Lifting the Veil

Melissa Webster

by Kelly Bryan Smith
January 28, 2009

I shivered in the cloth gown on the exam table as I waited to have my routine sonogram. I felt frustrated after spending more than an hour in the waiting room. I felt exhausted and nauseated like I had for the last two months; and I felt desperately hungry for a veggie sub and a chocolate milkshake. But as soon as the image of my uterus came up on the screen, all that disappeared. I saw my baby, and I knew that he or she was too small. My husband squeezed my hand. The ultrasound technician couldn’t find our baby’s heartbeat, and neither could my doctor. The whole world was suddenly ripped out from under my feet.

My nausea came rushing back as my doctor led us into another room to talk about options for removing our baby. Before I could even begin to wrap my head around our loss, I found myself scheduled for surgery first thing the next morning. The day and night passed in a blur of tears and disbelief. We had thought everything was going well with the baby. I hadn’t had any symptoms to suggest that I was having a miscarriage. I didn’t really believe that this could be happening to me. But that night before the surgery, I started to bleed, and it finally hit me that my pregnancy was over.

The surgery itself was much easier than I expected. I woke up to find my husband, my brother, and some friends at my side. I didn’t even need the painkillers. I just needed to prove I could pee before the nurse would let me go home. But I wasn’t prepared for the emotional toll.

Seven months later, I still cry for the baby we lost. I still feel a vast hole where my child used to be. I still try to avoid seeing people who might not know that we lost our first baby. I feel sick when I have to drive by the protesters on State Street holding up pictures of aborted babies. I am now four months into a new pregnancy, and although I am thrilled to have another baby growing inside me and I am now out of the danger zone of the first trimester, I feel fear every day that I could lose this baby, too.

Miscarriage is hard whenever it happens. But for women who suffer loss in their first pregnancies, subsequent pregnancies can be emotionally difficult. We are forced to realize that pregnancy does not necessarily result in bringing home a bundle of joy from the hospital nine months later. Later pregnancies can feel unreal, even if the physical realities are hard to ignore.

I didn’t know that this could happen to me. I thought I was too young, too healthy. I didn’t realize that up to 25 percent of confirmed pregnancies end in loss. I had never heard of a “missed miscarriage,” which is characterized by a lack of symptoms of a baby’s death. I didn’t have any clue how painful the question, “Do you have any children?” could be to hear and how hard it could be to answer.

“God needed another angel in heaven”; “At least you won’t have to care for a handicapped child”; “You still have time, and at least you know you can get pregnant”; “It happens all the time”; “This baby just wasn’t meant to be.” I’ve heard these phrases dozens of times from well-meaning friends and family, but it’s hard to take comfort in any of them. Nothing can diminish my love for my child, and my heartbreak over what is a unique loss, not a statistic.

I was shocked after we lost our baby that so many women I know shared that they, too, had had a miscarriage—or more than one. Even women who had lost their babies 20 years ago cried with me. Even women across oceans and continents shared my pain through e-mails and online forums.

But why doesn’t anyone talk about it before it happens? Why is there a veil of secrecy behind which we can only share our grief with others who have experienced the same grief? When I found out that our baby was no longer alive, I felt alone in the world. Indeed, there were people who seemed frightened of me, as if I had a contagious disease. And there were others who just never said anything about our baby at all. How was I to realize that a large percentage of women I know had suffered a similar loss? This wouldn’t have made my loss any less devastating, but I think it would have made a difference. It would have helped me to realize that I should not blame myself.

How To Help Yourself Heal

• For some people, seeing their baby’s body helps give closure.
• Make a memory box with your sonogram photo and other mementos of your pregnancy.
• Write a letter to your baby.
• Give your baby a name.
• Plant a tree or another long-lasting plant in honor of your baby.
• Have a church service for your baby.
• Cry when you feel the need to cry. Suppressing it makes it worse.
• Make an album of your all-time favorite photos to look at on a bad day.
• Keep a journal.
• Talk to your partner.
• Talk to other people who have lost a baby.
• Follow your instincts. If you need to stay busy, do that. If you need to take some time off, do.
• After a brief junk-food binge, eat healthy foods to help your body recover.
• Get fresh air and exercise.


How to Be There for a Friend

• Write a note or make a phone call to say you are sorry about the loss as soon as you hear about it.
• Stick to something simple like, “I’m so sorry to hear about your loss.”
• Don’t try to explain away the loss.
• Give a living, easy-to-care-for plant in memory of your friend’s baby.
• Make a specific offer of help and follow through on it.
• Offer to bring food over in the early days when your friend may not remember to eat.
• Ask how your friend is doing on a regular basis.
• Remember the date of your friend’s loss.
• Offer to take your friend somewhere fun to get him or her out of the house.
• Keep making offers even if your first one is refused.
• Give your friend a bottle of bubble bath, a gift certificate for a massage or some homemade cookies.
• Listen to your friend when they need to talk.
• Change the subject if your friend doesn’t want to talk about it.
• Ask how else you can support your friend.
• Don’t expect your friend to grieve according to a certain timeline.
• Don’t ask when your friend is going to try to conceive again.
• Don’t assume that your friend is no longer feeling sad about their loss if they have conceived another baby.

Recommended Reading
“Empty Arms” by Pam Vredevelt
“Grieving the Child I Never Knew” by Kathe Wunnenberg
“I Never Held You” by Ellen DuBois
“Surviving Miscarriage: You are Not Alone” by Stacy McLaughlin
“Avoiding Miscarriage” by Susan Rousselot
“Trying Again” by Ann Douglas and John Sussman

Online Resources
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/miscarriage/PR00097
http://www.nationalshareoffice.com/index.shtml
http://www.silentgrief.com

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