TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains information about miscarriage, which may be triggering to some.
When I found out I was pregnant, it was a Sunday night. My husband and I were dropping our daughter off at her grandmother's house, and I asked him to stop at CVS so I could grab a pregnancy test. I was four days late — which was unusual for me — and I knew the "right" thing to do was to test and find out if my period was just delayed because of the unfathomable amount of stress in my life or if I was actually pregnant with our first baby together.
We hadn't been planning or trying to get pregnant, and as we were newly married and I was in the process of adopting his daughter as my own, it was not something we were expecting at that moment in time.
I was anxious and nervous, and I worried about what it would mean if I was pregnant. But when I saw the positive sign on the pregnancy test, everything changed.
Although it wasn't something I had expected, my entire world stopped.
I've always wanted to be a mother. It's one of those things that you just know inside of your soul … a piece of you that you know you are destined for in your life, eventually. Many little girls grow up thinking about what life will be like if they have kids one day — if they want them and whether they'll be a good mother.
I have always known, deep down in my heart, that I'm supposed to raise a family. To instill all the life lessons, strength, and power I've gained into kids of my own. To show them what it truly means to live with meaning and ferocity.
The positive test — despite its poor timing — made my heart swell with so much hope and excitement. It was as if all of my hopes and dreams were about to come to fruition right in front of my eyes.
When I shared the news with my husband, even he was emotional.
My husband looked at me with pure love, pure joy, and the most support I've ever received. The long embrace and the conversation about "growing our family" and giving our daughter a sibling was so beautiful. It was the start of a journey we had talked about for years.
I went to the store and got prenatal vitamins, called my OBGYN to schedule my first prenatal appointment, and we began talking about the next steps we'd take in growing our family together, no matter the obstacles.
Four days after my positive test, I woke up bleeding.
I woke up in the morning, and as soon as I went to the bathroom I knew something was wrong. There was blood. At first, it was really light. I immediately went to Google — the ultimate no-no — trying to figure out why I could be bleeding.
I read it could be from the sperm implanting in the egg. However, the majority of the results attributed it to pregnancy loss. The heavier the bleeding is, the more likely it was that it was the latter.
As the day progressed, the answer was clear.
The small amount of blood that I originally had progressed into the heaviest "period" I had ever experienced. It wasn't just blood; it was clumps of lining and tissue. I had to change out maxi pads often — several times throughout the day — as it wouldn't stop. I called the OBGYN immediately, and staff asked me to come in the following day.
Every time I went to the bathroom, it felt like a piece of me was being ripped out of my soul.
Every time I went to the bathroom and saw blood, I cried. Not just small tears — I mean full-out, Kim Kardashian crying-face crying. I felt like someone was taking my dreams and ripping them up in front of my eyes. I sat on the toilet and didn't want to get up.
I didn't want to go to the doctor and hear the news. I knew it was true. I knew what was happening, but I didn't want to hear it — didn't want to believe it.
The doctors were as supportive as they could possibly be.
The doctors confirmed what Google had already told me. I had experienced an "early pregnancy loss." My hCG hormones were decreasing, and there was still blood in my urine.
On the bright side, my doctor said, I was able to get pregnant and conceive, which left hope for when we try again. They also offered me resources for women dealing with pregnancy loss.
But not everyone was as supportive.
There is still a ton of stigma around miscarriage in our society. It's not something that many people talk about or feel comfortable talking about. Society has made it into a taboo topic, even though at least one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
Early pregnancy loss may hold the biggest stigma of all. When talking about or opening up about my loss, some of the comments I received were so painfully alarming, they made me feel like I was living in some sort of twilight zone.
People insinuated that because the pregnancy was not "as far along" the loss was not as "big."
Many people commented on how it was "a blessing" that it happened so early on, before the baby was truly grown or before I had gotten to a later stage in pregnancy. Some felt like it was "fate" and that it was "God's plans." Others said it was a "good thing" because everything happens for a reason.
Although I'm sure people were operating with good intentions, none of that really mattered to me. In fact, the comments along those lines only made me angry and upset. Listening to people try to spin my loss into a positive thing — something that was "meant to be" — truly made me want to scream.
Any woman who experiences a pregnancy loss just wants to be supported and loved.
Sometimes, that means keeping your thoughts and opinions to yourself — keeping the "fate" and positivity comments unsaid — and simply just being there for the person you love.
That could look like crying on the couch with the friend until 3 a.m. Or it could mean watching TV in complete silence together. Maybe it's leaving a care package at the front door because they really don't want to see anyone at all. Whatever they need, just be there in whatever way works for them.
And value how they feel. Validate their feelings. Don't brush them away and tell them that because it's an "early loss" it hurts less or that it's easier. Because the truth is, it's not. No pregnancy loss is easy. Not at Week 1, not at Week 20, not ever.
