After The Loss

There is such a mix of emotions that go on inside of the mothers of miscarriage.  At first these emotions can entirely dominate us.  The grief can be debilitating in the beginning.  This period lasts however long it lasts, with my last loss I did not have contact with the outside world hardly, for two weeks.  I couldn’t face anyone, I could barely face myself and my family (my husband and daughter).  As this was my third loss I was not looking forward to hearing anyones opinions on what happened, why it happened, or what to look forward to in the future.  What about now though?  It’s been almost six months since I lost the baby, I recovered from the hopelessness and the social anxiety.  I’ve faced the world and heard some good things and some not so good things.  I have learned to adjust to life again and things are going pretty well in my life.  Though the devastation has subsided and the open wound has become a scar, it still hurts when prodded.  Like when a friend or acquaintance announces they are expecting.  Or when I realize how much closer the should have been due date is getting.  Or when October 15th rolls around as a day of remembrance for our angels.  Or any other time that may come up that I am just reminded of what should be, but not just what should be or could have been, but when I remember what was, the baby that was and then all of a sudden wasn’t anymore.

It is these times that I find myself at a loss of where to turn, most of the time, I just accept the pain and I cry.  I cry, then it passes, as I am thrown back into the reality that is now my life.  Sometimes though I just need to let it out; I need to tell someone where I’m at; I need a hug I need someone to tell me that it’s okay to feel this way no matter how long it’s been.  I have found though that with a pain that is deeper than what I can even comprehend myself it can be very hard to relay to someone else what’s going on inside of me.

I was talking with a friend recently who had lost her baby about two weeks after I lost mine, she was due a month before me.  We will call her Elle to keep her anonymity.  Elle was telling me how hard it is sometimes when she is trying to tell someone where she’s at.  Trying to relay why she cries at baby commercials; Why she hurts when she finds out that one more person is happily expecting.  After talking to a very dear friend who we will name Shelly, Elle felt misunderstood and misrepresented.  These feelings brought her to a place of feeling isolated.  Shelly was only trying to help when she told Elle that there would be opportunities in the future to have the baby she so deeply desired.  She didn’t do anything wrong, she was trying to give hope to a hurting friend.  Elle wasn’t looking for hope though.  Shelly had misunderstood, she thought that Elle wanted a baby, when what Elle really wanted was HER baby, the one that had died, the one that she should be cradling in her arms a month from now, but never will.  Shelly thought that her friend was reminiscing what could have been or should have been under different circumstances, but that isn’t so, for the bereaved mother.  She is grieving what should have been, yes, but not just what should have been, but what was.  The baby that was living inside of her, that died.  She was not just sad that she couldn’t be a mother right now she was sad that the baby she did mother was never coming back.  She was grappling with the uncertainties of why, why there are people in this world who never wanted children have several, “accidentally,” without a hiccup.  Why mothers who use drugs their entire pregnancy are blessed with beautiful babies who’s lives they will cause so much pain in, and she, someone who tried to do everything right had her baby taken away.  We wonder what it is that we do to deserve this injustice.  It’s not that we need answers, or just have to know why, but we do wonder.  Do we not?  It is important to us to hear that we are not alone.  Not that someone else has been through it necessarily, but that the people around us care, and are there for us, to listen, to lean on.  

Sometime the best way to be a good friend to the bereaved mother is just to listen, no matter how many times she brings it up over the months.  No matter how many times she says the same thing.  I think in our society we think that when someone brings up a problem, they need advice, they need to be fixed.  But no one can fix the mother who’s child has gone.  There is no dilemma, there is just one day at a time, and one day at a time is the only thing that can ease the pain.  It’s important to be a safe place for the mother’s of angels.  It’s okay to say, “I wish I knew what to say but I don’t”.  It’s okay not to have all the answers, no one does.  It’s okay to say, “I’m so sorry that you’re going through this, I wish I could ease the burden.”  Just know that by being there, by letting her get it all out, you are helping more than you think.  

There is life after loss, it’s not the life we thought we’d have after we saw two blue lines on the pregnancy test, but it is life, and it can be a good life.  I have many blessings in my life that I am grateful for today.  I think more about the good than I do about the bad.  I enjoy things, I smile, I laugh and I mean it.  I’m real.  I don’t have to put on a mask to show the world I’m not dying inside, because I’m not anymore.  I am a wife, a mother, a student, a friend.   I have experienced three miscarriages.  There is no one thing that can define me, my experiences, the good and the painful have all molded me into the person that I am today, a person that I am proud of being.  I truly believe I will see my angels again.  I believe they’re waiting for me, I’m not in a rush to get to them, I know they are safe and I have a purpose on this earth for the time being.  If anything good came of my losses, it is this, that I can be a more compassionate and loving friend.  I can share my experiences with others.  I can appreciate more the people that God has put in my life.  Life is short and we never know how long we have or how long our loved ones have, it’s important to cherish all of them everyday.

I hope that I can help just one person with what I write.  I don’t only write for others but for myself, because sometimes, you just have to let it out.  Let me know your thoughts.

--CE

Taboo: The Pain of Miscarriage

Taboo

advective

Proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable

Synonyms: prohibited, banned, forbidden.

Pregnant

adjective

Having a child or other offspring developing in the body: with child or young, as a woman or female mammal

Miscarriage

noun

The expulsion of a fetus before it is viable, especially between the third and seventh months of pregnancy; spontaneous abortion

The definition of pregnant sounds about right.  How happy everyone is when a pregnancy is announced; when you tell the world, you are with child.  From family and close friends there are expressions of joy, there are hugs, sometimes there are even tears from all of the excitement.  All the women you tell start telling you about their pregnancies and what they think you should expect.  How the morning sickness was hard but it passes, and it is SO worth it!  They talk about the birth of their children and the unbreakable bond that they feel.  They are so happy that you will be joining their ranks of motherhood; the most challenging yet most rewarding time in ones life.  Nobody says, “In nine months we might have a baby, of course, if the fetus is viable.”  

No, they are with child, and at the end of 9 months, everyone expects that they will have, a child.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was terrified.  I wasn’t ready to be a mom, but after the initial shock I was overjoyed.  I started finding myself in the infant section of every store, caressing the tiny outfits with outstretched fingers.  Dreaming of how my baby would look wrapped in the little, soft blankets.  Thinking about what colors I would like in the nursery that I would make just for them.  I bought one of the outfits, it was a red velour one piece with little fluffy white outlines.  I bought it in 0-3 months, since my baby was due in October, they would fit into it by Christmas; I thought.  No one had told me that it was even a possibility that my baby would never grow outside of my womb.  

I was 5 weeks 3 days when I found out that this would be the case.  That at the end of nine months I would have no baby.  I was devastated.  No one else was.  I heard everyones opinions, the same people who told me of all the joy I should expect, and how being a mother is the greatest gift.  They told me, this just wasn’t meant to be.  I was too young anyways.  I would have other babies.  And the best one, “At least you weren’t further along.”  Really?  So if I had been further along, then I would have to right to grieve?  So it was meant to be that my baby die, would that be the case if your baby died?  All of the other horrible horrible things that happen in the world on a daily basis, those people who die in the worst ways, their lives just weren’t meant to be right?  So no one should grieve them, right?  I had heard countless stories of amazing single mothers raising more than one child on their own, finishing college while working multiple jobs.  As hard as their situations were, their children grew up to praise them for their hard work and dedication and love for them.  I was more than willing to do whatever it took, but because I was too young, I could not measure up, I would not be a sufficient mother.  Then the “you can have more babies.”  Oh so you know this for certain?  You just know that I am not infertile?  And even if I am capable of having other children, I was not allowed to love this one?  Because they weren’t meant to be, right?  Yes the same people who encouraged me when they found I was pregnant were the same people knocking me blow by blow.  minimizing my pain and my fears for the future.  Why?

Today after 4 pregnancies and one child to show for them all, I have found that miscarriage is just a taboo subject.  I have come to the conclusion that the reasons for this are many.  People become the most insensitive in this time of grief in a woman’s life.  In a society where it is okay to stop a heart and rip out all of the “tissue” so that people don’t have to be parents to unwanted children, it certainly minimizes peoples view of human life inside the womb.  It isn’t just for people who lose their babies in the first trimester either though.  I have joined support groups for women who have lost their pregnancies at any stage and there are women who were 20 weeks along sometimes further, who knew the sex of the baby who had bought items for baby and started painting the nursery who have been given a certain amount of time to grieve by the people around them, then are told that they really need to move on with their lives.  Or told, “I knew someone who lost their 3 year old, at least this didn’t happen to you.”  WOW!  Can we be appalled yet?  

Sometimes we hear these answers because people just don’t know what to say.  Other times I think it’s fear.  If we talk about the loss, if people have to hear about our pain, it makes rise for fear.  Could it happen to me?  No one wants to think like that.  No one wants to give grounds to the thought ”in nine months, we might not have a baby.” 

I have spent many days of my life in tears, not understanding why I was feeling what I was feeling because the world around me said it shouldn’t hurt so much.  I found in the end I had to be true to myself.  If I am in pain, I am allowed to be.  No one is allowed to minimize that.  I do not allow that to give reason to argue with those who say otherwise, in that I feel that I have the right to not receive the harsh words they give.  I have the right to explain that I AM in pain and that they shouldn’t be so rude as to tell me what I can and cannot feel.  Eventually more people will come to realize this but for now, I’ll just share my story.

I am not here for the people who do not understand although I would hope if they read this that they will learn that in a situation like this.  If you have nothing to give because you do not understand, you can say, “I am so sorry for your loss, I cannot imagine”.  I am not here for the people who would like to argue the stage at which human life begins.  I personally believe in the human soul, and I believe it is present at the time of conception.  I would much rather believe this and find that I am wrong than to not believe so and find that I was wrong.  I am here for the woman who has had to learn what I have.  The woman who will never again be able to enjoy a pregnancy because she is overcome by fear.  The woman who’s world has crashed around her.  I’m here to tell her that she’s not alone, that it’s okay to cry hysterically and scream into her pillow in the dead of night.  To tell her that she isn’t crazy for missing the little one she dreamt about.  

It is normal to have a period of grief so strong that it feels debilitating.  It is normal to feel a twinge of anger when your friend announces that she is with child, so unassumingly.  I don’t feel it’s okay to put said woman in her place and remind her that things may not turn out the way she plans.  We are each on a journey and each circumstance we go through can make us better and stronger or we can allow it to haunt us and bring us to the lowest of our lows.  

I have been at both ends.  With my first two losses I drank myself into oblivion and went into a downward spiral.  Eventually, with the help of God, I was able to pick up the pieces.  I have a beautiful daughter who lights up my world and her father is my wonderful husband, he is also the father of the second and 4th child that I lost.  My last miscarriage was seven weeks ago.  This time I grieved just as hard, just not destructively.  It shook the very foundation I stood on, it toyed with my faith in God, but could not take it away.  I have found that through my experiences I can help others.  This is my mission now.  To let people know, there is light at the end of this tunnel, there can be joy through pain and turmoil.  And when it seems people have turned their backs, there are people out there willing to listen, who care.  People who have felt the same pain and gotten through it.  There are also others who know different pain who will not minimize yours, find them.  There are online support groups on facebook and you can find others on google.  I have yet to join a face to face group, but I know they exist and I am considering starting my own if that is God’s will.  

I hope that you can find peace where you are.  Whatever the case, there is a future for you, you can decide how bright it is, just allow yourself the time to feel when the feelings come.  Have a great day and God bless.