Miscarriage, Part 1

Children who have lost their parents are called “orphans.”

Women and men who have lost their spouses are 
“widows” or “widowers.”

But what does one call parents who have lost a child?

I’ve pondered this question for the last six months.

On August 6th, our first baby died.

I don’t say, “We lost a baby” because that makes it sound as 
though we made a mistake.

You lose your keys in your purse or a sock in the dryer, but a 
miscarriage isn’t a mistake.

My husband and I didn’t make a mistake.

I also don’t say “our pregnancy ended” because it did not just “end,”

like a road or a song or a movie.

Our baby died.

We found out we were pregnant at four weeks three days.

We decided on names and even back-up names in the event that 
when the child arrived, the names we picked didn’t fit her. We lovingly
looked at my still-flat belly testing the names.

“You just wait until you get here,” we’d say, and then indulge the earless 
embryo with stories of everything we’d teach her, of how her brothers would 
react when she arrived, how smart and kind and loving she would be. We 
shared our excitement and hopeful imaginings with

our families. Within the first hour, I had imagined the first time she laughed, 
the first time she called me Mommy, kindergarten, learning to drive, 
college graduation, her wedding day…

I imagined watching her whole beautiful, little life.  

The first sonogram looked how it should. The hormone numbers were 
rising like they were

supposed to.

Paul and I built a teddy bear for her, with a heart inside we had both 
cuddled and kissed.

We each bought a onesie and argued over which one she would wear home.

Our baby died at five weeks, six days.

I woke up on a Sunday with a mild backache. I thought maybe I had a 
kidney infection or something. I took some Tylenol and went on with it. 
We went to church. The pain had increased so much by that point that I 
couldn’t stand to sing or pray. When the sermon was over, I went to the 
restroom while Paul went to get the children from Sunday school. I told him

I’d just meet them at the car.

I felt it happen. I felt her slip out. 

Then the smell, metallic and sharp. 
Blood everywhere. 

I stood in the stall, looking down into the toilet. I saw her there. A tiny grayish 
purple sack with an even tinier bump in the center. My breath came quickly. I 
braced my shaking arms against the walls of the stall. Around me, I heard cloudy 
bits and pieces of discussions about the sermon, where people were planning to eat…

I kept looking in the bowl, at my baby, at my hands covered in blood.

I rattled and shook like a scared wild thing.

Do I dig her out and carry her through the church? No. I'd be committed. 
They'd think I lost my mind.

Can I just flush my baby down the toilet? 
This little life who mattered so much to me? This life that, 24 hours ago, lived in me? 
That had a future?

Could I flush it down the drain like a dead goldfish?

Finally, I texted my Paul.

“I think I just had a miscarriage. There was a lot of blood. I’m on my 
way to the car. Don’t let the boys know anything is wrong, but when I 
get there, take me to the ER.”

Then I wiped my hands as best I could with toilet paper, and flushed 
my baby down the drain. I washed my hands and rushed to my husband.

If a woman or child had died in that bathroom, it would have disturbed 
everybody around. 

Instead, my baby died and people carried about their business.

Paul dropped me off at the Urgent Care and ER, he met my best friend, 
Gabi, at our house with our three sons and quickly returned to find me 
sitting alone in a room. The urgent care

physician said they couldn’t do anything there – 
I needed to go to a real ER, in a hospital.

I felt pity from their eyes as we walked out.

What do you say to someone who has hoped the greatest, 
most joyful future only to have it slip out?

We drove to the nearest one.

Hours of pain, blood work and a sonogram confirmed what we already knew.

“Give her some morphine,” the doctor told the nurse.

“So that means my baby is dead?”

“We’ll talk about your results in a few minutes. Right now 
I want to get you comfortable.”

“Comfortable? You think I can get comfortable? I want talk 
about it NOW. I could only have Tylenol an hour ago, but now 
I can have morphine because it doesn’t matter. Because it won’t 
hurt my baby. Because there isn't a baby anymore. Just tell me. Tell me!”

“The sonogram showed no evidence of pregnancy.”

Our baby had died.

Having passed our sons off to their mom, Gabi arrived moments after we got the news.

I screamed as though I were dying. Paul and Gabi hugged me as I howled and cried.

All our tears blended together.

I lost my voice from wailing.

I would like to interject at this point that throughout this entire process, 
Paul grieved as well, just differently than me. He’s introspective and reflective. 
I know he’s hurt, so I don’t want to pretend I sat all alone in my hurt. This 
type of grief is so raw and intimate. I don't want to speak for him, but I will 
say that he was with me the entire time. We hurt together.

They released me a half hour later with a note for work the next 
day and orders to follow up with my doctor.

The next 24 hours were soggy and sad.

My parents drove the two hours to our house to check on me.

Their hearts had broken for me. I am their baby, and they couldn't do or say 
anything to make me feel better. I didn't want to feel better. I wanted to hurt 
because when somebody who matters

dies, you hurt. You hurt because you loved someone, and they're gone. 

I wanted my grief. I didn't want help.

My poor parents. They went home after a couple hours.

I went to both my general practitioner and my OB during the next two days.

“I’m so sorry this happened.”

“Unfortunately, it’s very common.”

“You know, this is why many couples wait until the second trimester to tell anyone.”

“There isn’t anything you could have done that would have caused or prevented it.”

A Facebook post I wrote about the loss brought messages of encouragement, 
flowers, texts, cards. Paul and I have a great support system. It is not lost on 
me how loved we are. However, each of those messages and gifts sent me 
spiraling into rage. I was shocked by how much anger I felt. Fiery, hot anger. 
I don't generally get angry, but I lived off my anger. It fueled me for days, and 
it felt so much better than weeping. 

Nobody meant me any harm, any pain, but still, I was furious.

“How are you doing?” friends and family would ask.

“I don’t know; my baby just died. How the hell do you THINK I’m doing?!”

The poor intern at my GP’s office assured me, “I understand.”

“Do you REALLY? Because you look TWELVE!”

It’s so difficult to put into words the depth of this grief. I’ve experienced 
loss before and since, but something about this made me feel 
hollow and guilty. This is quite literally what my body has been 
preparing itself for my entire life.

The emptiness of my womb and my arms is the deepest, sharpest, most constant ache.

Idiots. Alcoholics. Drug addicts. Selfish, narrow-minded sadists are able to carry children to

term. What did I do that hurt my baby? What is so wrong with my body that

I couldn’t carry a child? I’m surrounded by people getting pregnant and having babies. My

social media accounts are full of baby pictures. Four people in my department at work had

babies in the last year.

Why not me?

Some nights I spent lying in bed, weeping into her teddy bear and begging God to give me my baby back.

I pored over all my decisions for the weeks since I’d been pregnant.

Had I taken my vitamins everyday?

Did the few drinks I had before I found out kill my baby?

Was I too overweight?

Had I not drank enough water?

I went to my regular therapist. She told me that everything I felt was normal. She reassured me that nothing I did caused this. She encouraged me to get out of the house, to do

something everyday.

“If you sit in a

dark room with a

red ball and never leave, your whole

world becomes that red ball and that dark

room.

You stay there.

Grieving is healthy,

but don’t let it consume

you.”

I got alright-ish, eventually. Within two to three weeks, work got back to normal. I started doing things with friends again. I had read enough articles that made me feel like maybe it was a fluke. It could happen to anyone. It happens in 25 percent of pregnancies. Those numbers made me feel a little bit better.

Even though I had begun to heal, with those words:

“No evidence of pregnancy,”

I was changed.