Some Thoughts On Miscarriage

In my previous post I talked about how Neighbor Dorothy had some sad things happen to her in her life. One is that she had a little boy who died at age 4. I think that her radio show and the busy life that it brings is her way of dealing with the sorrow from that tragedy.

As I thought more about that I realized that a big reason that I'm starting this project is because I have had a personal struggle with going through a miscarriage! My first reaction was to lie in bed for a few days and cry. And when I was done with that my next reaction was to take on a billion projects so that I wouldn't be able to think about it anymore! Like paint the bathroom, finish the girls scrapbooks, throw a pampered chef party, volunteer at my daughters school, potty train my 2 year old, and hey...why not start a blog!!

So, I decided since I now have a new blog (thank you crazy hormonal Julia) I will use this forum to talk about what a weird and hard thing miscarriage really is! It's common enough that you don't really get too much special treatment when you go in to the obstetrician but while they might be used to it, I sure wasn't! I had no idea what was going on, I had to wait a week to get an ultrasound to make sure it really was a miscarriage, and not that many people knew I had even been pregnant so I felt pretty isolated!

I guess that the hardest thing was that I am a planner. And as soon as I found out that I was pregnant I immediately figured out when they were due, when we could get new family pictures, how far apart the kids would be, etc etc etc. So while on the outside nothing really changed (We had been a family or four and we were still going to be a family of four) I felt this great sense of loss because I'd already planned out and imagined our family with 3 children!

I can't even imagine what it must be like to have a miscarriage before you start having children. It gave me great insight into what my friends with infertility must be going through. It's hard to want something so bad and not be in control of getting it. When it first started happening to me I just felt like I needed to lay down and not move. That somehow I could stop it from happening, but alas I was not in control.

The craziest thing to me was that until I had a miscarriage I don't think I'd ever talked about miscarriage with anyone. I had no idea what to expect or what the symptoms were. I didn't even know that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage! Once I finally told some of my friends the truth I was floored to find out that almost all of them had gone through at least one miscarriage themselves! So I guess that for all the time we sit around talking about child birth and epidurals and pregnancy, maybe we should give a little time to discussing miscarriage! I know it's a hard subject but I was so grateful for those who shared their stories with me and hope that someday I can pay it forward by helping someone else cope with their loss!