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

They’d chosen a surrogate, done the procedure—transferring two embryos—and now Opal was on pins and needles awaiting the outcome. That two-week wait until pregnancy testing: a nerve-wracking, pregnant pause.

Opal reported that she stayed busy and tried to distract herself. She turned to prayer mostly, and met with her priest. She didn’t want to stress over this, but it was inevitable. Those two weeks, she told me, felt more like two excruciatingly long years. Opal was scared that it wouldn’t work and also scared that it would. She was scared to be faced with yet another pregnancy loss. She was scared, most of all, of allowing hope to spike—if the results were positive—with no guarantee pregnancy would last.

When she received the call from her doctor with news, she was trembling. “I literally couldn’t speak. I was so overwhelmed by my emotions. I had so many. I just wanted to know: Was it a yes or a no?” She wanted more than loss motherhood so badly. She didn’t want her maternal story to begin and end with stillbirth, but understandably feared it might. Opal constantly worried this would be the extent of her parenting experience: giving birth to a twenty-four-week-old baby who never took a breath in the world, never cried, never crawled. She recounted how she threw the phone to her husband, flustered, as the doctor began to speak. Too overwrought to listen in on the conversation, she intently scrutinized her husband’s body language to see if she could surmise if the news was good or bad. It turns out it was both.

The surrogate did, in fact, get pregnant, but she was pregnant with a singleton, not twins. Awash with mixed feelings upon learning one embryo was thriving and the other was not, Opal took time to digest this information. But as the weeks ticked by, she eventually settled into picturing a healthy singleton and had her heart set on it.

Opal’s son was healthily born without a hiccup. She’d struggled throughout the pregnancy process, but she got there. The birth was seamless and standard, and as soon as the surrogate pushed him into the world, Opal recalled how she burst into tears—tears that streamed down her face, landing gently on her son’s as he cuddled into her chest. Utter relief filled the room and, at long last, Opal began a new type of motherhood odyssey. With a cooing baby in tow, tiny toes to tickle and marvel at, and diapers to change—as she’d practiced so many times with her siblings—she’d finally reached a destination she had imagined for decades.

Back in session some weeks after the birth, she reported that despite her dreams finally coming to fruition, she felt nothing. She loved her baby through and through, but couldn’t locate herself. She was all smiles in front of friends and loved ones who came to visit, including her partner, but on the inside she felt empty. Vacant. Zombielike. Quick to anger, unable to sleep, and lacking in appetite, Opal felt inadequate and hopeless and wondered how it was possible she felt this removed from a life she’d wanted for as long as she could remember. She turned to exercise, meditation, church, and therapy. She turned to her midwife, a doula, and vitamins. We spoke about how common it is to experience postpartum baby blues, but we also talked about the fact that her symptoms were worsening with time, rather than clearing up.

Known as the most common complication of childbirth, postpartum mood and anxiety disorders affect approximately 20 percent of women in the United States.22 Unlike the baby blues—seen in over 85 percent of new mothers, fading within two weeks’ time—postpartum mood and anxiety disorders do not go away on their own. In fact, left untreated, postpartum struggles can turn into intractable longer-term issues. Given Opal’s family history of depression, the twenty-four-week stillbirth, the grief surrounding not being able to safely get pregnant again, her conflicted feelings about IVF and embryos, and the fear that accompanied the surrogate’s pregnancy, it made sense that she was struggling. We discussed her feelings at length and monitored their course. We talked about her expressed fear of not being a “good” mother, and the nagging, persistent feelings of guilt and worthlessness. We talked about her desire to withdraw and the eerie feeling of numbness encapsulating her morning, noon, and night. She’d been emphatically opposed to considering medication when we originally discussed it, but as her symptoms persevered and her concern proliferated, she opted to revisit her next steps.

• • •

Sometimes, no matter how much we yearn for the role (or how ambivalent we are), the transition to motherhood is anything but linear. Particularly with a pregnancy loss (or several) under your belt, the imagined and hoped-for fluidity might not necessarily unfold in a straightforward way for loss moms. Be it anxiety or depression, or something more or less severe, mothering after loss can present unexpected twists and turns. And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s smooth and ebullient. But either way, I think there is a need for pointed attention about maternal mental health when it comes to pregnancy after pregnancy loss and the potential emotional complexity that can arise in motherhood.

I think about the millions of people who have lost pregnancies and how they fare afterward. I think about the struggles that go unnoticed or unattended to. I think about how all-encompassing the role of motherhood can be. And I think about the vital importance of the mother’s well-being inside (and outside) of the dynamic with her baby. A mother’s emotional prosperity can help establish and ensure a fruitful attachment and a thriving relationship. Babies rely on parental attunement, mirroring, and consistency in care. This informs how they come to understand elemental things like love and trust. These building blocks pave the way for how they interact and interpret behavior in future relationships. And so, it is necessary to take your emotional temperature no matter how sure you are about motherhood. No matter how badly you wanted