Grief and healing after pregnancy loss

*Content warning: this post discusses pregnancy loss and parts may be difficult to read.*

“I felt happiness today for the first time since the miscarriage,” I told Adam as we walked Honey around the neighborhood last night. “That’s great. What prompted it?” he asked. “I don’t know, nothing in particular,” I said. “It was just such a beautiful day, I had all the windows open in the house and just standing there, feeling the wind blowing in, I realized I actually felt happy and peaceful for the first time in a quite a while. My body just felt lighter.” It shows me I am healing, slowly, from my recent pregnancy loss. 

It’s been exactly a month since I read those two awful words on the ultrasound report: fetal demise. That’s how I found out. During the sonogram, I knew something wasn’t right. I could tell by the sonographer’s face. The scan seemed to take forever, and I still can’t stop thinking about the agony of laying there knowing something was wrong, but the tech couldn’t tell us. Then we had to wait while she discussed things with the radiologist. They told us to call my doctor as soon as we left the ultrasound appointment. I called, but he had left for the day. His office staff promised he wouldn’t leave me hanging until the next day and would call me back. 

He never called. And I couldn’t bear the wait, knowing in my heart that something was wrong with my baby. So I logged onto the radiology center’s patient portal and read the report. Although I was 10 weeks pregnant, our baby was only measuring around 7 weeks. No heartbeat was detected. Then I read those two horrible words that left me shattered. And just like that, I knew our baby was gone. 

The following days were a nightmare I thought I’d never wake up from. I still felt pregnant with terrible nausea and lots of other symptoms which is why I was so sure that everything was okay before the sonogram. But that is the cruel joke that a “missed miscarriage” plays on your body. The placenta keeps growing, creating those hormones and causing your body to still feel pregnant, all the while your baby has silently died. 

Your body doesn’t realize it so you have to take medication to help pass the pregnancy. I’ve been through a lot of physical pain in my life. My CSF leak, a ruptured disc in my back, nine surgeries. But the pain of my uterus contracting to expel the pregnancy was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. And the emotional pain of what was happening was even worse. That was the most awful night of my life. I felt like a piece of myself had died.

We tried to prepare ourselves for the possibility of a miscarriage. We actually talked about it a lot. But nothing can prepare you for how bad it hurts. I had no idea that the grief I would feel for a baby I never even met could be so deep. I always thought it was sad when I heard of someone having a miscarriage but I never knew how devastating it could actually be. I think it may be one of those things you cannot fully understand until you experience it yourself. It’s a club I never wanted to be in, yet here I am. 

The past four weeks have been so hard and I’ve found myself getting frustrated that this grieving process has been so deep and that it seems to be taking so long. I was only pregnant for 10 weeks, why does this hurt so bad? I keep asking myself. But it’s so much more than those 10 weeks, I’ve realized. It’s the year and a half that we tried to get pregnant, month after month, the hope followed by heartbreak when it just didn’t happen. It’s the 10 plus years I’ve desperately wanted to be a mother but felt like I couldn’t because of my health. 

I wanted this baby for so long. So it felt like a complete miracle when I finally found myself holding that positive pregnancy test. The second I saw those two lines telling me I was pregnant, everything changed for me. I became laser-focused on the new life that was growing inside of me. 

I got books about pregnancy and parenthood and started reading them right away. I joined Facebook groups for new mothers and apps to find other moms in my area. We began to clear out the office to turn it into a nursery and I pictured exactly where everything would go. I sang a special lullaby to the baby every morning in the shower and while I was driving. I bought “big sister” bandanas for the dogs and had our pregnancy announcement planned out. My whole world revolved around this baby and its future. Maybe I got ahead of myself, I don’t know. I was just so happy.

All I do know is that in a second, all of it was taken away. So it’s been difficult, to say the least, to try and figure out what do with myself and how to move forward from here. The grief does come in waves like they say and it has started to get a little easier with time. But I’ll think I’m doing okay when all of the sudden a song comes on the radio and I fall apart while driving on the highway. 

Or this weekend, I thought I was ready to tackle the room we were turning into the nursery that had a ton of stuff we were in the middle of organizing. Then I saw the pregnancy books that Adam attempted to hide and the bag of baby stuff that his grandmother bought for us. It was sitting in the same spot that I had pictured myself rocking my baby to sleep and singing that damn lullaby that I still can’t get out of my head. I instantly turned into a puddle of tears. 

Adam told me we didn’t have to organize the room but I pulled myself together and we got it done. And most days I feel like I’m taking small steps towards healing. Like I said at the beginning of this post, yesterday I felt peace and happiness for the first time in over a month. I think my hormones may finally be regulating a little, but I did read that it can take quite some time so I will continue to give myself grace. 

I will be okay. We will be okay. And we are going to keep trying and hoping that one day we will get our rainbow baby. But until then I am going to be gentle with myself. If you have also experienced pregnancy loss, or any loss for that matter, I hope you will do the same with yourself. If you’re grieving too, give yourself grace and time. Don’t let anyone rush you through your grief. It is such a complex process. You have had to be stronger than you ever asked to be, and I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of us. Keep going.