Back when Dave and I found out we were pregnant with our first, we briefly debated whether or not we should share the news until after the first trimester. I decided that if anything happened, I’d rather my friends and family know why I wasn’t myself than try to hide my grief. It was soon apparent that I couldn’t hide my morning sickness from my co-workers even if I wanted to, so it wouldn’t have been an option, anyway.
Three successful births later, with no history of complications, it never occurred to me to keep our new joy a secret. So many of my friends on Facebook are pregnant or posting pictures of their new additions, so I had no hesitation in posting the exciting news.
Then, at my 12 week appointment, everything changed. My midwife couldn’t find a heartbeat. The next day, an ultrasound confirmed the worst. For 5 weeks, blithely unaware that my baby was already gone, I had been pondering baby names, borrowing maternity clothes for winter, budgeting and scheduling our school year for a spring delivery, and looking forward to my 1st trimester symptoms finally subsiding. I felt so foolish, as if somehow I should have known.
For the first time, I regretted having shared my pregnancy so publicly. I knew the months would pass and people would begin asking when I was going to post baby pictures. I had no choice but to let everyone know what had happened. I didn’t even know how I could find the words.
But then I had to ask myself: Why the shame? Why the embarrassment? Why, in a culture that prides itself in flaunting taboos, is miscarriage still a taboo subject? Why do so many brokenhearted mothers still feel obligated to grieve in secret? Is it because death makes our society uncomfortable? Is it because the medical community goes out of their way to use any term except “baby” when referring to our lost child, essentially robbing us of permission to grieve? Is it because we think we are the only ones going through this?
If I had lost an older child, would I have been ashamed to tell anyone? Was this child any less worthy of recognition? This was a life. A brief life, a life unseen, and not intimately known to any but me, but a life nonetheless. Despite our culture’s dismissal and even denial of such young lives cut short, they are worthy of acknowledgement and grief without shame. No mother suffering this road should have to do it alone, or made to feel as if her grief were inappropriate or should be hidden.
I went ahead and updated my Facebook status with the hard news. Then something amazing happened. I started getting messages from friends who had lost children, many of which I had never known about. They shared their stories, helped prepare me for what to expect, prayed and grieved with me as only someone who has walked the same road can do. I had never known so many of my friends had gone through this. Women who had grieved silently for years. Women who, due to distance or the years or the casual nature of our acquaintance, would never have shared so intimate and painful a sorrow, except to another whom they knew could relate. I felt as if my eyes had been opened to a sad sisterhood that I had been vaguely aware of, but never understood the full extent of, especially as it affected so many of my friends.
Thank you, my dear sisters and friends, for reaching out and reminding me that I am not walking this road alone…none of us are alone.
