I Had a Miscarriage by Jessica Zucker (classic books to read .TXT) 📗

anything) in the context of their minds when I returned less poised, less like myself, less pregnant. I might never know if they even noticed.

Penelope eventually returned to my office, newly pregnant. In one session near the end of her first trimester, she paused in silent reverie—and then whispered, “I’m worried that what happened to you will happen to me.”

I reassured Penelope that fear was inevitable, especially when it is tethered to a previous loss—grief knows no timeline, and one pregnancy does not erase the loss of another. With glassy eyes and a deep sigh, she said that hearing me talk about my residual worries eased the sense of isolation that surrounded her miscarriages, allowing her to feel less alone. She was growing less afraid of losing again.

• • •

Several months later, I got pregnant again, for a third time. The beginning of this pregnancy coincided with Penelope’s last trimester. I, like Penelope, was now angst-ridden and plagued with uncertainty, despite evidence that the baby was healthy. This time around, Penelope seemed particularly attuned to my eyes. “You look worried,” she’d say tenderly, her concern for me seemingly eclipsing even her own worries about giving birth. She was perceptive. My worry was indeed ever present. Each trip to the bathroom between patients included checking for blood: evidence of potential demise. Each morning, I reflexively went through a checklist of pregnancy symptoms, scanning my body to be sure that this pregnancy was holding fast. And I practically held my breath as I lay on the exam table awaiting each and every ultrasound, expecting the worst.

“I am worried,” I would tell Penelope, honoring the trust we had long established within the confines of those four walls. “Pregnancy after pregnancy loss can be exhausting on so many levels. Loss has a way of stealing surrender.” My therapeutic instincts had changed—mostly in the months following my miscarriage and through my subsequent pregnancy—and I wasn’t necessarily confident for the better. But this was where I was. Speaking a bit more openly felt inevitable and somewhat refreshing, and according to my gut, was the best way to assist Penelope in her continued journey. This was uncharted territory, to be sure, but it felt foreordained. This was where I was supposed to be. This was what I was supposed to share. While Penelope’s fears eased, I continued, very pregnant, to hear agonizing stories detailing a slew of pregnancy complications from other patients—complications I was all too aware could befall me. My patients and I had now strayed far from a pristine therapeutic dyad. We haphazardly made our way through a maze of human emotions. In sessions, I found myself reflexively saying “I understand how that feels” without considering how revealing these moments of solidarity truly were. I silently underlined comments I heard, shocked at how similar they were to thoughts that had entered my own mind.

Being pregnant—twice, in short succession—took its mental and physical toll. When I gave birth to my healthy daughter Noa Raye the following December, I took a much-needed maternity leave. I wept when I returned to my office, not because I struggled with the necessity of returning to work sans child, but because, following so many anxiety-laden months, my body still needed another release. It had safely brought my daughter into the world, but the overwhelm that grew inside me and along with her had remained. Going back to work, in a way, was another birth. Another transformation. Another beginning. No longer preoccupied with a pregnancy I felt could go wrong at any moment, I felt a sense of renewal and a sturdiness that I hadn’t substantially embodied in over a year. I was more fully there, deeply present. I had missed this. I had missed me.

When I was back at work, a new patient, Maya, came to see me. She was ten weeks pregnant. Fifteen minutes into her first session, while describing sleepless nights filled with fear about becoming a parent, she paused, glanced at my bookcase, and then looked back at me: “Can I ask: Are you a mother?”

There was a time when I would have reflexively asked Maya what my maternity might mean to her. But instead, I considered revealing a small but profound piece of my life. I had changed. The “before” and “after” marked by my loss did not sequester itself to my personal life; it had altered my identity as a mental health provider too. And that transition—that subtle but marked shift in how I viewed therapy within the confines of my own trauma, and the newly discovered ability for that trauma to be discussed in a way that validated my patients’ fears without overshadowing them—landed me somewhere between being a blank slate and the focal point of any therapeutic relationship. I had discovered a much more ideal middle ground.

“Yes,” I told Maya. “I have two children.”

5

“If only it could have continued on this way.”

Talking to my patients about my miscarriage got easier. I was practiced, and could easily guide conversations away from myself, forever focused on the primary reasons for these visits and my role as facilitator, not the focal point. Talking to people in my personal life, however, seemed to grow more muddled at every turn.

In those initial hours following my loss, I was barely able to cobble together a coherent sentence, and couldn’t imagine mustering the emotional energy it would’ve required to reach out to everyone individually, those closest to me that I had not been able to include in my frantic text. Still, I knew I had to tell people. So I settled on a group email. I figured it was best to share the news while it remained fresh, so people wouldn’t inadvertently trigger me by asking how pregnancy was going, how I was feeling, how far along I was, whether I had a name picked out. Those common inquiries can be emotional landmines for anyone who has experienced a loss, and I set out to avoid the impending minefield entirely.

Chronicling the