The Truth About Miscarriage*

***This contains mildly graphic (but mostly just frank) descriptions of miscarriage. You have been warned. ***

I am going to say something that might make a lot of you uncomfortable. I recently miscarried. My second miscarriage in the last year. And I am talking about it because it seems like people generally feel very uncomfortable discussing this topic, and women often feel kind of ashamed to mention it, probably because it so obviously makes people uncomfortable. But I am going to repeat what the doctors told me: there is nothing that can be done to prevent it. It has nothing to do with anything you did or didn’t do. These things just happen—it’s part of the biological process. You wouldn’t want to keep an unviable fetus in your belly anyway.

The point being, miscarriage is something that is natural. It happens when for whatever reason, the cells that make up the beginning of what could be a baby are genetically imperfect, or mismatched, deformed, whatever. And it just doesn’t work out. So your body pulls the plug and starts over from scratch. Which, really, is pretty considerate of your body. The problem is that it hurts like hell—both physically and emotionally.

I think that people often don’t know how to respond when miscarriage gets mentioned, because it is just one of those tragic things that really has no correct response. I mean, what do you say? But also, I think people who haven’t had a miscarriage just kind of don’t understand exactly what it means (which is not their fault, and other than what I talk about here, I hope they remain ignorant of this forever—although I will probably resent them a little for having it so easy. But then I’ll feel guilty for that, because honestly, who wishes a miscarriage on someone? So I’ll smother the resentment and move on.).

SO. What I want to do is kind of open a dialogue about miscarriage. Because it happens, like, alot. And yet every woman I know who has had one thought she was the only one. Ladies, WE ARE NOT ALONE!

So here’s the deal:

Miscarriage hurts. A lot. And you know it’s coming. You start to see little bits of blood on your panties, and it’s worrying, but you think, well, implantation bleeding is a thing or  sometimes women spot their whole pregnancy and are fine or well, I just ran/had sex/did heavy lifting—sometimes that can cause minor bleeding. But as the flow gets heavier you just know something isn’t right.

And then one day you leave work a little early because you are cramping and nauseated, and you go home, and you lie on the couch, writhing in pain but afraid to take any medication in case there’s still a chance you could have a baby, and eventually you throw up so much and so hard that it just forces everything out of you. This will be humiliating and painful. Imagine, if you will, someone wearing a pair of spiked gloves grabbing your uterus and wringing it out like a sponge. (If you are male, you might imagine someone doing this to a comparably sensitive part of your body.) That is what miscarriage feels like. And because you are lying on the couch writhing in pain and dry heaving because there’s nothing left to throw up, blood will get everywhere. It will explode out of your body like a campy 80s slasher movie, messing up the couch, ruining your pajama pants, and sending you into hysterics that your husband does not know what to do about. And then, with a little help, you will be sitting on the toilet, still in pain, still crying, shaking with the exhaustion of the just-threw-up-so-hard-I-literally-hemorrhaged and staring down at a giant blood clot that would have eventually become a baby.

And then you know it’s over. And you enter into the worst part about miscarriage (because the first part wasn’t bad enough). The insult added to your injury.

You will go to the ER. They will give you fluids and draw your blood and do an ultrasound of your now empty uterus. They will confer, and then a doctor will come into the room and will tell you what you already know. And even he will have that look on his face that says, “I just don’t know how to approach this without being awkward.” And they will prescribe you medicine and tell you not to put anything in your vagina for a while and to avoid strenuous activity. And you will go to Walgreens with a hospital bracelet on your arm and wait for an hour to get these prescriptions filled, while still bleeding copiously onto a maxi pad. And it will hurt.

Then you will wake up the next morning and it will still hurt. And you will have to call your regular doctor and tell them, and schedule a follow-up appointment to make sure everything came out. And you will have to call and cancel your next ultrasound that was supposed to happen in just a few days. And everyone will sound very sympathetic and that will hurt too.

And then you will get bills. A ton of bills. Because of the expensive medication and all the doctor and ER visits, miscarriage is very pricey. I have spent about $2,000 in the last year to not have a baby. And every time a bill comes in the mail you will be reminded of what happened, and it will be like a little punch to the gut. But you will remind yourself that it will get better, and that you just have to take it day by day, and that it’s good it happened so early, because there are women who have to actually give birth to their dead babies, and that is SO MUCH WORSE than what you are going through. So you write the check on move on for the day.

You will be angry, and you will throw away the pajama pants you were wearing that night because they failed you, and are now unlucky. And you will eat a rare steak and clean the house vigorously and drink double espressos, because there’s no reason not to anymore. That will make you sad, but in a defiant way, and most of the time, that’s something you can live with. But your heart will break a little again when your husband watches you do these things and you know he doesn’t say anything because he knows exactly why you’re doing it and he feels your pain.

You start to think that you are getting along fine, that you have accepted that this has happened and that you need to move on with your life, and then two people on House Hunters will announce they are pregnant at the end of the show and suddenly you are sobbing into the glass of wine you are drinking because you can.  Because despite no longer being pregnant, you still have traces of pregnancy hormone in you, making you wildly emotional. It’s awesome.

And then, after it has taken 3-5 months for your menstrual cycle to get back on track, then you can start trying again. And hopefully, within a few months of trying, about half a year after the last miscarriage, when you have finally forgotten a little bit about what it was like, you will again pee on a stick and have it tell you that you are pregnant. And hopefully this time, you’ll stay that way.

So that’s probably why people don’t like to talk about it. But it’s there, it happens, and in my opinion, we have to deal with it, even though it’s sad. So here it is. Thanks for hanging in there.

*This was the truth for me, anyway. I know that my experience is my own. So please, if you feel comfortable, share your own thoughts and experience. This is a safe space.