You Know Someone Who’s Had a Miscarriage

You probably haven’t heard many of those stories, however, and you might not have shared your own. Many of the reasons for that silence are understandable — most miscarriages happen early, and it can be awkward to announce a pregnancy after it has already ended. Plus, some women simply don’t want to broadcast intimate information about their efforts to have a child.

But there are other forces at work: a society that sees women’s bodies as shameful and that blames them, even criminalizes them, for pregnancies gone wrong. Policies that punish women for getting pregnant at all. Widespread ignorance about human reproduction. A health care industry that too often fails women, especially women of color. And a general unwillingness to grapple with complex emotions, like debilitating grief over the loss of a microscopic embryo — or a tinge of relief at the loss of a 16-week fetus.

As a result, when a miscarriage happens to you, many aspects of the experience can come as a shock. That’s what we heard over and over again from the more than 500 people who shared their miscarriage stories with The Times. How did I not know this could happen to me? Why didn’t anyone tell me what it would be like?

We heard from straight women, from male partners and from same-sex couples. From people in every corner of the United States and in at least a dozen other countries. From women who had miscarriages in the 1960s and ’70s and women who were miscarrying at the very moment that they were writing to us. From women who had one miscarriage and never got pregnant again and from women who had five or a dozen miscarriages and went on to have children.

What these women and families had in common was a desire, sometimes even desperation, to talk about what happened to them. Miscarriage might just be the loneliest experience that millions of women have faced.

So let’s get it out in the open. To start, what does a miscarriage really feel like? Despite how they’re portrayed in movies, miscarriages can involve a lot more than a rivulet of blood. There are clots, sometimes the size of golf balls. There are cramps that feel more like labor contractions — an upsetting reminder, perhaps, of the birth one will not have. The process can go on for weeks, even months, leaving women in a strange purgatory between pregnant and not.

Just as cruel is when there are no physical signs of miscarriage. When you’re going about your life between checkups, assuming all is normal, assuming new life is growing inside of you. These “missed miscarriages” can make women distrust their bodies. In the few seconds it takes to receive a diagnosis, it can feel like your body shifts from a garden to a graveyard. If you end up undergoing a D&C — a surgical procedure to remove the pregnancy material — your uterus might feel distinctly hollow afterward, a visceral reminder of your loss.

For some, the emotional fallout from a miscarriage can eclipse the physical experience. Some women find themselves grieving their lost pregnancies decades after the fact. Others feel overwhelming guilt at what they might have done “wrong.” Even if you studiously avoid the long list of foods and activities that pregnant women are warned against, miscarriage can happen. Many losses are caused by chromosomal abnormalities that can’t be prevented or controlled.

Everyone will tell you it’s not your fault, that these things just happen. But even when you know that’s true, it can be hard to feel it, hard to live with the not knowing. It can be difficult to even hope that you might get pregnant again; and if you do, those pregnancies can be anxiety-ridden.

It doesn’t help that the vernacular of pregnancy and miscarriage leaves much to be desired. Geriatric mother, blighted ovum, incompetent cervix. Who comes up with this stuff?

Other women find themselves grateful, if not for the experience of miscarrying, then for the fact that they’re no longer pregnant. Because miscarriages so often occur because of genetic complications, miscarrying can feel like a sign of your body’s wisdom, that it has acted quickly to end a pregnancy that wouldn’t have been viable, making way for what’s next.

Some women find themselves thinking, years later: If it weren’t for my miscarriage, I never would have had my son or my daughter.

The underlying tragedy here, amid the individual heartaches, is that so many women go through these experiences alone. Or when they do open up, the reactions of others make them regret it.

In fairness, there is no playbook for this sort of thing. But pressure to produce grandchildren or to manage other people’s emotions can leave little room for families who’ve experienced a miscarriage to process it all. Friendships crumble. Marriages fall apart.

Then there’s the workplace, its own special hell for women who’ve miscarried. It’s awkward enough trying to hide a pregnancy, and all its side effects, in those tumultuous early weeks. How are you then supposed to explain why you need time off to heal or to grieve? And what if you don’t get sick days at all, or your job requires manual labor? Maybe you’re worried about being “mommy-tracked” — or worse — if your boss finds out you’re trying to have a baby. Even being in the same room as your colleagues as they chatter obliviously about their children’s lives can be excruciating.

If you lose a pregnancy in the second or third trimester, this all becomes that much more harrowing.

Though it might not help much at work, there seems to be a growing number of women eschewing the so-called 12-week rule — the period during which doctors have traditionally told families to keep their pregnancy news a secret, given the risk of miscarriage in the first trimester.

But perhaps a more useful framework would be: If you were to lose your pregnancy, who would you want to know about it? Who would you want to be there to support you? Maybe entrusting the people on that list with one’s news — however long or short the list may be — would help women feel less isolated.

There’s nothing shameful about having a miscarriage. So what if we stopped acting that way, in defiance of all the forces that have shaped our perceptions? We might not be able to change how society handles miscarriage overnight. But even opening up to a few new people can be healing for you, and possibly also for them.

You might be surprised how many people you know have walked in the same shoes.