First, I wanted to apologize for not posting last week. Things
were crazy, and I couldn’t give the proper attention to my writing that I
needed to, especially on so sensitive a subject. The last couple of weeks, I’ve
been focusing on the complications of building a family. Before I introduce the
topic, I wanted to say a huge thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to
everyone that read my last post. Writing about infertility was such an eye-opening
experience for me, and I feel like talking to people and doing the research
truly brought home what a devastating situation it can be for those that are
currently struggling or have struggled to have a baby. Because of all of you,
my last blog got over 530 hits…more than almost all my other posts combined! I
am so grateful for everyone that took the time to read it, and I hope some of
you will continue on with me on this journey. This week, I’m tackling another
tough subject. Again, it’s an unspoken topic that is just now beginning to get
some recognition for the part it plays in our lives. This week, I’m discussing
miscarriage, stillborn, and newborn death.
Just like with infertility, miscarriage is rarely talked
about. It’s something most people shy away from talking about. Yet, just as
with infertility, chances are we know someone that has suffered this loss. I
say loss for lack of a better, more complete word. The truth is, miscarriage,
like infertility, is deeply personal. It’s a life altering, painful experience
that often gets ignored. However, if you’ve ever known someone dealing with
miscarriage or loss, you know that it should be discussed. Once again, I’ve
spoken with some brave ladies that were willing to share their stories with me,
and have allowed me to share those stories with all of you.
There are many misconceptions about miscarriage, and the
biggest is that the mother has done something to cause a lost pregnancy.
However, that’s simply not true. The rate of miscarriage isn’t even truly
known, because so many take place even before a woman knows she is pregnant. The
truth is, upwards of 50-75% of all pregnancies could terminate at some point
after fertilization, mostly due to genetic error. Most sources I looked at agree that somewhere
between 10-30 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, but that only
accounts for pregnancies lost after a woman discovers she is pregnant. That
means that the majority of pregnancies are lost before a woman is even
cognizant that she is pregnant, and may never know that a pregnancy terminated.
It is believed by some experts that half or more of fertilized eggs die before
implantation, or are miscarried. Most of these egg deaths and miscarriages are
due simply to faulty genetics. The fetus (or embryo, depending on how far into
the pregnancy a woman is) just simply doesn’t develop correctly, and therefore
can’t survive. A mother, whether she knows or not, did not CAUSE the
miscarriage.
That doesn’t mean that outside factors can’t affect a woman’s
chances of miscarrying, however. Things like uncontrolled diabetes, thyroid
disease, advanced maternal age, infections, hormonal issues, and uterine or
cervical problems can also cause or increase the chance that a woman will
miscarry. Of course, things like illicit drug use, alcohol, and smoking can
also cause miscarriage, as well as exposure to radiation, trauma and maternal
weight extremes (obese or anorexic, for instance). While it’s true some of these factors are
within a mother’s control, such as drug use, the majority are not. Yet,
somehow, there is still a stigma that remains attached to miscarriage. It is
thought that if a pregnancy is lost, a mother must have done something wrong.
It is even a common misconception still today that things like sex, exercise,
and working can cause miscarriage, but those are myths. Unless a job includes
chemicals or something else life threatening, it’s not going to affect a
pregnancy.
So, what exactly is a miscarriage, and how is it different
from a stillbirth? A miscarriage is a spontaneous loss of pregnancy, at any
point from conception to 20 weeks’ gestation, as stated by medicinenet.com A
stillbirth, on the other hand, is the death of a baby before or during birth. Regardless
of the timeline of the loss, however, it’s a traumatic event for the mother,
and one that effects not just her, but the entire family. Within women in their
childbearing years, the chance of miscarrying is between 10-25%. Even in
healthy women, the chance is between 15-20%. Stillbirths effect about 1% of
pregnancies, and while that may not sound like a lot, that’s about 24,000
babies a year. The numbers are sobering,
aren’t they? It’s a terrifying thought, knowing that even if you are in top
health, doing all the right things, that chances of losing a pregnancy are that
high. Yet, still, even with rates that significant, miscarriage and stillbirth
aren’t really talked about in our society. A quick Google search will bring up articles
and blogs about this same topic, with the same question: why don’t we talk
about it?
In short, I think it
comes down to a sense of shame. Women are told from the cradle almost that one
of our main purposes is to have children. It’s almost expected, and if we
deviate from that destiny, we are held to questions. That’s not to say that a
lot (or maybe even most) women don’t want children. However, that pressure and
that desire to have a baby quickly turns to shame whenever there’s a loss. Women
blame themselves for things that our out of their control, thinking that they must
have done something wrong that caused her body to terminate a pregnancy, or go
into labor early. The experience can feel like a failure at the most basic
level of being a woman.
A great article I found on the American Psychological
Association provided a lot of insight into the way miscarriage effects not just
women, but families as well. It speaks of the way that women heap guilt among themselves,
asking the question ‘what if” repeatedly, as if their actions somehow caused
their loss. While that’s fundamentally not true in most cases, this way of
coping by trying to reason out the why’s of the situation are harmful to the
psyche. This is especially true for mothers that may not have wanted the
pregnancy to begin with, or were unsure if they did. A whole other layer of
guilt is placed on their shoulders, as if their negative thoughts had somehow
caused the miscarriage.
Added to all this is that a woman’s grief may not even be
validated by her circle, especially if it’s an early loss, or even a failed IVF
cycle. When I was speaking to Y, one of my brave ladies that told me of her
story in my last blog, she explained to me her decision to undergo IVF herself,
and the devastating struggles she had along the way. She said, “We were successful into getting to the egg
retrieval phase. We retrieve 17 eggs, 13 fertilized and 5 made it to day 6 to
use one for implantation and freeze the rest. Six days of torture waiting to
see if the miracle of science can help you become a mom once again.
Implantation day was a success and we put back one embryo, now the two week
wait period starts, waiting to see if it worked, waiting to see if I’m
pregnant, taking every precaution to ensure I don’t mess it up. I started
bleeding two days before my official pregnancy test was supposed to be done...I
knew it was over, we were devastated once again. Two months went by and my
husband asked what we were doing with the 4 frozen embryos we had, our
potential children. I was numb and had refused to talk about it for weeks. I
was ashamed that I didn’t make it work, that somehow I screwed up somewhere.” Folks,
that is a heartbreaking statement, isn’t it? Yet, for so many women, this is
their struggle. If a pregnancy is lost, no matter how early, and these days we
can know almost as soon as it happens, women torture themselves with wanting to
know the reason why, or felling as though their body somehow failed.
Yet, more than failure, losing a pregnancy is a deeply
personal loss. What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that a
miscarriage is a death. Bonding begins
early in women, as her body changes. I don’t pretend to speak for all women, as
I know that we are all different, and hold different emotions and thoughts and
feelings about pregnancy. Speaking from my own pregnancy, I know that as soon
as I discovered I was pregnant, I was filled with emotions. I was over the moon
happy, scared, nervous, elated. From that very first day, I felt as though the
ever growing ball of cells in my core was the center of my universe. I already
loved her so much, even though I didn’t know it was a her yet. Still, the word “pregnant”
on the test meant that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, it was my child’s too.
It’s the start of a new way of thinking, and in my mind, I could see our new
lives unfurling before me. This isn’t by any means universal, but I think it
may ring true for others as well. To lose a baby, at whatever stage, is
devastation. It’s not only the loss of cells or a fetus. It’s a loss of a
forming person. It’s the loss of dreams, and a future. That loss is just as
real and just as substantial as losing a person at any other stage of life. Just
because breath hasn’t been drawn doesn’t mean that life wasn’t lost.
A lot of people may try to offset that awful loss with advice,
such as to not worry or that a woman will get pregnant again. That advice,
however well meaning, hurts. It completely discounts her loss, and says to her
that her grief is misplaced. Studies have been done showing that there is no
difference in grief whether a baby is lost at 22 weeks or 2. However, for
whatever reason, society tends to discount that loss the earlier it is, as if
losing a pregnancy the day after it’s discovered matters less than a fully
formed baby. To her, it matters. To her, it causes her anguish. It affects her
emotionally, mentally, and physically. The emotional scars of miscarriage don’t
just disappear overnight. In fact, studies have shown that women and their
families are affected by miscarriage for YEARS after it occurs. Having more
children doesn’t erase the loss that was experienced, either, and that option
shouldn’t be thrust upon a grieving couple as a way to cope with their grief or
loss.
Men also struggle with a lost pregnancy. They also suffer from
depression, anxiety and anger about the loss, but also contend with the
physical and emotional loss of their partner. Men struggle with how to support their
partner when a miscarriage or stillbirth happens, as they can’t fix what
happened or prevent her pain. If loss in women is understudied and recognized,
this same loss in men is even more unrecognized.
K,
a friend of mine that I spoke to about her loss, spoke about things that she
wished people knew about miscarriage and stillbirth. She said, “[Do] not to let
anyone tell you that you should be "over it" in a certain amount of
time. You never get over it.” We seem to have some idea as a culture that there
is a time limit on grief, and after a while, that we should stop feeling sad
and hurting. That simply isn’t the case, no matter who was lost, or however
long their life span. A loss is simply that: a loss. What was once there is no
longer, and it isn’t coming back. K shared her entire story about her son, who
she lost eleven years ago. At 36 weeks, she went into labor, and upon arrival
at the hospital, it was discovered her son had no heartbeat. She says, “the
people in the operating room didn't know that my baby was not going to come out
kicking and crying, which I think is terrible on the hospital's part, because I
had to answer the same questions any expectant mother would. "Is it a boy
or girl?" "I know you are so excited!" I remember telling the
anesthesiologist while fighting back tears that it was a boy. Coming out of surgery I was taken to a room
on the same floor as all the other mothers and their babies. My son was brought
to me all cleaned up and wrapped in a warm blanket. I was told to take my time.
I could see him as much as I wanted. He was perfect. I cried for two days
straight. I did have wonderful nurses that cried with me. The hardest part was
leaving the hospital empty handed. The nurse that pushed me out hugged my neck
and cried hard as I was. The evil thing that took my baby was placenta
abruption. Mine was a total abruption and it was silent. No symptoms until it
was too late. I was angry at myself for a while. Thinking maybe I should have
known something was wrong. I finally let that go but the pain never goes away.
I still about him and it was almost 11 years ago. Expect it to get better but
never to go away.” Even though it’s been
11 years since she lost her son, K’s pain still radiates in her words.
Personally, I remember when K went into the
hospital. I remember hearing about what happened, and feeling my heart
absolutely ache for her. I remember so clearly thinking, “How do I help her?
What do I say? What CAN I say?” Standing in the cemetery that day, witnessing
so many hearts being broken, looking at the ever so small coffin was an
experience I’ll never forget. It’s a pain that is unfathomable unless you watch
someone you care about going through it. That funeral was no less heartbreaking
than any other I’ve been too, and in some ways, it was even more so. For
mothers that suffer through stillbirth, they have a tangible proof or source for
their grief. For other mothers, those that miscarry, their grief isn’t
something that can be displayed. There are no funerals, or ceremonies where the
child is honored. In some cases, friends and family may not even know that
there was a loss, if a woman chooses not to share her pregnancy. These women suffer
in silence. Each experience is horrible in its own way, and every woman that
suffers these losses deserves to grieve however she has to. Her pain should be
respected.
Why this subject is still so taboo today, I don’t
really know. I think a lot of it may be fear. I think when something so tragic
happens, like with K and Y, we simply don’t know what to do or say. We can’t bring
back what was lost. What we can do is offer understanding. Offer time. Cook a
meal. Be the shoulder to cry on. By simply showing solidarity, and support, I feel
like that can help in the rough moments. Women should be allowed to share their
stories without fear of judgement, and men should as well. Even if a woman has
10 more children after a miscarriage or stillbirth, she’s never going to forget
the one she lost. She’ll always carry within her that memory, and all the hopes
and dreams she had for that baby. Men should be supported as well, because they
are suffering the loss off their child as well, and trying to support their
partner who is going through something traumatic. Maybe if women are able to
share their stories, suffer in the light instead of in silence, and have their
grief validated and understood, then miscarriage and stillbirth won’t be such a
taboo subject.
I hope that by sharing this information, and the
experiences of K and Y, we can all come a little closer to understanding even a
fraction of what they’ve gone through. Below, I’ve listed some of the sources I
used when researching this blog. Thank you for reading, and I hope that if you
liked this post you’ll check out some of my others.
