I Wanted Another Child. A Miscarriage Was a Relief.
Reading Time: 4 minutesSometimes an Embryo Represents Possibility. Sometimes It’s Just Some Cells., An embryo can represent possibility. Or it can just be a clump of cells., I Wanted Another Child. I Wasn’t Sad When I Had a Miscarriage.
I knew there was an issue with the pregnancy during the first ultrasound appointment, before the technician told us anything was wrong. It was taking longer than I had come to expect from prior pregnancies, and the tech seemed to take multiple versions of the same picture over and over again, squinting at the screen.
The technician left the room. I told my husband that the pregnancy was not OK. I didn’t cry. He told me to wait for the doctor. I nodded, but I just knew: I was no longer pregnant.
My OB-GYN soon confirmed that there was no sign of embryonic cardiac activity. There was nothing to do but go home and pass the pregnancy on the toilet.
‘I’m sorry,’ my doctor said.
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I responded. ‘I’m fine.’
And I was. In fact, I was relieved.
I had been trying to conceive. My husband and I were—are—hoping to eventually add a third child to our brood. Yet, the knowledge that I wasn’t pregnant felt like a gift. I felt like I could exhale fully for the first time since I had held that positive at-home pregnancy test in my hands a few weeks earlier. If my body had maintained the pregnancy, I would have been grateful, but I was equally grateful that it had not. I had passed a pregnancy I wasn’t particularly attached to and, if I’m being honest, was ambivalent about carrying.
Pregnancy loss is estimated to occur in about 10 percent of known pregnancies, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and there are a slew of reactions to this reproductive outcome, no one more ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ than another. Relief is one of those possible feelings. It can be present even when you are open to having a child.
‘Not everyone gets attached to a pregnancy from the get-go,’ says Jessica Zucker, a psychologist specializing in reproductive and maternal mental health and the author of I Had a Miscarriage: A Memoir, a Movement. In her practice and in her online community, she’s talked with women who have had experiences similar to mine following a miscarriage. ‘Relief seems to follow from a hunch or intuition that something wasn’t going right in the pregnancy, ambivalence about having a child, a desire not to become a mother at all—or not to expand the family further—or rooted in a belief that miscarriage is, in a sense, nature taking its course.’
The decision to expand our family was—and still is—complex. My husband and I do not believe we are done having children. Our family does not feel ‘complete’ and our boys have been asking for a sibling for some time. Financially, at the moment, we can afford a third child. I feel healthy enough to endure another pregnancy and the mental health implications that may come with it.
But while I want another child in some ways, I’m not over-the-moon excited about the prospect, either. Like so many working moms trying to keep themselves and their families safe in a world of viruses, guns, and political unrest, I am overworked, overwhelmed, and undersupported. Parenting is as taxing and demanding and emotionally crippling as it is a joyful, beautiful, fulfilling experience.
So when my body expelled that early pregnancy, I found comfort and solace in the fact that I would not be keeping ‘maintain a pregnancy’ on my never-ending to-do list. In my mind, my body simply made a decision for me—we wouldn’t be having a third child just yet. For that, I felt great relief and gratitude.
I didn’t feel like I could share my reaction with friends and family members, though. I took time off work to recover physically, yet the implication from my managers was that I needed time to heal emotionally, too. My dearest friends, my devoted mother, even my loving husband—they all defaulted to the role of emotional caregiver. The assumption was that I must have been hurting mentally as much as I was physically. I wasn’t.
Zucker says that because women are ‘traditionally expected to become mothers,’ or should at least have the desire to be, people like me who ‘feel a sense of relief after loss might tiptoe on eggshells as they try to share their candid feelings.’
‘Saying ‘I’m OK’ or ‘I’m not sad’ might be met with quizzical expressions or haphazard attempts at reassuring the person that ‘time will help’ or that ‘feeling the pain is normal,’ ‘ she adds. ‘But, for some, pregnancy loss is not mired in myriad emotions. For some, heartbreak is not the experience.’
I know what that heartbreak is like, too. I have miscarried wanted pregnancies before. I was forced to say goodbye to the remains of what should have been my firstborn’s twin, lost at 20 weeks in utero; denied the opportunity to be anything more than a figment of my imagination. I have felt intrinsically attached to what science has shown to be a collection of duplicating cells. At times in my life, an embryo has represented so much more than just a fertilized egg. This time, though, it was nothing but a clump of cells. How I feel about a pregnancy is dependent upon many facts of my life, including finances, romance, the current size of my family, and my career.
It was only when I felt pain and trauma from miscarriages that I felt totally comfortable discussing pregnancy loss openly with my friends and family. The heartbreak over not carrying a pregnancy to term was a ‘get out jail free’ card for my conscience, which was instilled with society’s ideas about what my body should be able to do. Now, as anti-abortion conservatives target IVF in Alabama and privately support a 16-week federal abortion ban, I shudder to think that I could one day be forced to perform grief in the midst of a pregnancy loss at the behest of politicians.
The only point of emotional pain after my most recent miscarriage was that I feel guilty for feeling relieved. It was the equivalent of a welcomed, albeit heavy, period. I am not a walking incubator with a default setting of ‘always hoping for a baby’—even if another child is in the proverbial cards. Like diapers and onesies and sleep schedules, my feelings about and plans to expand my family are subject to change at any given moment and without warning.
Maybe one day I will again find myself desperately wanting to remain pregnant. Until then, I’m relieved that I had a miscarriage and was gifted more time for the family I have, the career I love, and most importantly, for me to just be me.
Ref: slate
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