Lyric is my rainbow baby. June 28th was the due date we were given for my first pregnancy. I’ll never forget this date, because it was right after the last day of school. I worked as a school administrator at the time, and was so happy to have so perfectly timed this pregnancy to not interfere with my career too much. I’d just started the job in May, after suddenly being laid off of my last position in January. Though the plan was to “try” after a year of marriage, I put that plan on hold for a few months in order to ensure that I completed a full school year at my new job. My husband was frustrated with my constant need to control every single detail, but with my experience in leadership positions, I knew how women were talked about when they accepted jobs knowing they were pregnant. I wanted to do right by the organization.
In any case, 11 weeks in, after telling our parents and closest friends, we went for a sonogram, and the heart beat could not be found.
There are so many things about this experience that I think are important to share because I think it’s important that women know they’re not alone. Through sharing my experience three years ago via social media, many other women shared their stories with me. Though it didn’t diminish the emotional or physical pain, it did provide a level of comfort. I also hope that my experience will impact the words and actions of those who have not experienced this pain.
Here are few takeaways and memories.
1. While I’m still a planner and prefer not to let life just happen to me, I learned that I can’t control everything. This was a very hard way to learn this lesson but my perfect due date went up in smoke. I personally don’t connect events like this to lessons from a creator. But I do think that it was important for me to figure out how I could grow from this experience. You can’t control everything. I’m not sure who else needs to hear this but I certainly did and still do.
2. People always say to wait 12 weeks before sharing your news. I never imagined that I’d miscarry. It never crossed my mind, so I didn’t abide by the “rules”. I made a big to do about telling my parents and my best friend. I learned later that between 10 and 20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. The vast majority within the first trimester. Though, not telling people may feel like you’re anticipating a bad outcome, having to tell all of the people that I’d already told that I’d had a miscarriage was one of the worst parts of this. Having to actually say those words to people at that time, overwhelmed me emotionally each time. My parents told people. In his excitement, my husband had told some co-workers about the pregnancy. We attended his work Christmas party a couple of weeks later. I swear it felt like those who knew, hugged me a little longer. It might have been all in my head, but their hugs made me cry. My interpretation of what may or may not have been their sympathy, made me cry.
3. I always thought that a miscarriage happened suddenly. I thought there was blood and a realization that you were having a miscarriage simultaneously. I found out that I’d miscarried during a routine visit. My previous appointment had revealed some unusual readings in my blood work, which were a cause for concern. But after some follow up testing, I expected to be put on medication to help. The funny thing is, I’d lost some of the pregnancy symptoms before that appointment. But again, no blood. I had no reason to think anything was wrong.
The woman who was doing the sonogram couldn’t find a heartbeat. I suppose she wasn’t allowed to tell us, so she just excused herself and sent the doctor in. The doctor explained how frequently this happens and told me that I had to set up an appointment for a D & C (Dilation and curettage). I had never heard of this procedure and thought that I could just be left to bleed naturally but she told me that that wasn’t a good idea. My husband had met me at the doctor’s office since we were both coming from work. I had to drive myself home. I honestly can’t remember anything from that night.
4. I went to work the next day! I cringe thinking about that fact. I didn’t tell anyone what was going on. I just let my boss know that I’d be taking off that Friday for a medical reason. I asked her not to inquire further. I was responsible for a weekly event and felt like I needed to show up to make sure that it could proceed without me on the day of my D& C the following day. I stayed in my office, which I shared with one other coworker, all day, trying to hold back tears, preparing to delegate my responsibilities to a number of people the next day. The following day, in the hospital waiting room, I learned that the school had decided to cancel the event. No one felt “comfortable” leading the event in my absence. I’d wasted my time the previous day. This was yet another learning experience for me. Since this experience, I have never, and will never show this level of commitment or obligation to any job ever again. I really could have used that day to come to grips with everything. I needed to grieve openly. I denied myself that in order to be a “good employee”. Never again.
5. My surgery was set for 3 or 4pm. I was not allowed to eat anything all day prior to the surgery. The worst part of this experience is that while waiting in my hospital gown, what must have been a few hours for surgery, hospital employee after employee asked me the same series of questions perhaps 10 times, maybe more. Name, date of birth, the basics, followed by, “Why are you here?” and something along the lines of “Why do you need to have this procedure?”. Over and over again I had to say, “I’m having a D & C. I had a miscarriage. There was no heartbeat.” “I had a miscarriage. There was no heartbeat.” Beyond the physical pain that followed, that was probably the most painful part of my experience in the hospital. I believe it was for liability reasons, but it really was the most insensitive practice imaginable. Additionally, you have to sign waivers stating that you understand that complications during this procedure could result in your death. A doctor explains to you the things that could go wrong that could be fatal. I remember thinking as I signed that form, “I just wanted to have a baby.” How did I end up in the position of potentially dying on a surgical table? How is this possible? How did I end up here?
The procedure was fine. My husband told me that when I regained consciousness, but still not fully coherent, I asked him to ask the doctor whether it was a boy or a girl. I remember either asking my husband or the doctor, if the baby had fingernails. I had been following the week to week development with an app and I was at the week when nails would start to form. I guess I had it in my mind that they would’ve seen that.
What I did not anticipate was the fact that heavy bleeding and cramping would follow for days after the procedure. I thought that “everything” was removed during the procedure. I had to have surgery and still deal a type of bleeding that actually scared me. It feels weird to me that I was so in the dark about what to expect. But in the one day I had to process what had happened, I suppose I didn’t spend that time googling the procedure. I think I just showed up zombie like to the hospital. I returned to work that Monday. For days, I would still buckle over with painful cramping. I still moved on, not telling anyone at work what I was going through.
Not sharing back fired on me. Within a week or so of my D &C, a co-worker came into my office, closed the door and said, “I just want to tell you before you hear it from anyone else. I’m pregnant!” She knew rumors were circulating and since we were pretty close at work, she wanted to make sure that I heard it from her. I’m not sure what you’d call it, but I think I had some type of an anxiety attack. I hid it behind my desk, but my arms and legs started trembling. I smiled and congratulated her. I wanted to feel happy for her, but I just wasn’t in a place to have that genuine emotion. It may have been the next day that she decided to announce it to the staff by putting a cute message and some pastries in the staff lounge. Her office was right across from mine. All day long, I heard women squealing and congratulating her. Conversations continued about all things birth and baby. I felt physically sick all day.
When I got pregnant the second time, I chose not to make any public announcements at work. I do believe that people have the right to share their joy. But just in case anyone was going through what I had gone through, I decided to tell people in more intimate settings. Everyone I told, I told about my miscarriage and why I was choosing not to make a festive announcement. Everyone else found out about my pregnancy by word of mouth or when I started showing. It made things awkward for people who weren’t absolutely sure, but I didn’t care.
6. I decided to share my miscarriage on social media after having several frustrating experiences after the miscarriage. Within minutes of arriving at a Christmas party, a family friend interrupts pretending to overhear our conversation and says, “What’s that? You’re pregnant?”. They started laughing and asking what we were waiting for. I felt at that time that he might as well have stabbed me. The only thing that kept me from collapsing into tears is my anger.
With the knowledge of how many women go through this emotional and physical pain, my plea on social media was to stop flippantly asking questions like this of people. You never know what they’re going through. We have normalized publicly asking people about when they’re going to have kids, when they’re going to have more kids. And the answer is, it’s none of your damn business. You have no right to even potentially create that type of pain for a person for an answer that will likely not impact your life one way or another. However, if we continue to keep our miscarriages as our secret shame, people will never know how frequently this happens to people. I know people aren’t being intentionally malicious but we have to stop normalizing this intrusive behavior.
7. Finally, the healing process was and is ongoing. When I finally emotionally was ready to “try” again months later, or so I thought, transparently, I cried afterward. I was scared that “the act” might lead me back to that surgical table and all the emotional pain tied to it. How would I know? How could I deal with that kinds of pain again?
It took several months to conceive. The new due date was going to cause me to leave midway through the school year but I’d let go of being concerned about how my job would handle my absence. They would figure it out. When I did, it was so difficult to settle into a place of happiness. I wanted to feel happy but wanted to protect my heart… just in case. But protecting my heart would prevent me from feeling the joy that should be associated with this life event. I don’t think it was until about the 4 month mark when we learned the gender of the baby that I allowed myself to settle into happiness. After seeing her move around like a gymnast and being told it was likely a girl, my husband and I held hands as we walked to our car. It was the first feeling of pure joy, uninterrupted by the sting of the previous year.
Sharing these memories is a bit therapeutic for me, but I hope informative. More people than you could ever imagine have stories like this and ones far more painful than I can imagine. I’m not sure if I could have continued trying if it had happened to me more than once as other women have shared with me. I have the most amazing little girl but writing this still brought me to tears multiple times. Though my life as a mother has continued to bring me joy. I will never forget the life that was never more than a heartbeat and a date. June 28th.