September 2021

Today has been a difficult day full of reflection. Today was the day I was supposed to hear my baby’s heartbeat. It has been 3 weeks since I learned I was having a miscarriage and it has been some of the toughest days of my life. My husband and I had been trying to conceive our first child for 5 months and we were over the moon when I finally saw those two parallel lines on the pregnancy test. That excitement came to a crashing halt as I began spotting. After a few appointments and blood tests, it was confirmed that I was miscarrying. The next week was a rollercoaster of emotions from anger to the deepest heartache I have ever experienced. The physical pain and even the ER visit didn’t hold a candle to the pain in my heart and soul.

I have dreamed of being a mother since I was very young and assumed when I was married and ready, that it would just happen. No one tells you that about 20% of pregnancies are lost. Only after the fact did my doctors bring up this statistic. I frustrates me that this is not more known and that miscarriage is taboo in many ways.

What also frustrated me was the way many healthcare people talked about the miscarriage with me. I truly respect doctors and nurses, especially the last year or so with the pandemic. I am sure it was not intentional in any way, but only 2 of the 12 I talked to the past few weeks said they were sorry for my loss. I heard a lot of “this can happen” or “it is normal and you most likely will have healthy pregnancies in the future.” One person even said, “The doctor says you need to go to the ER, ok? Alright, have a good night.” I have not just lost this poppy seed sized little fetus, I have lost all the dreams I had for my baby and my family. The dream of holding him or her in my arms for the first time. The dream of finally making our parents grandparents. The dream of seeing my baby grasp it’s little hand around my husband’s finger and watching the adoration in his eyes. All of this was lost. Medical terms and diagnosis was not what I wanted to hear or needed to hear. I was grieving.

I know grief is a process. Right now what I mostly feel is fear. Fear for the future and what may happen. This was my first experience with pregnancy and it’s been very traumatic. I am scared that I won’t ever feel the magic that pregnancy brings to so many women. If God does bless us with a child in the future, will I be anxious and simply terrified the whole 9 months that something will go wrong? I just have so many questions that will forever go unanswered.