Did you know on average that 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriages? (link) That means for every 100 women that conceive there are 10-20 women who have conceived and lost their baby. That is an insanely high number, but when a woman loses her/their baby unexpectedly, it can feel like they are alone, suffering this loss, grief, complete heartache, by themselves.
Yes, their friends and family typically offer support in their time of need, but none of them can truly understand the complexity of emotions, thoughts, unrelenting mind chatter that comes from losing a child. Honestly, even as the writer of this article, I didn’t know.
That was until someone I knew and loved dearly faced her own experience with the loss of her baby. A woman we will be calling, Sara, recently found out at her 8 week OBGYN appointment that her baby had no heartbeat. That her baby had stopped growing at 6 weeks and that she would need a Dilation and Curettage (D&C) the following week to abort her baby which she had been trying to conceive..
A little background on Sara. She has been a friend of mine for 20 years, and in those 20 years she has spoken about how much she wanted to become a mother. She is one of the most caring and compassionate people I know and she goes out of her way to help her friends and family whenever they need her. She has a wonderful husband and gave birth to her first child (who took over a year to conceive) during the pandemic. Sara has been actively trying to get pregnant , and like most women, she has frequently experienced the hope of “I think I might be pregnant with the crashing disappointment when her period would soon rear its ugly head.
Sara found out she was officially pregnant in December and kept it very close to her, only letting family know. She was beyond excited to add to her family and couldn’t wait to get the clear from the Doctor to share the news with everyone.
Explain to me exactly what happened when you went in for your 8 week appointment
It’s an internal vaginal exam [transvaginal ultrasound], it’s kind of awkward. It’s an ultrasound wand, because when you’re that newly pregnant, you can’t ever find it [(the fetus]) on your stomach [with a transabdominal), It’s too small so they do an internal ultrasound, It literally looks like a vibrator. They lube it up and, put a condom on it. The Ultrasound Tech is in there, she moves the wand around, she was looking for the baby. Because with that internal [ultrasound], they can hear the heartbeat and stuff because of it. Then they usually put it on a screen and they hover over that area searching for the baby’s heartbeat, but she kept searching and we couldn’t hear it.
What was going through your mind when they couldn’t find a heartbeat?
John {her husband} and I were in shock. I started hysterically crying and just kept saying “No no no no” Honestly, I felt bad for the ultrasound technician. I don’t remember how she worded it but pretty much was like, I’m sorry to tell you but there is we can’t i can’t find a heartbeat. The ultrasound tech tried to comfort us for a minute, and then she gave us a minute: for me to like calm down, get dressed, because then we had to go meet with my OB [Doctor] after
You mean directly after? They basically said “your baby is gone, get dressed and meet with the OB?”
Yeah what they wanted to do, what the next step is. I should have been eight weeks, two days, the baby was measuring six weeks, four days. The baby just essentially stopped growing and my body rejected it.
The OBGYN said , “Since you’re measuring so early, are you sure you’re eight weeks along? You haven’t had any spotting/ bleeding have you?”
They asked me that multiple times.
“Could your calculations be off?” she asked
I said, No, because I tracked it, I tracked it ever since I had my first child. Once I got my period, I tracked every single month. That’s when they decided to schedule another ultrasound the next week to confirm there was no heartbeat. I went the following week, again, and still no heartbeat.
So you had to relive the traumatic experience all over again the following week?
Honestly, I think I just came to terms with it over the weekend. I spoke with one of John’s friends who had one [ a miscarriage] and she told me that the experience sucked, but made her realize that something was wrong and her body knew that and rejected the baby because her body could sense something was wrong. Hearing her say that, reassured me. It helped me cope over the weekend.
D & C
A few days later, they scheduled Sara for a D & C
For readers who don’t know what a D & C is:
A Dilation and Curettage procedure, also called a D&C, is a surgical procedure in which the cervix (lower, narrow part of the uterus) is dilated (expanded) so that the uterine lining (endometrium) can be scraped with a curette (spoon-shaped instrument) to remove abnormal tissues. (article)
This procedure is done to remove fetal tissue from the uterus. It typically is done under local anesthetic (in Sara’s case, 4 shots to the cervix) where they numb the cervix to help decrease the pain while they dilate the cervical opening and extract the fetal tissue.
If it’s ok to ask, how did you feel during the procedure? What was going through your mind?
I felt just numb. I cried during it. Physically it hurt, the pain from the needles, but I think it just hit me, the baby is gone now, like there is no chance it’s alive. I knew there wasn’t a chance but still, I don’t know. It was heartbreaking that the baby was no longer real. I came to terms with it a lot over the weekend, but I don’t know.
It hit me the other day at work. One of my co- workers is pregnant, and would have been due five days before me. And now all our co workers are starting to know, and it hit me and I kind of broke down at my desk. And one of my old supervisors that was there, she’s like, “Go for a walk.” And I was like, Alright. So ,then I came back. I spoke to my manager, and she was just like “You’re okay,” she’s like, “it’s gonna happen [the breakdowns]” and she just kind of calmed me down a little bit.
This isn’t a topic that gets talked about a lot even though so many women experience it. Why do you think that not a lot of people talk about it?
I think they’re like, I don’t want to say embarrassed, but ashamed that like it happened to me; like what did I do? Like it’s my fault, did I do something wrong? Did I drink too much caffeine? Did I take something I shouldn’t have? Did I eat something wrong? Did I do everything right that I could have? What could I have done differently?
Do you believe that women may not speak up about this topic, because in some way they feel like they failed? So much pressure is put on women to conceive, like that is their only function on this planet, do you believe that miscarriages make them feel ashamed that they couldn’t produce?
Yeah. I mean all that goes through your head is what did I do? What went wrong? Could I have done something different? Could I have done anything better? I was taking my prenatal vitamins. I think I started taking them in August. I take them every single day. So I know that, my body’s getting enough vitamins. I’m eating healthy. I wasn’t drinking. I don’t smoke. I mean, like, I’m just doing everything that I thought needed to be done. It’s a constant cycle of thoughts that go through my head.
I feel like a part of the reason a lot of women don’t speak about it is because it’s emotionally heavy and an awkward conversation to have with people? Right?
Yeah, because if the person you are talking to hasn’t had one [a miscarriage], what do you say right?
I think it’s so hard to talk about because it is such an emotionally charged subject and it makes, like you said, everyone uncomfortable to talk about this, because what do you say to that person who is telling you that they had a miscarriage? And then where do you go from there, you know what I mean? If you’re sitting there it’s either “I’m sorry” or “Oh my god, are you okay?” And then it’s almost like you make the person who goes through it feel obligated to share their experience when they might not be fully healed from it.
It’s also really awkward, like, how do you just randomly just call somebody and say, “Hey, I just had a miscarriage?” How do you bring up that conversation? That’s the hard part, too, how do you even bring it up? Yes, nobody talks about it. But it’s not something that’s easily brought up. Especially if someone has experienced multiple miscarriages?
On top of that, it’s like, it’s that sympathy look that like, you know what I’m talking about, the I’m so sorry look. Which makes them feel like they can’t talk about this because if they do it will trigger people emotionally, it will “bring down the room.” These women take the feelings of those around them into consideration more than their own which I believe makes it an extremely isolating experience.
Yes, you are experiencing a loss that you believe others don’t understand and you feel like you can’t talk about it, even though so many women have them [a miscarriage.] My sister has had one, my Mom a few, once I started talking to people I found out that some of my coworkers had multiple of them. It makes you feel like an absolute failure, especially when it’s something that is the only thing you’ve ever wanted to do.
What would you say to someone who just had a miscarriage?
It’s not your fault. There was nothing that you could have done. You did everything you could. You aren’t alone in this. I just kept telling myself that everything happens for a reason. That my body rejected the baby for a reason. That the baby wasn’t going to be healthy and my body knew that. My body was protecting me.
To all of the readers of SMEX ED who have experienced a miscarriage, our hearts go out to you. The experience is traumatic and can have lingering effects emotionally, physically, and spiritually for years. Our goal of discussing was to normalize it, to give a voice to the many women who struggle with discussing their own experiences with miscarriages.
We, here at SMEX ED, want you to know that you are not alone. Although the experience can feel overwhelming and isolating, you aren’t alone. There are millions of women out in the world who have experienced a loss just as you have experienced. There are millions of women in the world who have experienced the pain you have experienced. Our mission at SMEX ED is to normalize these topics to create a safe space for those who feel they have no one who understands what they have gone through or are currently going through.
When Sara had the D & C, she called me afterward to tell me the news. I knew something was wrong the second I got on the phone with her. I listened as she told me about the whole experience and at the end of the conversation she said to me:
“I just want to talk about this more. Like I didn’t realize how many women have experienced miscarriages. I mean, I’ve seen a social media post about it from time to time, but I never realized how many women actually have them. I just want to be able to share this so that women can realize how normal it really is. I just don’t really know how.”
Thank you, Sara, for trusting me to write your story. Thank you for letting SMEX ED be the magazine to share your experience.
For those of you grieving from your loss, please check out this information provided by the March of Dimes website on miscarriages.
From Hurt To Healing (free booklet from the March of Dimes for grieving parents)
Find More Booklets on the March of Dimes website Click Here
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