On Christmas Eve 2014 my husband and I received a phone call from our Nurse explaining that our unborn child had no heartbeat. We were around 8 weeks pregnant at the time.
A huge part of me is flinching away from the keyboard, desperately trying to stop myself from telling this story. You see, no one really wants to hear this story; including me. Because itâs not something people talk about. We are supposed to move on and try to understand that it happens to so many people. I know there are so many women out there that have had a similar experience to mine; but Iâm tired of being silent. Iâm tired of not knowing how to grieve. Iâm hoping that by writing this all out, someone might feel less alone.
About a year ago we discovered I was pregnant. We had started trying to have a baby but never expected it to happen so quickly! We decided to call the baby Nugget until we found out the gender. At first I was hesitant to tell anyone. I had been warned by others that you shouldnât tell anyone prior to your 12 week mark to prevent the inevitable awkward conversation about losing the baby. âThat will never happen to usâ I thought. So I told lots of people! Our parents were excited, our friends were excited. I talked to work about maternity leave, my boss about maternity leave. I stopped drinking coffee and scheduled my first Drâs appointment. My first meeting was so exciting! My Midwife was from the Midwest and I felt a connection with her right away. We did all the normal stuff and after my second visit figured out that I was barely a week along. Apparently I had figured out I was pregnant pretty quickly. The ultrasound felt very strange. Not at all similar to movies where the doctor is there and they tell you all the things about your child right from the beginning. It was virtually silent, Ultrasound Technicians canât actually tell you anything. Only the Doctor can. So we left with hardly any information about our little Nugget. The second ultrasound and the same thing, but this time I told the front desk I wasnât leaving until I knew what was going on.
 They called the nurse and they had me wait a minute and then called me back to a room to tell me that they didnât seen an embryo yet and I was probably only 3-4 weeks along. We rescheduled another ultrasound for 2 weeks later. This time they said I would hear a heartbeat because it would be further down the road. The exact same thing happened. Nothing was said to us.  So I again told the front desk I wanted to talk to someone. I was told I would receive a phone call in 24-48 hours. That was scary.
When we finally found out that our Nugget was a missed pregnancy. The egg did not develop and there was no heartbeat, no life. Christmas was very hard. We told our friends, co-workers, family. They were sympathetic and loving. My husband was able to get time off to be with me and we grieved through the Holiday for our Little Nugget.
*The next little bit may be hard to read, please skip to the **** if you are sensitive to specific medical information.
 After Christmas I went to the Dr. I cried a lot. It didnât take much for the tears to stream down my face. Not the pretty crying either. The kind of crying you do when you are a little kid, with hiccups and inability to catch your breath. âAre you 100% positive thereâs no baby, I readâŠ.â I asked so many questions. My Midwife told me over and over that there was no chance Nugget was a viable pregnancy and I would need to consider my options to miscarry. She recommended medication. So I went to Wal-Mart to pick up my medication. This began my first miscarriage experience.
The manager at the pharmacy took one look at my prescription and proceeded to loudly lecture me in the line of people waiting. âYou canât take this, I hate doctorâs that prescribe these meds, and itâs going to be so painful. You should get the procedure.â In my mind, the Doctor knew best. I didnât even know what to say to this woman who had just violated my privacy, destroyed my confidence in my Doctor and terrified me beyond belief. I told her I trust my Doctor, paid for my medications and called my husband. More tears.
When we got home I didnât take the meds. I was so scared to let go of Nugget, but even more scared to hold on. This little life inside me wasnât what I thought it was. It wasnât actually alive, but in our mindsâŠNugget already had a future. Plans had been made, visions of what Nugget would be like. A whole life! Not in the medical sense, but in our dreams, Nugget was alive.
New yearâs day I finally took the meds. It took about an hour and it honest to god felt like labor. At first I felt a little drunk but then the pain came in waves. Eventually I had my husband take me to the bedroom and turn the lights off. I sat on the bed having contraction after contraction until I started to feel myself miscarry.
The pharmacy lady was wrong. I needed the closure that the physical miscarriage was. I needed to know that it was done. Not just fall asleep and wake up without Nugget.
One week later I went back to work after a whole week of sitting on the couch watching movies and trying not to watch ones with babies in them; avoiding the baby section at Wal-Mart and Target. Even a pregnant woman going to an ultrasound on TV made me sad. I felt pathetic, weak. So many women have miscarriages, right? Why was I so sad!?
Here comes the real purpose behind telling my story. It isnât just the things that happened during and after my miscarriage. Is what happened in the last 9 months that I want to talk about.
So many people knew about our pregnancy, so when we started telling them we werenât pregnant anymore there was one common theme. âYouâll have a baby someday.â This is always prefaced by genuine empathy and concern and Iâm not mad at people for being kind. But I am concerned about the way we view woman who have miscarried.
It is certainly a very common thing. But why is it that we brush it aside as not important enough to talk about! I felt that I had to keep quiet about it. Not share my experience with people, which is very against my nature. Over-sharer here; guilty as charged.
Iâm so glad that certain people in my life have been willing to talk to me about my miscarriage, without their shoulders to lean on I wouldnât have been able to pick myself up again after our loss.
If ever you meet someone who has gone through a miscarriage and you canât quite figure out the words to say. Take a minute and just listen if you can. Let them talk about their hopes and dreams for that little life. Donât try to make it all better, just be there. And if you have experienced a miscarriage; I encourage you to speak about it. Tell me your story! Tell other young women your story, so they wonât grow up not knowing anything about miscarriages. Not knowing how common they are, and how unique each womanâs pain is. If you donât want to talk about it, thatâs okay too. The pain is so real and sometimes I didnât want to talk about Nugget. On Motherâs day I just hoped and prayed no one would talk about it. But when someone finally texted me and said âHappy Motherâs dayâ I actually felt a little better. Someone acknowledged that life I spent so much time thinking about and my role in Nuggetâs life.
I am not weak. Being sad, grieving, is a natural process. No one can tell you how to do it; you need to find it for yourself. And the world needs to start talking about miscarriage. And more importantly; women need to start talking to women about miscarriage.
