Sharing Stories of Miscarriage

Two of my blogging friends, actually both participants in my Having It All Project, have recently had miscarriages. It's a topic I've thought a lot about since the BlogHer/She Knows wrap up party after the Boston Listen To Your Mother show, when I was interviewed and asked about why I started blogging. I told a version of the story below, which I also left as a comment on one of my friend's blogs. I thought last weekend at BlogHer that the footage might appear somewhere, and I had only said in the interview that "I'd suffered a loss." I'd been preparing myself to have to explain what loss that was, but the moment never came. Seeing the bravery with which my friends have shared their recent stories, I've decided to share a bit of mine. Here's the comment I'd left for my friend.

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I lost a pregnancy at 10 weeks back in 2006. I started bleeding on a Friday night, and after a series of hospital and doctor visits, I had a D&C the following Thursday. So much of that week, all of these years later, stands in high relief in my memory.

I had told everyone, including almost 3yo Hannah, that we were expecting. I'm terrible at secrets, and I'd never had a fertility issue, I was only 28, I thought everything would be totally fine. I didn't think I knew anyone who had ever had a miscarriage before. I was so embarrassed to have to tell everyone afterward. At least Hannah seemed to understand it at the time.

I had to take a full week off from work. Since I had to wait to get an appointment for the D&C, I was scared to go to work and lose the baby there. Or on the train. So I stayed home. I told my (not current) boss, and his assistant send a plant. I threw it away. My best friend sent me the first season of "The OC" to pass the time. I never opened the shrink wrap (sorry, J). What I did do was to search the Internet relentlessly for blogs and articles on miscarriage. I needed to know that others were like me. And that somehow, life would go on.

I started my blog a few months later. I haven't ever really written much about my miscarriage, though there are references to it here and there. But I wanted to give something back to the forum that had given so much to me when I was so shattered.

I got pregnant again a month later. Had I not lost that baby, the one that was born would never had been possible. I still wonder about the baby due on 7/7/07. I always will. But the kid born the following New Year's Day is really awesome.

I guess all of this is to say what you already know, which is that you're not alone. It's a club far too many of us become members of along the way. I applaud you for sharing it like this, and you should know that some day, someone might be looking for an article just like this one, and she'll be very glad that it's there.

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So just in case that someone doesn't find my friend's blog, and stumbles across this one instead, the story is here too.