I wish I had a grand excuse for my 2? 3? week hiatus, but truth be told I don’t. I have had posts or at least prompts planned for weeks, if not months now, so there is no excuse. But the only thing I can fathom is that I’ve subconsciously dreaded this post knowing that if I were to share it, it should be in October. If pregnancy loss is triggering for you, I encourage you to skip this read. In honor of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, I share with you my pregnancy loss story…

According to March of Dimes, for every 100 pregnancies 10-20 will end in miscarriage. Reflecting back on our miscarriage, this statistic feels contradictory. At the time, I felt immediate shock. Nothing felt real. It wasn’t physically painful. Aside from bleeding, nothing unusual was happening (thank goodness for me! I know this is not the case for all miscarriages. Some can even be life threatening.) It took maybe a month of settling into the news before I decided to reach out to friends about it to see if anyone I was close to had suffered similar loss.

It was 2020, the week leading up to Christmas and I had taken a pregnancy test that resulted positive after experiencing nausea, breast tenderness, and fatigue. I held the news to myself, and neatly wrapped the test in a bracelet box for my husband to unwrap the evening of Christmas Eve. Our son was about 16 months old, so this wasn’t my first pregnancy. My mind fluttered with excitement thinking about names and nursery decor already, taking for granted how easily and without explanation pregnancy loss can happen. Per my calculation, we were about 5 weeks pregnant. The weekend of New Years Eve, we decided to travel to visit my brother in law and family a few hours away. About 2 hours prior to leaving, I started experiencing some spotting. I contacted my OBGYN’s office and they advised it “could be normal, just monitor color and amount. And if the amount increased substantially or color became bright red to contact them back.” Eager to get out of town and share our news, we proceeded to dress our sweet toddler in a shirt that read “BIG BROTHER”. After my husband got off work, we hit the road. Though we didn’t make any stops I could feel that I was bleeding more. I ignored it. We arrived close to bedtime, our nieces already in bed, and our sweet boy gave hugs to my brother in law and sister in law, and they spotted the shirt and squealed in excitement giving us big hugs. I was reluctant knowing the bleeding had picked up. In denial, we went to bed as if everything was normal. The next morning, I knew there was no way this amount of blood was okay. I told my husband, then called the OBGYN to report the change. They advised I needed to go to the closest ER. We told my brother in law and sister in law what was happening and left our sweet boy in their care while my husband and I went to the ER. As time spent in an ER does, it seemed to crawl by. Eventually, we were called back and through blood draw and ultrasound, it was confirmed that I was no longer pregnant.

We returned to my brother in law and sister in law’s house, where they were so accommodating and supportive. Though they were the best hosts and so sensitive to our situation, they had not experienced a loss like this firsthand. Once we returned home and I’d had time to settle into the news, I began consulting friends. Nearly everyone I spoke with replied “I’m so sorry. No. I haven’t been through that.” This is when this experience got real for me, when it felt like I was the only one. The sadness was heavy at times, and the month of August (when I would’ve been due) was especially difficult. As if the sadness wasn’t heavy enough, then I was met with guilt as my son’s birthday is also in August and instead of being excited to celebrate him, I was grieving our loss. Later, I reached out to two distant friends from high school who had shared on social media at one time or other that they had experienced miscarriage like mine. These women were so sweet and helped me feel not so lost in this loneliness and what felt like seclusion. As with any grief, it took me a while to process the loss. When I was finally able to talk to someone who had been through what I had, I found it easier to grieve and move forward. Somehow knowing I wasn’t alone or strange was comforting.

I count my blessings daily. I now have two sweet babes that I was able to carry in my womb. I couldn’t be more grateful for them, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t sometimes wonder about the one we lost.

I put this out here not to be a “down” post, but in hopes that if someone, like me, is looking for comfort in someone else’s story, they may find themselves reading mine and find peace that took me so long to find. Know that you are not alone. Sending love and prayers to those reading this no matter your situation.