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

was confirmed not long after by a dear friend of mine, who relayed the feelings a mutual friend of ours had expressed to her. It went something like this: My miscarriage triggered her own fears of losing her pregnancy, propelling her to avoid interacting with me when she could. Lacking any certainty of what exactly it was she should say to me, she opted instead to say nothing at all.

I get it: the fear of talking about the incomprehensible. We are human after all, and so it is understandable that we shy away from what the vast majority of us have labeled as “tough topics.” But we must attempt to embody a sense of eagerness when it comes to those we love, those in our inner circle, and also, hopefully, our community at large. We at least need to try. To grasp at words, convey love, communicate care. Something. Anything. Anything other than silence, avoidance, or disappearing altogether.

• • •

As time passed, and I had conversations with patients and friends, it became increasingly clear that my miscarriage—and therefore I—was seen as some sort of contagion. People seemed to think that if they should dare get too close, they might be putting themselves at risk of experiencing what I’d gone through, or some semblance of it. And while to the objective mind that concept is obviously unfounded, it seems to be a permeating theme, dominating the thought processes of countless women who’ve been pregnant, who wrestle with the fear of loss, and who’ve seen firsthand what destruction grief leaves in its wake.

This story is, of course, not unique to me. Time and again, women have reported similar feelings of overwhelming isolation.

• • •

Alexandra spoke of these themes often during our weekly sessions together. At the customary twenty-week anatomy scan, she’d learned that her developing baby had a fatal heart condition, and was advised to terminate. Up until this point, there had been nothing alarming on ultrasounds, and the baby seemed perfectly healthy. Receiving this diagnosis meant her baby would not survive, let alone thrive. Plagued with guilt and a sense of alienation from her usual community, she talked about how alone she’d been navigating the choppy waves of grief, and described her inclination to hide the actual details of her story due to the unfortunate politicization of her so-called choice.

“Even my friends who’ve miscarried don’t seem to understand. My friend who had a stillbirth at thirty-eight weeks doesn’t seem to get me either. People think that because I got to choose, because I made a decision, my grief can’t be anywhere near as overwhelming as theirs,” Alexandra repeated each week as we discussed her disappointment and flagrant lack of support. She saw that in speaking her truth, she was met with people’s judgment. And so, she opted to no longer talk openly about terminating, instead saying, “I lost the pregnancy,” in an effort to steer clear of moral evaluation and earsplitting reactions. Unable to share the extent of her painful truth, her feelings festered.

She, too, was barraged by the usual platitudes, as so many women are: “At least you know you can get pregnant.” “God has a plan.” “At least you already have a healthy child.” Perhaps most frequently, she was met with, “It just wasn’t meant to be.” These statements rang hollow for Alexandra, as they do for so many of us, so she searched for support high and low, in places previously foreign to her: message boards, Instagram accounts, a Facebook group for those in a similar situation, and here in therapy. It was difficult for her to find what she was looking for “out there.” “Out there,” support continued to come up short.

She berated herself aloud, wondering if she’d made the “wrong decision,” if this somehow made her a “bad person,” and if by making this “choice” she’d be “punished” and unable to get pregnant once again. She worried that people’s judgment and lack of empathy were, in fact, justified. This worry of hers turned swiftly into rage, resentment, and harsh self-blame.

I’ve seen this time and again: disappointment from the outside internalized. I’ve watched as shame, stigma, and judgment whittle away at the resolve of those already in mourning, eventually overwhelming and manipulating the truth: That this is not their fault. That they did nothing wrong. Oftentimes, it is society at large’s ignorance, indifference, or prosecutorial criticisms that lead us to believe our losses are our fault. A punishment we somehow deserved. Pain was accumulating. It was palpable. “Your grief is yours,” I’d repeat. “You did absolutely nothing wrong. If this was a decision, you made a loving one. You deserve as much support as anybody else. You are entitled to your grief. It is yours.”

Sometimes my words seem immediately absorbed, and I can watch via body language the relief envelop my patients. Other times, this mantra, as it were, is skimmed over or worse, outright rejected. And in those moments, I witness them clinging onto self-hating beliefs and gutting guilt, their bodies rigid with blame. I stay the course and meet them where they are, time and again, as they process what they’ve experienced and people’s reactions to it. This is what support looks like. This is what we all deserve: to be buoyed no matter where we are.

To be heard. To be validated. To be nurtured. To be safe. To be steady.

These are the ways of support. You are entitled to your feelings. They are yours, and yours alone.

• • •

I think we are somehow conditioned to believe that grief is an evaluable property. That if we stack it up against others’ experiences (or our own), we can determine how long and how strongly we—or they—ought to be grieving. Like there is some invisible point system, tallying what we are allowed to feel, how long we are allowed to mourn, whether we have met the minimum tragedy threshold to be allowed to ask for help. With pregnancy loss, especially an early one, you might find, for