I Had a Miscarriage

Four words you hope you never have to say: I had a miscarriage. I knew miscarriage was common due to the brave women who share about their experiences online and in real life, and yet before getting pregnant I never thought it would happen to me. I’m young, I’m healthy, those things don’t happen to people like me. It turns out miscarriage can happen to anyone and now I’m in the club that no woman ever wants to be in.

My pregnancy

I found out I was pregnant 2 days before Thanksgiving. My period was 5 days late and I decided it was time to take a test “just to rule it out.” No part of me thought that test was going to come back positive, but that bright blue line appeared almost immediately. I still didn’t believe it so I made Chris run out to the store at almost 8pm to get more tests. Sure as shit, 2 more positive tests. Chris couldn’t stop smiling and laughing but to be honest, I was in complete shock. We were planning to start trying early in 2023 so it’s not like we felt mentally unprepared, but I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I had done in the last few weeks — drank wine, took mold detox supplements, spent time in the sauna, took an edible. Stressed was an understatement.

We told some close friends and family and basked in everyone’s excitement. A few weeks later we went to our first OB appointment and got to see the tiny little blob on the screen — heartbeat and all. We were told the baby was measuring about a week behind where we thought we were, but that I probably just ovulated later than I thought. That made sense given the surprise nature of the pregnancy. We were also told that the miscarriage rate drops to less than 5% once you see a heartbeat.

For the next few weeks I lived my new normal which included a lot of “kid food” and gagging. I had every classic symptom of early pregnancy — nausea, fatigue, sore boobs. You name it. I kept reminding myself that even though I felt awful, these were all good signs.

Where things started to go wrong

Over the course of a few days, I noticed I didn’t feel the immediate need to eat first thing in the morning to evade nausea. On Christmas Eve, my nausea seemed to have gone away completely. I was only about 8 weeks pregnant, so of course my brain started to spiral — is something wrong? Why am I not feeling the same symptoms as before? Am I just lucky in that my nausea stopped early?

Two days after Christmas I started bleeding. It wasn’t much, but any amount of blood is terrifying for someone who’s pregnant. I called my OB the next morning and she didn’t seem concerned about it, but still scheduled me for an appointment the following morning to check on things. The car ride to that appointment was a quiet one. We were both hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. Once she started the ultrasound, her silence spoke for itself. Then the dreaded words, “I’m sorry, unfortunately it looks like a miscarriage.”

The rest of the appointment was a bit of a blur through tears and sobs. We were told the baby stopped growing around 7 weeks, that it wasn’t caused by anything I did, and that it’s “extremely rare” to miscarry after seeing the heartbeat on ultrasound (as if that was supposed to be reassuring).

The recovery process

Here’s something about miscarriage that no one tells you — after you find out your baby no longer has a heartbeat, you have to just sit around and wait for the pregnancy to pass. Of course you can opt for medication or a D&C procedure where they surgically remove the pregnancy, but I wanted as little intervention as possible and to allow the pregnancy to pass naturally. There’s nothing wrong with opting for those procedures but my instinct is always to err on the side of less intervention whenever possible.

I didn’t have to wait long — I started to pass the pregnancy the following day. Here’s another thing they don’t tell you about miscarriage: it’s not a quick process. And it’s painful. I ended up needing further (very painful) interventions to fully pass the pregnancy a few days later and it just felt like it was never going to end.

The physical symptoms were a huge distraction from the emotional symptoms. We cried all day on the day we found out about the miscarriage, but it wasn’t until the pain and bleeding calmed down that I found myself feeling the raw emotions and breaking down seemingly out of nowhere. I was reading a book that mentioned Mother’s Day and it sent me into a fit of tears that ended in hyperventilation.

The rollercoaster of emotion is crazy — one moment I’ll feel completely calm and the next moment I’ll be struggling to catch my breaths through my sobs. My first day back at work included several walks around the parking lot to take deep breaths and try not to cry. You can blame the hormones, but the reality is that miscarriage is confusing, anger inducing, guilt tripping, and deeply, wildly devastating.

You mourn for the soul that was lost. You lose sleep in fear that it will happen again. You rack your brain trying to figure out if you did something to cause it. And then in the small moments that you feel calm or happy, you feel guilty for moving on with your life.

Thankfully most of those feelings have subsided with time and I’ve been able to find more peace. I found solace in my belief that souls don’t die, they simply go back to where they came from and await their next return to earth. A medium who communicates with spirit babies told me that miscarried souls often return to the same mother in future pregnancies. Whether you believe that or not, I found it comforting.

Leaning on our support system

The whole time I was pregnant I worried that we were telling too many people too early. Now having experienced a miscarriage, I understand why people share the news early and I also understand why they don’t. Having to repeatedly tell our family and friends what happened was literal torture. And most of it had to be through text message because there was no chance in hell we were getting those words out of our mouths without a complete breakdown.

But then something beautiful happens — your people show up for you. They send you flowers. They bring you groceries. They send you money to book spa treatments for when you’re feeling better. They check in on you constantly to make sure you’re okay. Miscarriage can be SO isolating, but it doesn’t have to be. I can’t imagine going through this without the love and support of our family and friends.

I never had a doubt in my mind that I married an amazing man, but going through this showed me that I not only married an amazing man, I married the greatest man on the entire planet. This is by far the hardest thing we’ve had to go through in our 8 years together and he never wavered for one second. He sat in the bathroom with me while I cried. He took several trips to target to get me pads and brought back little gifts to cheer me up. He made sure I was drinking water and taking my supplements to prevent anemia. He checked on me every time I took a bathroom trip in the middle of the night. People often forget about the men. They don’t go through it physically, but they go through it emotionally. And even though he was hurting just as much as I was, I knew he was there for me every single second of every single day. I’ll never find the words for how much gratitude I have for him.

Sending my love to you all

Recovery from miscarriage is long and my recovery is far from over. I’m sure I will continue to share the various things I’m doing to heal and eventually prepare myself for another pregnancy. But for now I’ll leave you with this: miscarriage sucks, and if you’ve experienced one or are close with someone who has, my heart goes out to you.

If you know someone going through a miscarriage, check on them. And then when you’re pretty sure they’re okay, check on them again anyway. I’m lucky enough to know women who have miscarried and gone on to have multiple healthy pregnancies and I have unwavering hope that that will be my story too.