Another Unmentioned 1 in 5
**Disclaimer: This is a heavy one, kids. It comes with a trigger warning.
I was in the middle of a CrossFit class when I realized I was pregnant with Luke.
I had been exhausted for about a week, and feeling really bloated. I attempted my set of wall balls and struggled to breathe just a few tosses in. I was gassed and I knew why. I struggled through the remainder of the workout and hauled my terrified ass over to Walgreen’s to purchase a double pack of pregnancy tests. I don’t remember the sequence of events after that. Space and time shifted until I found myself standing in front of my husband, handing him a positive pregnancy test.
Then he said, in the most romantic way possible, “What the fuck is this?!” And I burst into tears.
I could understand where he was coming from. But my hormones were raging and I was already worried that I had ruined our lives. Max was six. We were finished paying for preschool. We had already taken that extra money and installed a pool. We were on cruise control, with our one awesome kid, who was finally old enough for cool adventures. He could handle lengthy plane rides, loved Marvel movies, and would eat sushi. We were finished with Peppa Pig and daily requests for dinners of mac and cheese. We were crestfallen - then hated ourselves, and each other, for feeling this way.
I know what you’re thinking. Was it a birth control failure? Yes. Yes, it was. But not in the sense of being in the 1% of women who become pregnant while taking birth control pills. It was more like failure in the sense that we failed to use birth control. You see, the possibility of becoming pregnant was just not on my radar. For starters, my age. The likelihood of a 39-year-old woman conceiving in any given month is 5%. Second, it took me a full year to conceive Max. We had been on the precipice of fertility treatments when we finally saw the plus sign. And third, my mom experienced menopause pretty early. I thought for sure that when my cycle started going a little wonky, I was beginning the next phase of my reproductive life. The possibility of another baby just wasn’t on my radar.
Pregnancy is the worst. Delivering a 10 pound baby is the worst. Recovering from child birth is the worst. Breast feeding is the worst. Sleep deprivation is the worst. Being trapped at home with a new baby is the worst. That’s why I never wanted to do it again. Maybe if our society didn’t fail mothers in a multitude of ways, I would feel differently. But it does and I don’t.
I scoured the internet for adorable ways to tell Max that he was going to be a big brother and landed on a t-shirt I found on Etsy. The front of the t-shirt was screen printed with a word search, with two circled words: big and brother. Now, as a reminder, Max was just six-years-old. He was still developing as a reader. So when we presented him with his new shirt and asked him to read the words that had been circled, he proudly responded, “big roaster.” He tried again, and again, finally landing on “big brother.” I asked him why he thought we might give him that shirt. He glanced at my still-flat belly, then my face. It was then that I saw the personification of hope in my sweet boy’s eyes. I nodded, and tears flowed from all of us. Max had always wanted a sibling. His response was exactly what we needed to begin accepting the idea that our lives were about to become more complicated.
Then I saw two embryos on my first ultrasound. Despair crept back in. This pregnancy will be worse than the worst. (The worstest?!) Delivering babies will be the worst. Recovering from child birth of twins will be the worst. Breast feeding two babies will be the worst. Can sleep deprivation get worse? Being trapped at home with a TWO new babies will be the worst. I will never the leave the house ever again. Clinging to Max’s even more amplified excitement, I carried on.
Then I received the genetic testing results. I remember the moment so vividly. I was wearing my favorite navy blue maternity dress, sitting in a pedicure chair at a nail salon. My phone rang, and although I hate to answer it in public spaces like this, I was expecting the test results and answered. I honestly thought everything would be fine. I had already started embracing the idea of the chaos that twins would bring. I knew it would be difficult, but I knew that my heart had the capacity to love and care for two more babies. But everything wasn’t fine. The test had detected Trisomy 18, a chromosomal condition associated with a multitude of developmental abnormalities, and as my midwife explained, typically these babies are “incompatible with life.” Since my babies were each housed in their own separate placentas, there was a possibility that only one baby was affected. I would need further testing to know definitively. I hung up the phone politely. I allowed my toes time to dry. I exited the salon with still dry eyes and retreated to my car to sob. “Incompatible with life” is such a bullshit way to say that your baby, or babies, will die.
On July 3, 2018 - twelve weeks into my pregnancy, the start of my second trimester, when my babies and I should have been in the clear - I lost a baby. And I’m still recovering.
Miscarriage is so much more common than people realize. One in five detected pregnancies end that way, but you would never know that because no one talks about it…just like the 1 in 5 who suffer with mental illness that no one talks about. Women are left to suffer alone. In my experience, miscarriage is devastating, on par with the loss of a living person. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. I lost my appetite. I stayed in bed and cried for weeks. I ignored the outside world. I mourned the loss of one baby while remaining pregnant with another. And I hid it all from Max. We told him there had been a mistake - that our one baby was so big and strong, that the midwife had thought it was two.
There are three phases of recovery after miscarriage:
Shock and denial
Anger, guilt, and depression
Acceptance
After my miscarriage, I spent the remainder of my pregnancy in phase 2. I felt guilt and the guilt caused depression. Any reputable internet source will tell you that if you have experienced miscarriage, it’s not your fault. I didn’t drink. I didn’t use drugs. I stayed away from sushi and deli meat and unpasteurized cheese. I didn’t go horseback riding or fall off of a bicycle. I should have been able to believe the internet. But I couldn’t, because although I made responsible choices to care for my babies and myself, I could not deny experiencing early thoughts that I didn’t want to be pregnant at all. I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual. I believe there is power, or energy, at work in the universe that I cannot explain. I believed then, and I believe today, that these negative thoughts caused the loss of my baby.
It’s been about three and a half years since my miscarriage and I estimate that I live in phase 2.5. I have been stuck here for awhile, and I worry that I always will be. I have explored, and continue to explore, all of this with my therapist. Most days I can navigate the world without feeling the heaviness of the last few years. But some days, like today, I feel it all. If you, dear reader, have experienced miscarriage, I bet it’s like this for you, too.
So let’s talk about it. I’m not alone. And neither are you.
