What to Expect When You're Expecting to Have a Baby... and Then You Don't.
When I initially saw the signs in my office parking lot, my first thought was how great it was that they had designated parking for pregnant women. My second thought was that I couldn’t wait to utilize them when I finally got pregnant again.
Now, they’re just a stinging reminder when I walk by.
For the last 5 months, I’ve mostly tried to avoid making eye contact with them, but on occasion, I can feel them burrowing a hole into me, and decide to sneak a look. I always regret it. Like knowing you shouldn’t touch something hot, but doing it anyway. I guess just to see if it hurts.
I had my first miscarriage in 2020. It was my first time being pregnant and I was so excited. I knew I should wait until I was through the first trimester, but I told my closest friends at 6 weeks, when we went out for a girl’s dinner. Two weeks later, I started bleeding. All these years later, I still have a negative association with the restaurant we went to. I’m pretty good at holding a grudge.
Before we even got the hCG results back, I could tell I wasn’t pregnant anymore. I could just feel it. I was upset, but I felt like I was handling it pretty well. My OB said that the emotions would really kick in two weeks later, once my hormones dropped. Two weeks to the day, I felt fine and was like well, I guess he was wrong, all seems good here. Lol. They hit a few days later, and it was rough. I assumed it would get easier once my hormones evened back out, but in actuality, it was emotionally devastating every time I got my fucking period for the next year. Basically, until I finally got pregnant again and had my daughter.
As anyone who has suffered a pregnancy loss will tell you, you essentially spend the entire 9 months of a successful pregnancy holding your breath, waiting for something bad to happen. Once she was here, I could finally relax. I had done it. My body had done it.
When our daughter was almost two, we decided to start trying for another. It was taking a while, which was pretty common for us, but I did start to wonder if it might not happen after all. At first I found this really upsetting. My baby was growing up too fast and we wanted her to have a sibling. I felt like I would be so sad if we couldn’t have another. Eventually, I started to think that it probably wasn’t going to happen though, and I was ok if she was an only child. Then, months later I was pregnant. Somehow, I felt shocked by this, as if I didn’t know how babies were made and we hadn’t been trying?
The week we found out I was pregnant, we also put in an offer on our house, because apparently, we love chaos. The timing felt like serendipity though. We hadn’t even been planning to move in the first place, but then a bigger house was going up for sale next door to my in-laws. Everything seemed to be falling into place - having family right next door to help with the baby, more room for the kids to play. I felt so confident that this pregnancy was going to stick, that I was totally blindsided when it didn’t.
When we went in for my 9 week appointment, my OB said all looked healthy, but that I was only 5 weeks along, not 9 like I thought. He said it was super common for people to have the dates wrong. I couldn’t get my period tracker app to pull up when we were in the office, and I hadn’t been tracking super well, but I just didn’t think that could be possible. All we could do was wait until the hCG tests came back. Once I was home, I used everything I could remember to piece together a timeline and the math just wasn’t mathing. But since I had time to kill and anxiety to burn, I Googled every sign, symptom, and scenario possible in the days waiting for the test results, oscillating between hope and skepticism that things would work out.
The Friday that I found out my hCG had gone down instead of doubling, I started bleeding. It was clear where this was heading.
What I was not expecting however, was how much harder this miscarriage would be physically. I passed so much blood and had such large clots, it was kind of terrifying. I was afraid to leave the toilet as it kept pouring out of me, and eventually ended up going to the hospital to ensure I was ok. I thought that was the worst of it, but then two days later I was trying to see if I get could myself together enough to go to work on Monday morning, when I felt a horrible pain and began bleeding super heavily again. It was much more severe than any period cramping I had ever felt before, but once the tissue passed, the pain mostly subsided. I then continued to bleed to varying degrees for the next three weeks.
When my OB - who had been busy in surgery - finally had a chance to call me that day to discuss the test results I had seen online days earlier, he said it sounded unlikely to be a viable pregnancy.
Yeah, no shit.
While my second miscarriage was pretty traumatic physically, it was significantly easier emotionally. It was obviously very upsetting at the time, and is still sad to think about, but I never had the big hormone drop or sadness with periods the second time. I think a huge part of that is obviously because I have a daughter this time around, where as the first time I was desperate to be a mom and wasn’t.
While I’m no expert on this stuff, I have had two very different experiences, so I want to share what I’ve learned in case it can help anyone else. If this were a fun topic, I might call this ‘The Deebs’ Guide to Miscarriages.’ It’s not… but I’m sticking with the name anyways, so here we go:
It can be really hard to be happy for your friends when you’re suffering. And that will probably make you feel like an asshole. I remember trying not to cry when friends would announce they were pregnant, feeling bitter when I would see pregnant women out in public, holding it together during baby showers, and finding it almost impossible to congratulate a friend who gave birth right around what should have been my due date. I wanted to shout at all of them, “THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE ME!”
It can feel really isolating at times, but I’ve also learned that as more people talk about it, you feel less alone. About 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, which means you likely know multiple people that have had them. When it first happened to me, I didn’t know that many people in my life who had gone through it, but by the second time, I did, partially from having those conversations. If writing this post helps someone else feel less alone, it’s worth it to talk about my experiences. Also, while you might feel alone, you’re not, so lean on your support people. I am so grateful to my husband, family, and friends who helped me however they could.
Tell people if you want to, or don’t. I’ve been very grateful to have bosses that I could be upfront with. The first time, I was working for a woman I felt super comfortable with, so I had no hesitation to loop her into the situation. The second time, however, I worked for all men. I didn’t know if I wanted to specify what I was going through, but I also wasn’t sure what to expect emotionally or what I might need in regards to time off, so I told them about it. All of my bosses were of course super kind and understanding, so telling them just made it easier for me to take the time I needed to recover. But it’s also a very personal and vulnerable thing to share, so if your boss sucks, feel free to just call in sick - no explanation needed.
Even if you don’t feel like you need it, rest. Take time off. Don’t try to go to work. Be near your own toilet.
You need so many more pads and rolls of toilet paper than you think you will. I recommend the extra-long overnight pads to minimize how often you have to wash your sheets/pants/underwear. The last thing you need is more laundry to do while you’re busy living in the bathroom.
You have been placed on an emotional rollercoaster ride that is out of your control. You will feel fine and then absolutely not fine at the drop of a hat. This could last a couple days, weeks, months, or longer. It’s a real crapshoot. It could be years from now, and suddenly you’re getting wrecked by episodes of Bluey (see “The Show;” see “Baby Race;” see “Onesies;” see “The Sign;” - and these are only the pregnancy-related episodes! Yeah, I cry a lot at Bluey, ok?)
Most importantly: Be kind to yourself. It isn’t your fault. There is nothing wrong with your body. It was really hard not to feel frustrated with myself, especially the first time. I didn’t understand why my body couldn’t do the thing it was supposed to do, so I figured there must be something wrong with it, or me. It’s normal to feel angry with yourself, or God, or the smug-looking pregnant women (who are probably perfectly nice, and are likely just hungry and tired), but it’s no one’s fault. Shit just happens sometimes, and it really, really sucks.
The emotions of pregnancy loss still feel so raw. It’s not top of mind as often for me now, but it’s still incredibly emotional revisiting those feelings.
It feels like it might always be.
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ILYSM 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽
Something you never recover from 😢. I’m sorry, Carly. You were a really good and caring friend when I had one - thank you for that ❤️