I too had a Miscarriage | October Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

Here comes the month of October, as I am writing this. It is also known as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. It’s a dark and extremely painful journey for those who has had this.

I still wonder how my life would have been if I hadn’t miscarried. Don’t get me wrong. I embrace my present motherhood and feel terrifically blessed to have a 2-year-old girl sleeping beside me being breastfed. But when I came to know that October is pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, it took me back to my miserable past.

The problem with the world is that everyone wants to talk about their joys. Try to show just a little impression of anguish, and you are left all alone.

The reason why so many couples suffer in silence when they miscarry is that nobody wants to hear their sob story. It makes everyone uncomfortable. They don’t know what to do with that information, what to say on that matter, or how to respond.

This attitude makes them feel completely left out, with no fault of their own. My point is to not gain sympathy but to generate awareness on this. So that someone who undergoes the same situation can feel seen and validated. And to those who don't have experience, well, you'll know what it is like. I am trying to be as raw as I can with no filter. It's a hard pill to swallow but sometimes pregnancies don't end up in celebration.

I had a history of infertility for quite some years, in which trying to conceive was way harder than for a regular person. I had all kinds of pills and medications, minor surgeries, even a few rounds of IUIs, and an IVF with no luck. Then one fine morning, I realised that my periods weren’t arriving. With a little hope, I just went to buy a pregnancy test kit, and bam!! I was pregnant. The degree of excitement I and my husband had in the first week of January 2021 cannot be described in words.

It felt like a little victory because a doctor told me not many weeks ago that I couldn’t conceive naturally. Our parents were the first ones to share this big news. There were a few others on the list of our close friends and relatives with whom we shared as well. Little did we know that the news would spread like wildfire. At a certain point, most of our family members knew. I was stressed and suspected of several what-ifs. What if something goes wrong? Any kind of wrong, for that matter. And it did.

I wasn’t sure when to have a doctor’s appointment, so I decided to go visit at around 8 weeks. When I had an ultrasound, there was NO heartbeat. The radiologist kept on checking and finally told me there was no cardiac activity. How could it be?

One day I was pregnant, and another day I was told that the foetus didn’t show any physical progress past 6.5 weeks. What did I do? Did I eat something I wasn’t supposed to eat? Did I manifest it because I thought about it? Wasn’t I supposed to go before, and could’ve possibly prevented all this?

I was devastated. I went back home and cried on the terrace under the sun. I failed, miserably. The doctor seemed right at this point. However, I still hoped that the fetus was developing slowly and that the heartbeat wasn’t showing due to its smaller size. I wished it was true.

It wasn’t. In less than a week, I suddenly felt like I was bleeding profusely. I rushed inside the washroom of my house and saw a big, tissue-like structure oozing from my insides. This didn’t feel like a regular clot usually seen during menstrual periods. It was more like a blob. I told my husband to bring me a sanitary pad, and I put it then and there. It was a mistake to even consider that a thin pad would absorb a bucket full of blood that was about to arrive.

Moments after I put my pad on and continued walking past another room, my husband saw more bleeding. The drops continued and reached my full legs until the ground. I went back to the bathroom and sat on the toilet bowl. It was at this point that more tissues passed. It was a blood bath. The bathroom turned red. I was so traumatized that it makes me terrified even to this day. I spent over 2 hours inside the bathroom. I really wished it was a bad dream.

I lost the child I longed for. How would I make sense of everything? I already pictured the future toddler, the way (s)he would look or behave; the way they would laugh or tease. It all vanished into thin air. How would I face this world that was expecting something from us after months? Would they blame me?

They say roughly 1 in 4 women loses her pregnancy at some point. It is approximately 25% of the total number of women. For them, it’s just a number. For the individual, it’s like their life is snatched away. She already pictured the would-be scenarios moments after she saw those two lines. It aches her heart that it no longer exists. It could just be a “lump of tissues” for someone. It’s a literal baby for somebody who carried it even for a few days.

There are stories where there is more structural development of the fetus but it cannot be carried any further due to complications or the birth of a dead baby at the time of delivery. Trust me, none of it is “more miserable”. You cannot compare how someone who loses it early is more at an advantage or in a better position just because they didn’t have to go through the pain of childbirth. Sure, there will be differences in how those cases will be physically handled. But a loss is a loss. Period. Miscarriage creates scar, both mentally and emotionally forever.

One can’t stay positive when they don’t see any results. Having infertility already and a history of one miscarriage questioned my ability to conceive ever again, when months after months I kept menstruating.

My current baby is a blessing, but the void remains. Expecting someone to move on with their life if they go on to have a healthy baby later after one or more miscarriages is like asking them to forget one child who died of an accident while their other two are growing up and surviving just fine. The parent’s sorrow is completely valid, even if it is the loss of just one. Joy and misery can coexist. Human experiences and their strategies to cope are often complex. One does not have to keep things in separate black-and-white boxes.

All women around the world remember the date when they conceive, miscarry, and the possible due date they were supposed to deliver. I remember getting “good news” from other couples who successfully delivered by the end of that year, nearly during the same time of my own due date. So, even though I was happy for them, I was dying inside for my own loss.

If pregnancy losses were easy and moving on from that experience wasn’t that hard, why would a couple cry on account of it? I do not know of a single case where a couple did not care about their loss. They don’t say it, but it’s there. I remember at the time of my healthy pregnancy (which happened the following year) how few women came out crying from the radiology department, and my gut could sense that something wasn’t right.

There is this incredible shame associated with losing an unborn child. People often believe several myths associated with it, and no matter how educated you are about the subject, people’s statements will always be hurtful, knowing that they are forever going to blame you for your loss. It is quite common that people who are not directly affected will still have the audacity to blabber nonsense regarding your miscarriage. Even though you know it’s not your fault, it’s freaking painful to witness that the rest of the world will speak negatively behind your back and move on without empathy or remorse.

There are additional things that people say that do come from a place of console but aren’t helpful either. It is, “At least now you know that you can conceive naturally!”. Hey! Not the good news for couples who desperately want to experience the entire course of pregnancy. Not helpful!

I always wanted to go back to my infertile life, where I was stressed about not being able to get pregnant, instead of losing a living baby inside of me. The loss seemed more unbearable.

“You know, there are always options available. Adopt one!”

Many couples do not go for an alternative route because they get stuck in a loop of hopes and setbacks. This is a piece of unsolicited advice because someone who is already grieving their loss wants to feel seen, heard, and perhaps validated. They are not looking for a solution at this point. Sure, they do know of the ‘possibilities’ more than the rest of the world, but it is their journey, and they feel left out. Left out because it is indeed felt like a failure to not witness happiness like others.

To put it into words, it is like a person died, and you grieve despite having never met that person. They say that one could get pregnant again. The problem was that we were having troubles already, and so, we wanted THAT particular baby. We deserved the same degree of excitement as any other fortunate couples who never experience this. Having shattered dreams makes us couples paranoid about our next (healthy) pregnancy, and we prepare for the worst. It could be self-preservation, but so not fair.

Think of something you wanted so badly that nothing could replace it. Getting into the Indian Institution of Technology to pursue engineering or doing a master's from an Ivy League college, for instance. Of course, there are other options if you don’t get admission there, but the depth of achievement does not appear the same for quite some years.

If I do not want to get pregnant, I shouldn’t be. If I plan to conceive anywhere in the future, I should be able to without hassles. People are obsessed with the pregnancy journey. This is how most of them planned it. It is not selfish to want a child of your own. We all are genetically programmed to. It is selfish to physically or emotionally abandon a child, biological or adopted. I wish more and more people could at least empathize even if they do not have the same kind of life experience. Infertility and miscarriage are one of the most underrated battles that is heavily misunderstood and invalidated.

I still remember a distant family member who had lost two pregnancies in her first and second trimester respectively followed by a successful delivery of a baby boy only to lose him after 4 months due to heart troubles. I was not married back then and I had no idea what toll it generally takes to try for children, but it surely had shaken me to the core. I felt so helpless as I really wanted to help this woman to process her grievance. I just simply sat there and listened to her narrative about all those things that she witnessed – from the day she went with her husband to a hospital for a routine checkup until her son’s burial at their native place. She also nursed another woman’s baby a few times when she was still producing milk. She went on to have two healthy daughters later, but I am sure her son remains like an unspeakable chapter in her life.

If you had lost a baby before or after the delivery, I am truly sorry for your loss. You did not deserve this. The rest of the world will not get it but you are not alone. You’ve fought a silent battle and you are strong enough to move past this.

I had once heard that there are souls around us, few of whom want to take birth choosing us as their parents. When we miscarry in the physical world, it is the soul that exits abruptly due to some reason. This same soul most likely comes back in our following pregnancy whenever it feels ready and I truly want to believe this. For atheists out there, just know that the spontaneous abortion does not imply no future pregnancy. It might take a while but most couples continue to have a successful conception with a healthy baby in their arms.

One lesson I learned so far is that, desperation leads us nowhere. If you keep fixating on the same thing, you will be disappointed. You will have to train your mind to keep busy on other stuff alongside occasional visualisation what you truly want. Now, let it go and continue concentrating on other objectives. If it is truly meant to be, the universe will make sure that you will get it. Everything makes sense when it finally arrives and you will literally feel that within.