My Story
It’s so strange the details you remember from a miscarriage. And the things you forget. When I look back at those few weeks, the image that comes back again and again most vividly is that of a dusky deep blue sky dotted with butterflies. We had left home shortly after we learned that we had lost the baby—hoping that a change of scenery would help us process the last few weeks, but when we arrived at our final destination, the most activity I could muster was sitting on the deck in the late afternoon sunshine as I watched the butterflies go by.
When I was younger, I never really felt like a “baby person.” I didn’t really have an interest in holding them at family gatherings and couldn’t seem to muster the amazement and wonder I saw in other women when they went to baby showers or spoke of having children in the future. For me, it was always a question mark, and though I thought of possibly starting a family “someday,” it was always part of a more vague, nebulous future plan.
I even worried that I was missing some “mom” gene that seemed to manifest itself in my family members and friends, as they began to have babies of their own and I continued to make plans for cross country road trips, traveling with my husband and our two dogs and eating cold pizza for breakfast. I didn’t feel grown up enough to even consider starting a family, and since babies didn’t interest me at the time, I didn’t think about it much. There were moments, though, when I wondered if it would one day change for me, and I would regret not having tried for a family earlier in life. Though I didn’t know much about reproductive health (beyond the facts I’d picked up via the odd New Girl or Friends episode), I knew that it could be more complicated later in life, and I wondered if I should be approaching motherhood differently. I reasoned at the time that I would be able to forgive my younger self if, later in life, I had trouble having a baby . . . part of a “bloom where you’re planted” philosophy I hoped I would then be mature enough to adopt.
And then it happened. It was though a switch flipped one day, and I woke up with something missing. I knew I needed to be a mother.
My husband and I are both graduate students, so naturally we approached starting a family with the same earnest enthusiasm we devoted to every other task in our lives—with spreadsheets, apps, due-diligence doctor appointments, and lots and lots of reading. Nearly every inch of the apartment was dedicated to some sort of pregnancy-related item: from the stacks of books and magazines in the living room, to the pregnancy tests in the bathroom, to the prenatal vitamins and kale smoothie fixings in the kitchen.
Naturally, every time we had visitors of any kind, every one of these items was carefully concealed so that no one would guess that our latest project was trying to make a cute little baby of our own. By day, we read articles on fertility and the various trimesters, by night we tracked our sleep and dreamed of what it would be like as a family of three (or five if we included our beloved Aussies in the count).
The day we found out I was pregnant, we cried and jumped up and down in the kitchen doing a happy dance together. I had always thought I would come up with some cute, memorable way to share the news with Jesse, but in the end I lasted about two minutes after I took the test, and the moment he came home from his run, all sweaty and out of breath, I just blurted it out then and there. It felt like my heart would burst. Like everything was falling into place. I felt so happy, and so lucky. I just never imagined that it would end.
We had bad news from the very start.
During the first few weeks of pregnancy, your body produces the hormone hCG, which can be detected in your blood. The levels are supposed to double every 48 hours, but as the doctor explained to us, my levels weren’t rising quickly enough, and they were concerned that the pregnancy might not be viable. Doctors don’t know why it happens, but for various reasons, the body simply isn’t able to sustain a pregnancy, or an embryo will fail to grow as it should.
Our practice began to monitor me closely, repeating blood tests and transvaginal ultrasounds regularly. Days passed, and early pregnancy symptoms persisted, only now, they were accompanied by bleeding. I’m a wedding photographer, so for work, things quickly became very complicated. Not only was I experiencing morning sickness throughout the day, but I was advised not to lift heavy items and to be aware that the vertigo that can accompany early pregnancy might make me less stable on my feet. Jesse began accompanying me to weddings when possible to carry my gear, driving the car when I was too dizzy to manage on my own and ensuring that I had water and saltines (the only food I could keep down). One morning, when the blood test fell on a wedding day with travel, he drove me across town at 6:30 a.m. to the only clinic that offered early Saturday morning blood draws. Then we packed up the car and drove to the wedding. I cried the entire way there.
Miscarrying so early was an incredibly isolating experience. We hadn’t shared our pregnancy news with anyone and couldn’t bring ourselves to call parents and friends when everything was still so uncertain.
As difficult as those weeks were, there was one day we were able to celebrate together. During one of our last appointments, the tech noted that even though my hCG levels weren’t rising as quickly as they would like, it was certainly still possible that the pregnancy could continue normally and result in a healthy, happy baby. During the ultrasound she smiled and pointed at the screen, showing us where the baby was on the monitor, reassuring us all the while that every pregnancy is different and not to worry that things felt complicated now.
After we left the appointment, we went out and bought a cute little onesie to keep with the ultrasound picture at home.
We planned to tell our parents the next week, but we lost the baby just days later. Jesse called to tell them the news. Since everything had been so complicated the last few weeks, we’d been incredibly MIA when communicating with family members. So he went through the list, one by one, and explained that we had wanted to call earlier, and we had hoped to share better news, but that we were having a miscarriage.
My little sister lives in Seattle, and while I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone on the phone, Jesse was able to relay the message to her. Four days later there was a knock at the door. My sister and her husband had driven across the country so that they could be with us while we grieved.
I remember what surprised me most about miscarrying was the pain. Beyond the persistent nausea and continuing blood loss in the weeks that followed, there were days when the pain was so crippling I couldn’t walk. I spent hours on the couch, exhausted from crying as the floods of hormones that had sustained a pregnancy for seven weeks slowly left my system. I was also surprised at how long it took to lose a baby. The days turned into weeks and I still hadn’t stopped bleeding.
One night, when the pain began to intensify and I began to bleed even more heavily, we decided to check in with the on-call doctor that was available through our OB. As we spoke on the phone, he told me, “Oh! It sounds like you’re just moving on to your next cycle.” When he asked how long I had been bleeding, he was surprised that my practice hadn’t given me anything to expedite the process. It was horrible.
Knowing that my body was returning to normal meant that the pregnancy really was over.
One night I dreamt that I was boarding a bus with the nagging feeling that I had missing something. I was surrounded by people, in the dream, who started asking, “Where’s your baby? What have you done with it?” I could only reply, “It’s gone, and I don’t know where it is!” They made me leave the bus and left me by the side of the road. I woke with tears streaming down my face.
Friends visited as they heard through the grapevine about our loss. They brought lasagnas and quick breads, flowers and cards. Some stayed to chat, others sent a brief text. Many said nothing at all. Our dear friend Shannon, who had herself experienced multiple losses and whose story is shared in this collection, sent a care package full of bath soaks and reading materials. Hannah, who was the inspiration for this project, brought flowers and eggplant parm with her husband, Mike, and sat with us as we grieved.
Months have passed since the day we lost the baby. Friends and family encourage us to remain hopeful with confident refrains of, “You’re still so young!” and “You just know things will turn out in the end!” Well-meaning but oblivious strangers inquire at parties, “So! When are you having children?”
And we do try to remain hopeful. Though it gets harder with each failed cycle, every month brings fresh possibilities and renewed hope. But even with the best intentions to stay positive, doubt and fear creep in from time to time. It feels as though time is slipping away.
As we inch closer to the one year deadline our OB outlined for us when we first started seeing her (statistically, 90% of couples are able to conceive a healthy child within one year of trying), with one failed pregnancy and months of failed attempts following, it becomes harder and harder to keep faith.
I will always refer to it as our baby. Even though it might feel counter to every fiber of my Women’s March-supporting, pro-choice, liberal soul, I’ll never forget that first moment I learned I was pregnant. To a friend of mine who commented, “Well, it wasn’t really a baby yet,” I wish I could go back in time and ask her what she thought I was pregnant with. But I’m conflict-averse at the best of times, and in my haze of grief I think I just nodded and changed the subject.
While I didn’t find talking as helpful as I had hoped, I have found tremendous comfort in reading books and threads in online communities these last few months. I devour memoirs written by women who had experienced loss, and who shared how they grieved. I spend hours poring over posts written in message boards and shared on Instagram accounts. Hearing other women’s stories helps me feel less alone and seeing the details of their experiences so explicitly shared helps me make sense of my new life as I begin to pick up the pieces.
I still count the days until April 14th. It’s the date that I marked on my calendar the moment we had good news. The date we would have welcomed our baby home. And though all of the little baby things (from the booties we bought at a farmer’s market on our honeymoon, to the ultrasound photo, to the onesie we bought together) are in a wicker picnic basket from our wedding day, tucked deep in our bedroom closet, I don’t think I’m ready to let go just yet.
