Grief is often compared to the ocean in that you can’t control the waves, you can only surrender to them and try to stay afloat as the world beneath you is swept away and then appears again
I was 8 weeks pregnant with my first baby when I started spotting. Waves of emotion began to swell up inside me as my rational brain tried to reason with the growing fear and dread building in my stomach and radiating throughout my body. I immediately consulted the internet and found story upon story suggesting either complete normalcy or the impending ending of the pregnancy. I tried not to panic. I tried to breathe.
I’ve grown up with the mindset that if you don’t know it, you google it. When thought I might be pregnant, I googled all the signs. When I worried about whether I might be miscarrying, I did the same. For every “bleeding is totally normal” and “cramps are just your body adjusting to the raspberry it is carrying” comment there are equal “bleeding was the first sign of my miscarriage” and “cramping is not normal.” I wish I could say I viewed the information scientifically, searching for articles or reputable sources, but instead I ravenously scanned blogs and message board posts collecting any and all information without filter. I sought reassurance in the massive pile of threads and posts, comparing my situation to the success stories and finding differences between myself and those whose babies survived and those who did not. I wanted the internet to tell me my baby was going to make it.
The next day we went to the doctor, I sat waiting on the exam table, trying to smile and put on a brave face. Trying to stay calm as my mom pointed out the pictures of babies on the wall behind me. Trying not to fall apart. I looked for reassurance from the doctor’s face as she began the ultrasound, but she remained stoic and silent. Finally, she spoke and my hopes crumbled. There was no heartbeat. There was not going to be a baby. I remember sitting there and thinking, “How do I do this next step? How do I put my clothes on and leave this office? How do I put one foot in front of the other and walk out of here? How do I leave this room and let everything become real?”
I found a network of women to sister me through my first loss. They became my guides, bridging the gap by translating the medical explanations of “missed miscarriage” or “spontaneous abortion” into words, feelings, and experiences I could understand. They welcomed me into their club full of other members who begrudgingly joined. They fed me, comforted me, asked about my physical and emotional experience and sat with all the details I was afraid to share with others. They educated me and helped me feel more confident advocating for myself within medical settings. They allowed me so much grace and space to feel all of my feelings and to love and honor my baby and loss as real. While I had been afraid to post about my pregnancy on social media until it was “safe” to do so, these friends had been vocal about their pregnancies and losses, clearing the way and lighting a path for me to follow to connect with them when I needed them most. The cruel irony of waiting until you’re “safely” in the second trimester means people often grieve miscarriages alone. I am so grateful for these women for bravely sharing their grief online and in person, immediately normalizing my loss and experience. They helped me pick up the pieces and start to slowly put myself back together again.
My network held my fears, hopes and sorrows when I experienced a second loss a few months later. I was angrier the second time and spent more time distancing myself from pregnant friends or friends with kids. I skipped baby showers, missed events, and tried to balance being self-protective and showing up for others. I pulled back from some friendships and invested deeper in others. Two years later, a few months after a cross country move, I got pregnant again. I quickly realized I didn’t have any friends who had kids or were pregnant in Seattle because I had been trying to avoid reminders of my losses. I built a new network and friends on both coasts supported me through the anxiety of my pregnancy, anxiety that didn’t fully subside until my son was born. Even now, three years later I have moments of recognizing that it could all change in an instant which brings up both extreme gratitude and lingering anxiety.
Earlier this year I got pregnant again. I think somehow, I thought that having had a healthy baby meant that I was done having miscarriages. Doctors supported this by reminding me that I had proof that my body could do this. When I had another miscarriage I once again found myself reaching out for support and trying to rebuild. This third loss was both familiar and completely different in that I am a mom to a healthy toddler, and because of this I know so much more about what I was losing.
My miscarriages have shown me the value of sharing even our messiest selves with others and that the only way to experience grief is to crawl through it. I learned that not everyone is ready to sit with sudden loss or knows how to handle grief and that it is incredibly important to find people who do. People who get it and will soldier next to you and love you through your pain. It is because of this love and support that I’ve been vocal and open with friends and others about my own losses. In doing so, I’ve joined the ranks of those who helped me as an informal miscarriage doula, helping my friends, nanny, and hairdresser through their own losses this year. I know how critical it is to have somebody who understands the initial confusion, blame, guilt, sadness, anger and untethered feeling of a sudden loss. Somebody who knows that a miscarriage can be a potentially long physically painful process with varied levels of medical intervention. Somebody who knows that each loss and story are different.
Along with these women, I resumed my own therapy. As a licensed clinical social worker, I’m a big advocate of therapy and support the idea that we all benefit from working with another person to look at and challenge our patterns, thoughts and behaviors. My therapist sat with me in my sadness and let it exist, day after day and session after session. In turn, my grief has allowed me insight into the sudden losses my clients have experienced. I understand the ways that our society often fails us in recognizing and honoring grief experiences. An art therapist I know recently described grief like a big blob that initially consumes your life. Slowly, you start to build a life that exists outside of and around the blob, adding in activities or creating new rituals and ways of being in the world. Your grief may not get smaller, but you start to feel fuller again as you rebuild your new normal around the grief.
Life is full of difficult, soul crushing, suffocating moments of despair and sadness. We are in the ocean, sometimes treading water, sometimes letting waves crash over us, and sometimes getting pummeled to the ground by wave after wave. At some point, my grief shifted and I started to slowly crawl forward towards hope, trying to let it compete with fear. I chose, as many women do, to keep going, to carry my pain with me as I’ve tried again, and then again to add to my family. Along the way I’ve met women who are a few steps ahead and leading the way and women following the footprints I’ve left. I’m currently back in the place of trying to build courage and strength to try again, to let hope compete with fear, and to gather support where I need it.
Laura Short, LICSW is a mom and therapist. She is passionate about social justice and empowering others through honoring their stories. She loves sunshine, making art, photography, and bringing people together around food.