The miscarriage conversation is meant to continue…
A couple of weeks after I posted the blog about the power of miscarriages to enlarge our capacity for grieving, comes the news of Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan’s pregnancy.
The lovely image of the couple celebrating their joyous news after three pregnancy losses, streams encouragement to all who endured similar heartbreak.
As I said in that last blog, miscarriages as all life’s challenges, come with a particular opportunity for healing.
The question we humans are always, always called to ask is: what shall we do with our losses? How do we channel the grief into a force for good in our own lives and the human clan?
Which road will they take?
Will this highly visible couple be another addition to the long line of celebrities who feed the beast of the infertility industrial complex? Will they too appear as keynotes on the next all-star infertility advocacy event. Will they, as so many other high profile couples before them, cement the image of infertility as the devastating disease that requires aggressive, expensive cures?
Or will Mark and Priscilla contribute to an enlarged view of miscarriages, as perhaps the most humanizing of all fertility challenges? After all a miscarriage calls on us to mourn the children we loved and lost; the children we feel should be in our arms right now.
Healing our tribe
Can we turn such loss into a life-force that will protect our bodies and hearts and the air and the earth and all children? A force that will shield the generations of born and unborn from the destructive trajectory of the $10 billion and rising baby making machine?
Whether or not we acknowledge it, if we are alive today, we are, all of us, survivors. Survivors of myriad losses and injustices within our familial lines. We are also called to claim our place as repairers.
Mark’s Jewish, and Priscilla’s Chinese tribe (I understand her father is an Asian refugee) and every other tribe inhabiting this glorious earth home is in desperate need of repairers.
In his poignant announcement of the pregnancy on his facebook page, Mark writes: “Now we’ll focus on making the world a better place for our child and the next generation.”
Living our way into questions and answers
That promise makes me cautiously optimistic.
There are causes of miscarriages that show up on our pregnancy loss blood panel, and we’re told they will be cured by Femara or Letrozol or Lovenox or the next new drug on the shelf. And there are causes that will never be discerned by double blind studies. Still, we CAN live our way into a full term pregnancy without fully understanding what it is that made it possible. Then some day, five, ten years from now we might even live our way into meaningful answers.
For me, the strength to keep living our way into answers comes from the question I keep asking myself and everyone else who has crossed my path in these last two decades of rabble rousing: what shall we do with our grief and with our joy?
Dear confidentbeliever, BurrerflyFaith,and RightHereRightNow,
(This is Robin)
Thank you so much for being here.
confident believer – I loved your response about Thank you for caring for me when I need an extra hand. I could be wrong but that sounded visionary to me.
ButterflyFaith – The grief that you are feeling sounds absolutely normal to me for this stage of the game. You are going through your mom’s things. How could you not be grieving? When I was grieving so badly with my mom – I looked at the family I have with my husband and I said to myself – this is my family and they need me to be present in their world . It does get better -not anything you can do to bring your mother back, unfortunately.
RightHereRightNow – wonderful questions about joy.
My husband told me recently he might be out of a job in 2 months. He’s wonderful at what he does – they just have to get the outside contracts and right now that’s a bit sparse. Hopefully that will improve soon so he can keep his job. I have been out of the workforce for quite a while some of which would relate to the needs of my daughter. Aside from the big learning curve, one challenge I see is finding someone to supervise my daughter while my daughter’s schedule might be different from mine (my looking for work would be on hold for at least 6 months to see how my husband does). My daughter is too old for day care and because of emotional difficulties is not able to be home alone at this time – hopefully someday at least some independence? So that was a big question for me. A wonderful thing happened. I had the question in my mind before going to bed -really wanting an answer. Fairly early this morning an email came from the special ed people at school. That sparked me to look up on the internet about what resources might be available. I found at least one good website with what looked like good resources. That is a happy thankful feeling and I am so grateful to feel a little more at peace.
I also came across something in my searches that I thought could relate here. A woman who probably ended up with a Down’s syndrome child?? was likening this experience to planning a whole trip to Italy and then getting off the plane to discover she was in Holland and she would never be able to be in Italy. She said she could spend her whole life hating Holland or start to realize there are windmills and pretty tulips there. (Her dream of a “normal” child represented by the plans for Italy – giving birth to a special needs child like getting off the plane in Holland.
I have been doing Riding the Current of Creation Body Truth and the ovary imagery from the teleconference.
Blessings to all.
I think it is amazing that Mr. Zuckerberg shared his grief and pain with the facebook community. It is so nice to know that all kinds are affected by miscarriage. And while their pregnancy gives me hope as someone who also has had 3 miscarriages, I wish people would be willing to talk about miscarriage while they are having them. This is a hard request I know. It is one I struggle with myself.
It is hard to talk about because the response you get from those who hear it can be so bad. No one knows what to say and most one to fix it and gloss over it and make it better. When friends ask about kids, I now tell them, no kids, I have had 3 miscarriages. When they say I am so sorry. I used to say “its ok” with a subtext of “dont worry about me, I will be fine, I hope you feel comfortable with the grief I just burdened on you” and I am learning to say “thank you” with a new subtext “thank you for caring for me when I need an extra hand”. Miscarriage and my three babies are teaching me to let other people care for me and for me to allow that, but also to care for myself.
Thanks Julia, for all your support, hope and devotion to my journey.
confidentbeleiver,
What a beautiful shift in your perspective regarding the ‘do you have kids’ question. I found it very healing to read what you wrote; I hope it is as healing for you also. :)
Take care, Sweet Mama
(Sorry in advance….Long post. I tried posting this on the other grief blog, but it doesn’t seem to be posting properly. So if you read this multiple times, forgive me. And it’s me, FindingFaith21. I changed my name.)
Sweet Julia, how I love you! This blog could not have been more timely for me in my journey. Indeed–what do I do with all of this grief, and where is my joy? Does it get swallowed up by the grief?
( BTW, Mamas, how I have missed you! To be honest, I’ve been staying away lately because I feel ridiculously toxic. I feared writing anything on the blog or forum because I felt radioactive, as if my own shit story would poison the waters for all of you. But I’m instead swimming in my own pool of nuclear waste and not going anywhere but down, so it’s time to throw up the hand and grab a lifeline. Hence, you all.)
Ah, grief. I believe that without grief, I would not be. I feel woven with, nourished by, constructed of grief. And not for the better. My life has not been easy from the start. I withstood things in my youth that were pretty horrific. And because of that, I felt that the universe owed me. I should have smooth sailing as an adult and get EVERY damn thing I ever wanted, right? Yeah, I know. Not exactly proper logic. But even so, I still believe I’ve been dealt too many blows the past 8 years. I’m feeling cursed, and I don’t like it. I feel like a whiney girl on the playground bitching about “why don’t you pick ME for the team? I want to play! That’s not faaaaaiiiiiirrrrr!”
Yet I really do have one hell of a track record lately: Going through postpartum depression with my much-wanted first child was wrenching, but I overcame. Then, not a few months after I healed, my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died four months later. My mom was perfectly healthy, but she died that day too. She was never the same. My sister and I were unable to fully get past the grief of losing my dad because my mom was a walking, talking embodiment of grief. It was awful to see her die more and more each year, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t fix it.
Then, the miscarriage. That almost destroyed me over and over and over again, for years. It still is in some way eating away at me in the deepest core of my soul. I was NOT the girl who miscarried. Nope. I was the girl who took a year or more to get pregnant, then I had beautiful pregnancies and long, skinny, healthy babies. That was MY deal. A vast struggle to conceive and then the reward of a baby. NOT this. So when I went in for my ultrasound at nearly 9 weeks and the tech told me there was no heartbeat (and then left me half naked on the exam table as she tossed me a wet wipe and RAN out of the room. But that’s another story), I died. My baby died, my dreams died, and my soul died. I understood my mom’s grief over my dad a bit more then. Because I have never recovered from losing that baby. I walk around with that grief, feeling worse every year. I blame it on the fact I haven’t gotten pregnant since, just older. But I don’t know. I have felt gray and hollow these past two years. I fluctuate between utter panic and numbness every month. I disregard every positive thing (regular cycles, strong ovulation, etc.) and instead see only my age, any variation of normal in that cycle, every ache/pain/twinge (which I label as some harbinger of cancer or disease or MENOPAUSE, my own kryptonite).
And now, my mom is gone. First my dad, then my baby, now my mom. My mom? How the hell did that happen? I mean, I felt that I lost her in 2008, but I never thought I would PHYSICALLY lose her so soon. And to lose her for such a rare and strange illness (not cancer. That was gone) makes the grief even more bitter. I feel unhinged and untethered, and I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing. I eat, breathe, live grief in all of its messed-up forms. I don’t know if this is the coup de grace and now I can start to dig out of my grief pit, or if it’s just a new way of living for me–life in grief. Like learning to function again after losing a limb. I do know I’m so very tired of the sadness. I am so tired of surviving instead of thriving. I am so tired of being painfully grateful for the blessings I have and yet still feeling grief. And I am SO tired of wanting something so much and not getting it. I really wanted to get pregnant with my children, but it was after each one that I wanted the next one even more. I realized how utterly amazing they were, and how much I loved being a mom. So by the time I was trying for #3, I was crazy with desire for more children. And after losing #3? You can imagine where I am. What am I saying? You all have BEEN with me throughout this, so you know where I am. Crazy, panicked, depressed, manic, driven. Grieving.
This journey to have my last baby has really opened me up to see the orphans who live in me. But it also showed me that I basically live in THEIR reality. I am orphan behavior and beliefs. They run my show. It’s a friggin’ coup in my world, with the orphans overthrowing my power and storming the castle. This journey has helped me see that. I see orphan behavior in others. But I fail to stop here. I instead JOIN the orphans as they riot and burn and loot. I buy into their stories. I get hypnotized by their crappy snake-oil sales pitches. I don’t know if grief is an orphan or not. Maybe how I react to grief brings out all of these different orphans. That’s an idea. So how do I get out of this? I know the tools, and yet I guess I don’t believe they will work for me? I’m not sure. I just need a step-by-step plan on how to change course and get out of this whirlpool of grief and orphan behavior.
On the last call, I realized I need so much more sleep than I am giving myself. And how have I been doing? Shitty. I have not been to bed before 12 all week. I don’t know why. There’s always something to do, or watch, or research. I just hate the idea of going to sleep and then waking up and having to deal with things I don’t want to deal with the next day (my mom’s house, all of her clutter, the business of wrapping up someone’s life, my own real-life business of writing articles, paying bills with Monopoly money because death is expensive especially when you aren’t working as much as you should to make more money). If I watch Netflix until 1:30, I’m not playing footsy with my grief. I’m avoiding it, but I get a break. It’s not healthy, but I keep doing it.
And I don’t think I’m the only one feeling my grief. This came up during last week’s call. Even though my husband wants another biological baby (and yet he’s fine if we don’t have one, too, or if we adopt), I think he is secretly terrified. Because if I do get pregnant and lose the baby again, or if we keep failing and I keep falling down the abyss, he fears that I believe I can’t handle any more grief in this life right now, and that I will implode. He won’t admit this, but he also didn’t vehemently deny it when I brought it up. Hmm.
So. There I am. Warts and all, wrapped up in a big itchy cloak of grief. So the question is, what do I do now? And where is my joy?
I do feel it, every single time I look at my kids or my husband.
But grief is so big and so dark, it clouds out those moments and makes me afraid of losing them, too, or makes me mourn the children I can’t seem to have anymore. A big part of me really wants to walk away. Just stop trying for another child because I am opening that door for more grief. But yet I keep doing my imagery, reading the books, writing my dreams down, eating so green I feel like I’m going to sprout roots. Why do all this if I don’t think it’s going to work? There must be some hope still left in me, even though I feel so toxic no sweet embryo could grow in my nuclear winter womb.
Now I must decide what to do with this grief, and how to not let it eat me up. But instead, how to let this grief turn me into someone extraordinarily amazing. Indeed—HOW? And then how do I not let my joy evaporate under this heat lamp of grief?
Grief and joy. Opposite are complimentary; without one, we could not know the other.
My biggest problem with grief is managing to stay with it, to sit with it, to feel it fully, so that I can eventually move through it to the other side. It’s very tempting for me to allow grief to transform into numbness. As I write this, I’m wondering if this numbness is due to shame.
Body truth and imagery helps a lot with the grief. The FH OVUM tools assist me in tapping into and feeling the grief, to see how it’s affecting me and how to heal.
When it comes to joy, one would think it would be, should be, so easy and natural to simply enjoy it. I find I still have to force myself to see the joy in my life, the abundance that I have. Why do I have to make a conscious effort to feel and live my joy? Am I worried about what other people will think? Am I dimming my light because their’s isn’t as bright and I don’t want to overshadow them?
This is a very though-provoking post Julia. Thank you.
Wonderful Fertile Mamas,
Blessings to you all (This is Robin)
I had a miscarriage a number of years ago. I had a DNC because they told me then I could know genetic information. I cried all the way into surgery. I was having a meeting at my house that night. I don’t believe I really had much support from anyone except a friend who came to the meeting and said “Why are you having this meeting tonight”. He got it. As far as my dad was concerned, you just hit the deck running. My mother in law said sometimes miscarriages are a good thing or something like that. It felt very lonely, very sad. And then came the ‘What did I do wrong phase and the guilt.
What do I do with this grief? At the time, I didn’t know I was supposed to do anything with it. The world just seemed to be full of pregnant women going full term for me. All I know is that I have lived past that time and the original sting is not so bad and I have been able to laugh since. That is what I am trying to learn from Fertile Heart – what do we do with our grief. I am not an expert in that, but maybe as others have said, it is a way to feel compassion for others’ losses.
I have been doing some of the Current of Creation Body Truth and the wonderful ovary imagery from the teleconference – so grateful for that!
Mother2Be – Good taking the opportunity to know about yourself.
Heather – Wonderful to hear from you!
Pineapple – That makes sense not to live for yesterday and tomorrow.
Jennifer – A good cry in the forest.
gutsymamma – Yay for feeling emotion.
Warrior beagle – I love your husband’s wonderful imagery and your 3 things!
MiraculousLife – Wonderful for allowing yourself to grieve . Love the singing!
Openhearted – That is wonderful you are able to experience joy despite grief.
Sofi – I am so sorry your miscarriage was so sad and that you weren’t able to get support from those who may have helped you to most.
Blessings
What shall I do with my grief? Currently I think I am avoiding it like the plague. Conveniently enough, recently selling my house/moving and taking a vacation out of the country helped me bury it deep inside where no one can see it – where I can’t feel it. The scattered times the grief begins to bubble I just talk myself out of it. I have not experienced the grief of miscarriage, but I have experienced the grief of negative pregnancy tests and failed relationships. I hurt. Deep. I don’t know what to do with that grief except what I’m really good at.. keeping it protected. This is something I need to explore so I may open myself up to more joy.
What shall I do with my joy? I find this question quite interesting as I was just taking some time to exercise in the pool early tonight and I was reflecting on the month of July which was to be a month of celebration. It was my birthday month, finally sold my house and went to Aruba. I should have been oozing joy out of every orifice of my body. While I was happy and enjoyed these things, I didn’t celebrate them. I was so consumed with the move and how it really came down to the wire that it even happened that I didn’t specifically do anything to express that joy. I planned on a celebratory dinner when I was in Aruba with friends. It never happened. So apparently, I am burying both grief and joy at the moment. Two emotions that desperately need space and attention.
What shall we do with our grief and with our joy? Whoa, this one really hits home. There is so much of both grief and joy in this process. The grief of having fertility challenges and the joy of opening up to explore our deepest selves through the ovum practice. The grief of a miscarriage and the joy of knowing a pregnancy is possible. The grief of losing a son and the joy of having had even a few weeks with him. The experience has been a roller coaster with enormous highs and lows. I am trying to dig in and absorb all the adventure offers. Take the opportunity to learn who I am, my capacity to long for another child and what I have to offer our babies. What shall we do with our grief and with our joy? I say celebrate it. The good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful! It makes us who we are and prepares us to be the mother our children are walking toward. I don’t mean to say that celebrating grief is easy or fun but it has a lot of teaching and healing to offer. So far, the work has been worth it. Each time we are broken open something better follows.
I saw the facebook post about Mark and Priscilla and it brought me to tears. I appreciated their ” coming out” about their losses but immediately I thought I wonder if people will be understanding or cluck their tongues and simple make statements we have all heard before in some fashion. “It wasn’t meant to be… it’s nature’s way…it wasn’t really a baby yet…when God closes a door…” The grief of a loss takes you to your knees. It is mind numbing and devastating. And the personal sense of guilt/loss/longing/ etc. can be like a knife to your heart.
When I had my miscarriage I remember that feeling of being underwater. Everything was muffled, my sense were dulled and I felt pulled under and trapped. Opening myself up to the grief through my work with FH allowed me to heal that emotional loss. With my grief, I began to explore and heal.
With my joy I opened myself up to opportunities and self reflection. I grew as a person and allowed myself to open up to new experiences.
What shall I do with my grief and with my joy? What shall I do with my grief and with my joy? What shall I do with my grief and with my joy?
I need to repeat this over. I don’t know if I can answer this. I think I can say I find it easy, too easy, to take the joy for granted and then I can miss it. The grief I see as something I need to get over. I’m missing the point here. If I take a moment, really take a long slow breath, then I get it. Why do I find it so hard to keep hold of the point – my practice has to be the key. I need to keep sitting, working, breathing. That in itself could easily become frustrating for me because I’d be lying if I didn’t say I expect results. I keep seeing that clock ticking but I can’t control this anymore now than I could last year, the year before that or the one before that even. I have definitely learnt that bit but really living that awareness I find so very hard.
I shall keep making the effort and keep “Elbows Forward” because I have desire and the candle is lit. I’m listening to myself again now and that feels right. I have to sit back, take one step at a time and be grateful. There are things I feel I need to do – I list of sorts but I am not racing to achieve. Racing doesn’t work for me anymore.
“What shall I do with my grief and with my joy” – I shall learn to live moment to moment because for the last 43 years of my life I’ve lived for yesterday and tomorrow. Planning, calculating, dreaming, wondering ‘what if’ – and that doesn’t feel very much like living. I think I have spent so much energy on living that past and the future I’ve forgotten to live ‘in the moment’. I’ve decided that’s the only real living I’ll ever have so I want to live there. I want to see and feel the joy and I think I’ll probably need to shake hands with grief to do be open to seeing.
Oh, all you deep feeling, beautiful women. You are such an inspiration to me. Thank you for what you share.
For so long my grief, from all the different traumas and difficulties, was this thick layer I could feel but not penetrate. I thought I would get lost in it, sink under and never emerge. My miscarriage was huge opener and now I feel like I am always grieving a little; it lives alongside joy and wonder, frustration and compassion in this mix that is my loaf.
I have spent the last month helping my mother move out of our family home – 37 years of memories, 2 siblings born there, countless cups of tea, so many tears (and some laughter). I knew there was grief building up and yesterday, in the middle of a 4 hour hike, I sat down in the forest and cried. I continually remind myself that grief opens me to new possibilities.
I have been so closed off in the past to what my grief and sometimes my joy have to say. I believe I know need to listen to them. both of them – my grief and my joy. I do feel past losses have opened my heart and I definitely have a greater capacity for compassion now. I have learned though on this journey that no matter how difficult the emotion is. It is so much better to feel it and express it in my imagery and work it out in my body truth! Then ask for help when I cant figure it out myself.
I’ve posted before about my multiple miscarriages and the associated pain, grief and embarrassment. Conceive, get excited (in a tempered way), and then have it all fall apart again (at various points between 5 and 9 1/2 weeks) c
And about all of the tests I’ve had done and ensuing experimental treatments geared at my perceived immune issues. But what’s funny is that it seemed as the more and more of these things we tried, not only did they not help, it seems that I stopped even conceiving the last 2 times.
I’m tired. Of all of this. And have really doubted all along whether there is anything at all wrong with me. And three things have happened lately that I am choosing as my fertility medicine.
1) I wrote the following on three pieces of paper and taped them to my kitchen table. I believe. I can do this. There is NOTHING wrong with me. And I have one of my friends text me every morning and tell me there is nothing wrong with me.
2) I have had moments where I have felt my longing. But I realized how powerful it was to have my usually stoic husband express his. He told me the other day that he wants to have a little person that is half him and half me. So that when he/she drips and makes a mess all over the kitchen like I do, he can tell the little person he/she is just like their mother. I can’t tell you how powerful that was. I could feel his desire to have this child when he said that.
3) My husband came up with an imagery for me. To treat the fact that these babies haven’t seemed to want to stay in my uterus. It involves a big white fluffy hotel like bed. And tucking little embryos tightly and securely into it, inside my uterus. So they are snug and happy and will want to stay there for 9 months.
So no more IVIG, no more prednisone, no more lovenox this time. Just these three things. And my desire for a healthy, normal, uneventful pregnancy. And we will see where we go.
Dear WB & OH
I can definitely relate to “something is wrong with me” orphan for sure. Even though I keep saying I support myself, i feel its not coming from bottom of my heart, i still don’t have 100% faith that I can get pregnant by myself. Well what I learnt from this journey and that stands out loud and clear is “Humans desire something and get so damn easily carried away from their desire with all illogical thinking and they put heart and soul in believing what is not possible instead of believing what could be possible”.
I keep thinking of all our brave mamas who got pregnant in these 3 yrs. I remind myself all the conversations that we had together in the circles, none of them achieved the state of nirvana but perhaps they were open to all the emotions, which made a difference. This makes me feel better, as I have this habit of checking off things and judging how am i doing per my list :)
To answer JUlia’s question:
What shall I do with my grief? Well I was washed with grief couple of months back and I just allowed myself to grieve. I was so down for 3 days, just didn’t speak a word with my husband and at the end he started crying seeing my grief and we both ended up crying badly. But then it was good. I told him, don’t worry abt me, I will be fine, but let me just grieve and open myself up for the tears. It really lightens the burden and opens up new avenues.
And what shall I do with my joy? There are many moments again in the past couple of months where I could see my faith really getting stronger, my ability to let go off things. Man it feels so much lighter and better. I feel really blessed and joyous. I know life is fully ambiguous and might not go as I plan it, so then why plan it….LOL…….just trying to go with the flow.
One more thing that I really picked up this year in particular is SINGING. I have learnt music from my childhood and after a long break, I have restarted learning music. I am spending so many hours a week practicing music and its a HUGE shift. When I do that I don’t remember anything else in the world. I am taken into a different world. Its really adding a lot of peace and making me really happy.
The one thing that resonated most from your post Mh…..
…perhaps they were open to all the emotions, which made a difference….
Powerful concept. I am choosing to focus on this and let it sink into my brain a little. Thank you for that.
This blog and couple hit close to home for this girl. I have contemplated this question since last week after reading your previous blog. I can openly share my grief of my miscarriages with others 3 years post first miscarriage. While discussing these I know each loss has truly opened up a better holy human loaf within me one which is more kind, loving, and caring then I could ever have imagined. Yes I still have those that sucks poor me orphan days, but honestly the other day I watched my daughter play outside with that sense of pure innocence and realized that joy is always right in front of me it just depends on if I am viewing the world from my orphan lens or my v lens.
Also I honestly tell people that as much as I wish my babies could be here I am thankful for the time I did have. My last loss was hard but looking back now I am so happy I experienced real joy mixed in with my fear that was present because it had been a long time since I was truly opening up to a pregnancy.
One more thing, this last loss actually helped push me towards working out more. I used my grief to push me to stat running and finished my first 5k last weekend. I really just wanted to feel like I could see something through and I had to depend only on myself. There may have been a control orphan to but hey I have not been this fit in 12 years!
Wow, Openhearted! Congratulations on running a 5K! That’s awesome. I think that you taking up running is an excellent visionary-rooted action.
Thank you for sharing; I enjoyed reading everything you wrote. I especially liked the reminder about viewing the world through the v lens.
Hi Julia, thanks for this blog and its reminder that fertility challenges and miscarriages can happen to anyone, and that the resulting feelings of grief are universal. I have been noticing issues around infertility and miscarriage coming up in many movies and TV shows that I watch which ostensibly don’t have anything to do with fertility or even relationships. One dating back to ancient Rome! That made me feel slightly better that this problem or challenge has existed throughout time, but also reminder that it is very present in our current times. And maybe people are more willing to talk about it now than in the past. But I still carry a lot of shame related to my miscarriage 3 years ago, but the shame is also related to the pregnancy itself. I was with a partner but we were not married, and our relationship was very rocky. I got pregnant accidentally and he actually accused me of trying to get pregnant on purpose. From the beginning the doctors were very concerned because of my age and considered it high-risk. Because of the circumstances and the very real possibility of becoming a single mother, I wasn’t feeling joy during the pregnancy but shame that I wasn’t more careful. I did try to do all the right things, but at the 8 week ultrasound there was no heartbeat. That was it. I was devastated by the news, and I think that reaction was a surprise to me because of my earlier ambivalence. In all my reading I had realized that the pregnancy was a miracle, so I felt even more guilt over losing it. My partner wasn’t very sympathetic, and our relationship ended about 8 months later. But I did not start trying to conceive until about a year and a half later, and I don’t usually include the miscarriage in my story about infertility. The doctors viewed the pregnancy itself as a positive, that it showed I could still conceive at the time, and that might be why I don’t count it. But I know I still carry a lot of unexpressed grief because I had to hide all of it from most of my family, friends and coworkers. Only a handful of people know what happened, and of course they were kind and supportive. But to this day I wonder if that was really my one and only chance to have a biological child only I did not know it at the time so I did not appreciate what I had? I hope that is not the case but that is part of the grief that still haunts me.
Sofi,
It must have been extra challenging to grieve your miscarriage when your partner was not supportive.
I think that getting pregnant without trying is a very good sign of your fertility :)
Take care,
Joanne