MISCARRIAGE AND MY JOURNEY THROUGH GRIEF

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I made a promise to myself nearly two years ago that when I had enough strength I would share my story — well that day has finally come, so here it goes.  This topic is personal, painful, and its something I have kept largely private.  Over the past year I have shared so many positives in my life, the most significant being my pregnancy and birth of my son Hugo, but stoping there wouldn’t be telling the whole story.  If you zoomed out a bit — you’d see that before Hugo came into my life I went through a year of incredible sorrow that impacted my mind, body and spirit after my first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.  I spent month after month grieving, hoping to replace my sadness with the emotional high of a new pregnancy.  With each passing month the pain got worse and I didn’t begin to turn the corner until I accepted the fact that I needed to heal my heart.  Simply put, it was a traumatic time and while the pain now holds a much lighter space it is a loss that will always be with me.  

I specifically chose this day, October 15, to open up because it is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day — a time to pause, remember and stand with people who have suffered this pain.  When I had my miscarriage it left me feeling like there was something wrong with me.  Why did my pregnancy end when all I am seeing around me is bright-eyed pregnancy announcements? Why did it come so easy for everyone else? How many hardships did they face? The questions came fast and furious, but the answers took years. 

Unfortunately, miscarriage is common and countless women grieve silently, often because it is just too painful to talk about.  It can leave you looking for answers and wondering why your body failed you — when in truth it is your body taking action and ending a pregnancy that just wasn’t viable.  When I heard that the first time it was a bitter pill to swallow and didn’t provide me much comfort, but what made me feel less alone was learning just how common miscarriages are. It's the reason countless women wait until they've passed the first trimester to share the news - when the chance of pregnancy loss is greatly reduced. According to HealthLink BC, for women who already know they are pregnant about 1 out of 6 have a miscarriage, but other estimates from Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto suggest the number is much higher with 1 in every 4 pregnancies ending in a loss.  Let that sink in…up to a quarter of all pregnancies! Far more women have experienced miscarriage than you realize and its important to note that it is usually a chance event and not a sign of an ongoing problem. 

I am opening up now — after nearly 2.5 years — because I feel compelled to share.  I have always admired women who have bravely shared their own experiences with pregnancy loss and I feel its my time to return the favour. Learning about other people’s experiences helped me a lot in my darkest days, so if my story can bring at least one person comfort, then it is worth it. 

My Journey 

This photo is hard for me to look at because what happened later that evening would forever change me.  The hours that followed were the last fleeting moments before I’d plunge into more than a year of sadness and grief. 

My husband Chris and I found out I was pregnant with our first child about a week before this photo was taken. We’d only just started trying, so we were ecstatic that it happened so quickly. The two of us were filled with love and light...so excited to bring our child into this world. Chris and I kept the joy close to our hearts. We didn’t tell anyone. It was our happy little secret. 

Fast forward to St. Patrick’s day...and that bubble full of joy burst. I had an awful headache and intense cramps, but since it was my first pregnancy I chalked it up to pregnancy symptoms. I took a nap, some Tylenol and we got ready to go to a party.  I was excited to NOT be able to drink and have this wonderful secret to myself, but when we got to the party my symptoms took a horrible turn. I will spare you all the details, but we had to leave and go home. 

By the next morning it was clear, I was having a miscarriage.  I was hysterical by this point, but I still didn’t want to believe it. Chris and I drove to the medical clinic on that Sunday morning and within a couple hours the doctor confirmed my worst fear. I was in the process of losing the pregnancy. I’ll never forget the look on Chris’s face as I let out the deepest guttural cry. The pain was primal and there was nothing I could do about it. Chris held me tight as the sobbing took over my whole body. 

The crying lasted days, then weeks and eventually months. I mourned in private. Other than my husband, some family members and a couple close friends, no one knew.  I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to forget about it and get pregnant again.  I put on a brave face and with puffy eyes and a body that was still physically processing the miscarriage, I went back to work a few days later.  I was all smiles around my co-workers but I would often have to run to the bathroom in between segments or lock myself in the dressing room so that I could cry without anyone looking at me. This went on for months. I pushed my grief aside, but it only grew deeper. 

During this entire time my husband was always there for me, but the truth is I felt like he couldn’t fully understand what I was going through.  For him the grief was emotional — for me it was impacting my mind, body and spirit.  My thoughts would keep circling back to the physical pain of miscarriage — the feeling of death.  It was all consuming.  He became my shoulder to cry on and I was leaning on him often. 

By November I slipped into an even darker sadness, after I passed what would have been our due date. A close friend of mine had just given birth to a beautiful baby girl.  I wanted to go and see her, but I was also dreading the visit…how was I going to keep it together?  When I held that sweet child in my arms, my own grief hit me like a tidal wave.  I turned away so no one in the room could see me and the tears began flowing.  I could barely speak.  I left that afternoon realizing that I needed help to work through the paralyzing sadness that I was stuck in. 

I enlisted the help of a friend who’d started her own Reiki practice and what ensued was months of deep emotional work that centred on reconnecting with my mind and body and coming to terms with what had happened.  I wanted to build our family and get pregnant again, but I knew that my body wasn’t going to let that happen unless I made emotional space for another child. I tried a combination of things which included meditation, exercise, speaking about my grief and most importantly giving myself permission to move on.  For a more detailed description check out my post How I Emotionally Healed After Miscarriage.  At first it was two steps forward, one step back, but I kept pushing through and after more than 6 months of self-care I started to feel more like myself. It also became clear to me that getting pregnant wasn’t going to make me feel better -- I needed to feel better before I could ever get pregnant. 

After sitting with this new found energy and strength for several months my grief began to lift off my shoulders and my body felt more relaxed.  I looked forward to starting a family with joy in my heart, instead of feeling like it was a solution to my problems.  Once I got comfortable in this positive lighter space, I knew I was ready to conceive again.  My husband and I decided to go to Olive Fertility Centre in June 2019, to make sure there was nothing preventing us from getting pregnant.  The doctor confirmed what I knew in my heart to be true, we were both healthy and as long as we were patient I would likely get pregnant again.  Interventions were offered to us to speed things up and while I was reluctant at first my husband and I decided to try one round of a fertility medication called Clomid; a pill taken for a few days at the beginning of my cycle which would ensure ovulation.  Lucky for us it worked like a dream and a few weeks later in August 2019 I was pregnant again. 

I had been wishing for this moment for more than a year, so it was hard to believe that I was actually pregnant.  Once the morning sickness kicked in, it felt more real, but it wasn't until the first ultrasound that it really hit me.  That heartbeat was the best thing I'd ever heard and my fear and doubt were beginning to lose a battle against love and excitement.  I couldn’t wait to bring our child into the world, however the thought of having another miscarriage was still haunting me. Once I was nearing the end of my first trimester I told myself enough was enough.  I had been looking forward to this for so long, so I decided to let go of all the negative self-talk and fully lean into this blessing.  From that day forward I gave myself permission to bask in the sacred energy of pregnancy and in May 2020 I gave birth to my beautiful baby Hugo.  

My journey into motherhood was nothing like I expected. It brought me pain and grief, but it gave me a new sense of gratitude for all the blessings in my life and a deep appreciation for the miracle that is my son.  Despite the incredible morning sickness, intense migraines and debilitating symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD) in the final months, I really enjoyed my pregnancy.  Reading that back, I sound crazy…but it's true.  I complained less and was able to appreciate more because I felt so lucky.  When I look at my son, sometimes tears of joy just start flowing — how grateful I am to be his mother. I think it's nearly impossible to understand the wisdom in a life lesson as its happening, but now that I've had time to reflect I don't know if I could have had the same appreciation for my son if my first pregnancy hadn't ended in miscarriage.   Did I need to learn this lesson?  I don't know, but I can't bear to think that all that pain and suffering was for nothing. 

If you have had a miscarriage yourself, you'll often hear that time is the biggest healer and while that might be true it wasn't helpful to hear that while I was in the throes of sadness.  If you are grieving the loss of a pregnancy know that your feelings are valid.  Whether you were 5 weeks along or 20, the duration of your pregnancy has no bearing on the emotional attachment you formed or the amount of time you need to heal. Be gentle with yourself and know that there is help for you.  Below I have links to a few resources that I found helpful as well as the BC Bereavement Helpline.  In closing I would like to end with this question, if you have experienced miscarriage what kind of support did you find most helpful?

Please feel free to comment below or message me privately through the contact me section. 

https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/hw44090

https://sunnybrook.ca/content/?page=wb-early-miscarriage-information

https://www.bcbh.ca - BC Bereavement Helpline