The 'M' word: It happened to me too

In 2018, while I was pregnant with Jhune, three of my close friends suffered miscarriages. In 2019, three more women I know miscarried, and one of my friends suffered a second miscarriage. On November 5, 2019, I experienced the loss of my unborn child as well.

Being pregnant this go-round felt a little different than my two previous pregnancies. My husband and I conceived pretty much right after we got married, and it felt even better to create life with him being my husband. We started making plans. We came up with names for both a girl and a boy, I began sharing the news with my closest friends and some of my coworkers, and I even told a few of my students once they realized I had put on a little weight and asked me about it (*rolls eyes* lol). I know we're normally supposed to wait to tell people that we're expecting, but I'd had two completely healthy pregnancies, am pretty healthy myself, and was around 13-14 weeks, so I figured I was in the clear. But nothing is guaranteed.

Two days prior, I noticed a little spotting after using the bathroom. I had food poisoning the day before and assumed maybe it had something to do with that. The next day, the spotting hadn't stopped, and was actually more red than the day before. By evening, I began feeling pains. I realized those pains/cramps would stop and return every 10-15 minutes. My husband consoled me and reminded me to have faith, be positive and said everything would be fine once we made it to the hospital in the morning... but unbeknownst to us, things weren't going to be fine.

At 3 in the morning, the pain, which felt something like I was being electrocuted, was coming every 5-6 minutes and was no longer tolerable. I realized something: I was having contractions. I put on a sanitary napkin--you know, just in case--and by the time we made it to the hospital, it was soaked, and I do mean SOAKED with blood. Since I was almost three months pregnant, I still (naively) had a sliver of hope--until the doctor performed the ultrasound. "It looks like a miscarriage... that happened around week eight," he said. I could not (I still can't) believe those words came out of his mouth. I looked to my husband, and although he was quiet, the tear falling from his right eye spoke volumes. I knew what he was probably thinking--that was his son. He'd lost his son. The room was filled with quiet, sadness and grief.

Stuff had to be done. I needed to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound, a pelvic exam, and I needed to decide how I wanted to have the remaining contents in my uterus expelled. I was wheeled to the first room, and they told me to empty my bladder before having the ultrasound. I figured I'd be in and out, but it wasn't that simple. After maybe 20 minutes and also having to flush the toilet 20 times, my husband knocked on the door and asked if everything was OK. I slowly opened the door for him and said nothing. I just quietly wept while attempting to scrub my blood from the floor on my hands and knees. "I got it," he said. I made it through the ultrasound (while still having contractions every five minutes) and now was time for the pelvic exam. The doctor explained all of my options (D&C, a pill that would make everything come out over a period of weeks, or simply just wait it out), and left so my husband and I could talk. When I stood up to dress, he quietly and slowly cleaned more blood from my feet and legs, and said "no woman should ever go through this alone.” And then... a clot the size of a potato sack fell out of me and made the hospital room literally look like a crime scene.The walls, sink, chairs, my husbands clothes, my boots, the bed, the floor, all of our belongings... all splattered with blood. And that is what I'd see every night when I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep the next eight days. I'd either see a hospital room covered in blood, or I'd see my husband's tears.

I'd never had any type of surgery or had even been put to sleep, but being that I was a teacher and didn't want to worry about having any accidents in the classroom, I opted for the D&C. I cried until it was time. It was over and done with, and before I knew it, I was headed back home. But once we arrived home, I felt overtaken by sadness at the fact that I was returning without someone important. I returned home feeling like something was missing.

And that is my experience. Some people may assume that I felt a sense of relief. "Well at least you don't have to worry about this or that," they'd say. But I felt like something was stolen from me; I felt like I'd gotten robbed, and there was no relief in that. The mental and emotional toll it took on me, crying in the car on the way to work, crying in the restroom between classes, feeling like I had no one to talk to constantly wondering why, being unable to sleep, the trauma, my students asking me when was I going to start "getting big," the nightmares, the drastic hormone changes and headaches that I experienced for two weeks straight all took a toll on me, but... I developed a deeper love for my husband than I even knew was possible, and I knew I would share my experience to shed light on this silent loss that women are suffering through daily. People treat the word 'miscarriage' like it's a dirty word--like it's a curse that shouldn't be talked about. I don't feel the need to be a suffer-and-shut up type of person. I don't feel the need to ignore it or suffer in secret, and if you are someone who knows me (or even if you don’t) and have ever experienced the loss of a pregnancy, you don't have to suffer in secret either. My messages are always open.

Written with love,

S. S.