Melissa's Story

I feel like when I was younger I didn’t really know whether or not I would want to be a mother, but the older I got, I realized that it’s really all I want. Just to be a mom.  I feel like people question you, even judge you if you’re a woman and you don’t have children. It’s not the norm. And I especially realized this because of everything that I went through to become a mother. There’s a stigma. And so that’s why the loss was so hard. Because my body is meant to do this. It’s supposed to do this. A woman’s body is built to carry a child and I couldn’t do it, and couldn’t understand why me.

In the end you really never know why someone doesn’t have children. You never know who’s been struggling for years with infertility, or who’s been pregnant five times but doesn’t ever have a baby to bring home with her. Some people just don’t want children. You just never know.

I’ll get really emotional and cry when I say this, but really the reason I truly wanted to be a mother is because I wanted to help my husband to be a father. And it was so painful to lose the baby because I just felt like I was supposed to be the one to give him a baby, and I couldn’t. In the back of my mind knew I wasn’t letting him down in the true sense of the world, but at the same time, I wasn’t able to give him the baby he wanted. And I felt so responsible. In the end, even though it’s no one’s fault, in the end it was my body the baby had died in.

I became pregnant the first month we used an ovulation detector kit. It was early in the morning and Glen was still in bed, but I ran up the stairs to wake him up and tell him. It was a truly happy moment and I’ll never forget how he smiled.

It was just before Christmas, and so we told my parents at their holiday party. It was going to be their first grandchild.

We had our first doctor’s appointment at six weeks, and that’s when we had bloodwork done and had our first ultrasound. They couldn’t see a heartbeat, but it was still early, and when we finally heard it two weeks later at our eight week appointment, we decided how we were going to tell Glen’s parents. They already had one grandchild, so we printed out a copy of our ultrasound photo and gave it to them asking if they had seen this new photo of their grand baby. Of course they thought we were talking about Glen’s nephew, and were so surprised when they saw the ultrasound! It was wonderful.

We started planning right away, deciding which room to use for the nursery and buying little baby things. Halloween is my favorite holiday and my mom had bought me a little halloween onesie when we told her the news. My grandma too was so excited and knit us a pair of little baby booties, and of course friends sent cards. We still hadn’t told many people outside of the family though because we were waiting for our 12 week ultrasound to make a more public announcement. In my head it was the magic number.

I could tell from the look on the doctor’s face that something was wrong. They started to ask me questions as they were taking the ultrasound pictures—had I had any cramping or bleeding. They had us wait in the doctor’s office to speak with him, and I started to cry.

You go into your appointment so hopeful. Everything has been wonderful up until that point. You haven’t had any cramps or bleeding, and you’re so excited to see your baby again. But then the doctor says those three words: there’s no heartbeat, and you just don’t think it’s real. You just don’t understand how it’s possible.

I think the hardest part for me was that my body didn’t do anything. For two whole weeks I was carrying this baby inside of me that wasn’t alive. And I just couldn’t understand why I didn’t have a sign that something was wrong? I felt so stupid, and I felt betrayed. Betrayed by my body because I didn’t have a “normal” miscarriage. I had a missed miscarriage. Medically it’s what happens when your body should miscarry a pregnancy but you don’t.

Because of this, we had to decide what to do next. Would I take medication to force my body to miscarry and do it at home? Would I have a D&C procedure to remove the baby? Or would I try to let my body catch up and attempt to miscarry without any type of intervention?

Because I hadn’t yet miscarried, the doctor suggested a D&C because if your body doesn’t miscarry fully, you can get sick. We were able to schedule one 48 hours later.

The worst thing, the thing I hated most was that all of the forms I had to sign for the D&C had the word “abortion” all over them. I’m pro choice. I believe that anyone who wants an abortion should be able to have one. But it was really crappy to have to sit there as a woman who didn’t want to have an abortion and have to sign all of those forms that had that word on the top of them. It was heart wrenching.

I didn’t really know what to expect, but at that point I just wanted it to be over. I didn’t want to do any of it at all. I wanted to still be 12 weeks pregnant, buying baby clothes and doing normal things. But instead I was in that room. Right before they gave me an injection for the procedure, I remember laying back and looking up at the ceiling. And there, hanging down from one of the ceiling tiles was a wind chime with an angel on it. It just felt so ironic.

I don’t remember being out, but I remember waking up with Glen there and just knowing it was done. The last part of my baby was gone. Even though I had known that the baby had died already, it was horrible waking up and knowing that I had nothing left. I hated that. Anything that I could have held onto was gone.

We had elected to have the baby genetically tested to see if there was anything wrong because it had been our first pregnancy, and we felt that it might be helpful moving forward. These tests would be able to tell us if there had been a chromosomal abnormality, and would even be able to let us know the baby’s sex. I thought it would help us to know what had happened, but the doctor called us the next week with the test results and told us that everything had been perfect. It had been a perfect baby girl. And it was so crushing to know that I had had a daughter and lost her. The fact that there was no reason for us to hold onto made it especially hard. I feel like it would have been easier if there was a cause.

We decided not to name her. She was just our baby girl, our daughter that we lost.

I felt a tremendous amount of responsibility because I was the one in charge of keeping her alive and safe. And I failed. I felt like I had failed at being a woman. And even though I had been so by the book… I didn’t have caffeine or anything, she still died. My mind went to every place imaginable after that loss, trying to find a reason. Did I lift something too heavy? Did I bump into something? There had been a day when I was driving where another car almost ran a stop sign and I was  scared they were going to hit me, and I wondered if I had scared myself too much. You find the craziest, dumbest reasons to blame yourself.

Making the whole experience even harder was the code of silence that seemed to surround the loss. But luckily, I found a grief group through a friend and I found that sharing with other women who knew what I was going through to be so healing. When you’re talking to someone else who has had a miscarriage you can be so candid. I could tell these women anything. Like how I wanted to scream when I see a pregnant teenager, or when you see someone making a choice you know isn’t healthy for their baby like smoking. Women who have experienced this loss can truly understand these feelings in a way that people who haven’t just can’t.

I remember that just after the loss, realizing that for so many people a baby is really only a baby when it’s on the outside of a woman’s body. I had family members ask me “aren’t you over it yet” just weeks afterwards, and thinking to myself, “No. And I’ll never be over it. My baby died.” And it’s true. I’ll always walk this earth without one of my babies. It’s really incredible the timeline that other people will try to put on your grief. If you think about it, it was my first pregnancy, my first baby that’s gone. How can someone look at me and tell me I’m not allowed to grieve?

When we got pregnant again just months later, I was so scared. We were so, so happy, but so worried. Pregnancy after a loss is an amazing thing, but it’s also just terrifying. Even after we heard a healthy heartbeat and had clean ultrasounds, it was terrifying. Because you can lose a baby at any time.

People used to tell me all the time that there must have been a reason why we lost our first baby, but it’s not true. I don’t think that there’s ever really a reason in that sense. But I do think that you can find a reason. For us, it’s our daughter Celia. Because it’s just a fact that if our first baby hadn’t died Celia wouldn’t be here. And I can’t imagine my life without her. There are no words to describe it. I remember the moment she was put into my arms and feeling that it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. She really is my rainbow after the storm.

I feel lucky every single day that I have been able to parent Celia. And I use that word intentionally because I don’t like to use the word “mother” or say that I’m glad I’m “finally a mother”. Because I was a mom the first time I was pregnant. I feel like anyone who has experienced a loss is still a mom, and is still a dad. They just don’t have the chance to parent their child on the outside.

Because I felt so alone at first, I really feel that it’s so important that women know they don’t have to suffer in silence. Miscarriage is so incredibly common—nearly one in four pregnancies are lost this way, and I find myself thinking about this statistic all the time. It’s like being in a club that no one wants to join. In fact, that’s why we tell Celia about her sister. I need her to know that she existed. Because if she ever has to go through this experience herself, I need her to know she can talk to me, and she doesn’t have to go through it alone or feel ashamed.