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

But shouldn’t they know better? Shouldn’t we, as those who have been touched, changed, born anew by loss, demand better? Don’t people know that rainbows don’t always follow storms? That sometimes, all that follows is destruction, mortality, and destitution?

Blindly relying on the comforting notion that every traumatic storm is followed by beautiful, awe-inspiring happiness is common within the pregnancy- and infant-loss community. But we all know this isn’t always the case. Some people don’t go on to get pregnant again. Some get pregnant and have yet another loss. Some stop trying to conceive altogether. So while this hopeful message is encouraging for some, it might feel alienating to others, and in ways that are not always obvious. So many of us require more than the promise of a happy ending. Alternative outcomes—outcomes that do not consist of full-term pregnancies and babies wrapped in rainbow-colored blankets—deserve to be acknowledged too.

It’s more inclusive and in fact more accurate to recognize that sometimes rainbows follow storms. Sometimes they don’t. The same storm might produce a rainbow for one, while others are still searching among the clouds, hoping for a glimpse of a vibrant blue or orange, yellow or red hue. A rainbow for some does not ensure a rainbow for others. Sometimes, the clouds linger. This is a more reasoned way of thinking about the complexity of reproduction, and specifically about pregnancy after pregnancy loss. Because, as we know, there are no guarantees. And we can’t presume to know what is in store for someone else’s reproductive future. We can barely know what will happen in our own. So it is wise to abandon notions of fairy-tale endings, since we can’t know what’s to come, and because, when you really think about it, things don’t usually work out perfectly in fairy tales either. Compassion and nonbinary language surrounding this topic should take precedent. The last thing we want to do is create a feeling of Otherness within our own community. Sometimes a rainbow follows, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes a rainbow is a child, and sometimes it’s the renewal of vows, a career milestone, a new sense of self, the ability to self-love. And, sometimes, a rainbow baby is not one that is carried by the loss parent, but is brought into the fold via adoption, surrogacy, or foster care. And even if a rainbow does follow the storm, there is so much we might wrestle with throughout pregnancy and parenting after loss. So much more nuance tucked in.

The next time I saw Claudia, her daughter was three weeks old. She brought her to our session, and as her sweet baby calmly nursed, Claudia told me about the labor and delivery process and how things have been going ever since. Still hesitant to fully sink into motherhood, she spoke of her simultaneous enormous love of her daughter and her detachment. As we waded through these ubiquitous feelings, I found myself mentally revisiting the unimaginable loss sustained by my mother-in-law.

She had not gone to therapy after the birth and death of Chaya. She didn’t have much support. So how did she fare? Was she afraid to get pregnant again? What was she thinking and feeling throughout her pregnancy with her twin sons and in those early days after giving birth to them? How, if at all, did those thoughts and feelings affect the initial period (or even the long haul) of parenting? Did she feel alone?

These were things I hadn’t thought enough about until that moment in session with Claudia. Just as I started to feel guilty about never considering these questions before, my focus returned to Claudia and her little girl lying across her lap. We talked about her anxiety and how it swirled at particular times of day. We discussed how the vulnerability of being alive comes that much more into view after loss, and how this newfound look at mortality can hover during the transition to motherhood. It becomes difficult to wholeheartedly open yourself to this experience once you become conversant in holding back on hope. To believe it’ll last. The perverse what-ifs might hauntingly make their way into the nursery. They might. Or they might not. For Claudia, they did.

• • •

I fell in love with her at first sight. Noa Raye. I really did. But like Claudia and countless other parents who journey through pregnancy and parenting after pregnancy loss, I hesitated to open my heart fully, albeit unconsciously. Time, of course, has allowed for the softening of the past and the fear that came along as a consequence. But when I learned I was pregnant not long after my miscarriage at sixteen weeks, I was simultaneously ecstatic and terrified. I’m a lover of the state of pregnancy—through and through—but after my loss, I was awash with fear that translated into emotional distance—trauma’s residue. What-if what-if what-if. What if–ing felt like a full-time job.

Parenting after loss can be copiously complex. It can range from the challenging—the piercing anxiety and the residual effects of PTSD—to the overwhelmingly positive, for what has allowed me to marvel at my children’s existence at new heights I’m not entirely sure I would have reached without having experienced miscarriage. Before my loss, I think I’d really taken for granted the mere wonder of this fragile and unpredictable life. That blissful state of unknowing is long in my rearview mirror, and in its place now sits a magnified sense of wonderment over the lives of my two children and the loss that, to this day, lies in between. What was born from the mess of it all was the realization that immense gratitude and love can often and easily live alongside complicated feelings of grief and anxiety. Mothering can be complicated beyond our expectations, no matter how deeply we yearned for the role.

I was not the same kind of mother after my miscarriage. On one occasion, shortly after we’d introduced Noa to solid foods, she woke up from a