completely normal, almost expected, even for the healthiest mom. It was easy to accept that “it wasn’t a viable embryo,” “it just wasn’t the right time,” “the next baby—the one God has planned—couldn’t happen if this one wasn’t lost, so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”

But this time.

Baby fever had been creeping in. I took the pregnancy test just one day after my chubby newest nephew was born. I was so excited for a new snuggle bug for myself.

We were trying. This baby was 100% planned. Justin was out of town over half the month, but his weekend home lined up perfectly with my window of fertility. I anticipated the plus sign on the pee stick for weeks.

I had eight days—not 24 hrs—between the plus sign and the blood. Over a week to go ahead and start talking names, start talking godparents, start dreading the parts of pregnancy I hate, start thinking about maternity clothes, start fortifying my mind for a Texas springtime (hot) third trimester. Eight days may not seem like much, but compared to 24 hours…let’s just say my hopes were UP.

Twice in a row seems like a statistical anomaly. I don’t really know if it is. I’ve read that up to 50 or even 70% of pregnancies end before a woman even knows she is pregnant. Maybe with charting, I’m just noticing more. I’m not looking at my calendar on day 38 saying, hmm I guess my period is a week late. I take my temperature every morning and mark it on my chart every night. I know what day my period should come, and if it doesn’t, my personality doesn’t like to “wait and see,” it likes to “see right now.” Maybe it’s totally common to have 2 early miscarriages in a row, but most women just don’t know it happened. But because of the not knowing…twice in a row feels like something is wrong. Maybe it’s not. But it feels like it.

Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance of having miscarried a baby is mother nature’s easiest way for you to deal with it. But I can’t un-know my body’s pattern after 5.5 years of charting. I’ll always know when something is off.

And now that I’ve had 2 miscarriages, I’ll worry. Should I tell anyone? Yes. I need at least a few people to be praying for me while I mope.

I’m sad. I wanted this baby.

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Since having two miscarriages in one year, and mentioning them when it felt safe to, it’s come out of the woodwork how many women I know have had or are having them, too. And we’re all hurting!

Dear mamas, we need to talk about this.

It feels better less awful when you at least know someone else you know has been there. It’s not a trial I would wish on any mother, but unfortunately, it is a trial many of us will eventually bear. We need each other’s empathy.

I’m not saying everyone should write about her miscarriage(s) on the internet. It’s been over a year since my first one, and I’ve previously only spoken of mine within “safe” circles of family, close friends, or trusted/confidential groups. But I can’t articulate how much easier it was when I had their support. Reach out, sister. Someone has been there. You probably won’t have to look very far.

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The last piece of this puzzle, for me, is the subsequent healthy pregnancy that I am so thankful for and also somehow so complainy about.

It appears that my hope, “that having 2 in a row doesn’t mean something is wrong after all, just that I noticed 2 because of diligent charting, when many women may not have noticed at all,” was not in vain. Thank goodness. My first trimester this time around was the most tired of all my pregnancies, and the only one fraught with fear. It was the most volatile, emotionally. I needed naps, I felt sick; I felt grateful for feeling exhausted and nauseous, because that meant my hormones were “normal for pregnancy.” Hitting the 12-week mark made me feel a little better. Feeling the first fluttery kicks around 15 weeks made me feel a lot better. By 20 weeks, when I could feel the baby moving daily, my fear of losing him or her was pretty much gone. Now at 31 weeks, I’m able to truly enjoy the random kids on the playground unabashedly asking me, “Is there a baby in your belly?” Yes, yes there is, and there’s obviously no denying it at this point.

I think it’s easier for me to see this now, with healthy rainbow baby on his or her merry little way: Good can come from suffering.

Before my miscarriages, we were the couple who got pregnant when barely trying, I was the woman who had blissfully easy / by-the-book pregnancies (that I still managed to complain about…round ligament pain, overheating, and heartburn specifically; but when people constantly ask how you are feeling, it’s hard to not think about it). I was tongue-tied around friends who were still trying to conceive their first after we announced our second. I know I looked like a picture of perfect, effortless fertility from the outside.

I needed to learn empathy for the people I know who are struggling with various types of infertility. And I think perhaps I needed to be there for other people who were about to have their first miscarriages; to whom I wouldn’t have known what to say at all if not for my own two. Talking with them through theirs helped me continue to heal from my own.

I also needed the lesson of humility: I am not in control. Children are mysterious gifts from God, not something you can order from amazon prime on the exact day you want it. I could write a whole nother post about how the timing of my miscarriages and pregnancies has worked out better than I could have planned in the end, so I’ll save all that for another day. For now, let it suffice to say that through this I’ve learned to say “Thy will be done” more sincerely than before.

I’m not sure how to end this. Just. It’s more common than you might think. But also, the frequency, and all the logical explanations, and the realization of how it’s all working out for the best later–none of these negates the pain or confusion of going through a miscarriage. So, to moms who have had or are having them…my heart is with you. And everyone else…be sensitive when you talk about a woman’s family planning–“So, when are you going to have another?” There is probably a lot more silent suffering around you on the subject than is evident.

I’m not trying to be a downer. But I want it to be okay to talk about. So this is just my bit, talking about my own.