Mental Health: Recovering from a Miscarriage

I’ve started this blog post so many times, started it and erased it all, started it and never been able to put words to paper. Never did I think when I said I wanted to post about mental health and the importance of mental health in my life that I would be given a fresh experience that has tested my mental health and be talking about what I’m about to talk about. Never did I think a miscarriage would happen and bring the words to me to finally write this post, that it would be the outlet of expression I needed to help myself grieve, to help myself reflect and to readjust my mental space to truly appreciate what I have been given in life. To help myself work through the feelings I was feeling. Never in my wildest dreams did I think after having a healthy and normal pregnancy with my daughter that a miscarriage would be a concern or something I should be prepared for. You know what they say though, ignorance is bliss. But it is with a very heavy and sad heart that I write this post. That I sympathize with other mothers who have gone in or will go in and experience the words being said to them “it’s not what we hoped for and we usually don’t know why these things happen, but you can try again soon.” With a heavy heart that I join a group of women and share in this sad and hard experience, a group that no one ever wants to join, but a group that 1 in 4 pregnant women get to join every single day.

Grief is a crazy thing, you never know how you’ll handle it until you’re in the thick of it. The wave of emotions can be consuming. From sadness, to blame, to anger, to confusion, to hopelessness, to defeat. Scrolling social media as the algorithm has conformed to pregnancy content, and baby content, preparing for a new life these last couple of weeks, to then be overwhelmed with sadness and despair as I’m faced with what could have been. I am so happy for all the women who are pregnant with happy and healthy pregnancies, but it is quite hard to see as dozens of women I follow are currently expecting. I watched my body change every day since that positive pregnancy test, and now I get to watch it change yet again as I lose what I gained and see it so horrifically. Women have it so hard, our bodies are constantly changing. I immediately knew I was pregnant, I bloated immediately, my boobs were extremely sore, I could smell everything within me for a mile and started cramping. The positive test was just reassurance to what I already knew, that God had given me another baby. What I didn’t expect is to lose so soon what I had gained. And worse yet, be faced with that loss for the next week or two as my body sheds everything that it had created. I’ve never been good with death, I’ve never been good with sadness, I usually become numb to it, and push it out of my path, because that’s how I’ve always dealt with things growing up. Suffer in silence. Being the oldest sister, that’s all I knew, put on a brave face for your siblings so they don’t worry or know something is wrong. I went into my appointment knowing it could and probably would be this outcome, but hearing the words consumed me with sadness, I didn’t know how I would feel. It brought over a wave of emotions I wasn’t prepared for. It continues to bring over a wave of emotions I haven’t been prepared for. I worked for months to be sure I was creating the best possible outcome, to be sure I was doing all the right things I didn’t get to do before with my surprise pregnancy. I used a basal thermometer for months to be sure I was ovulating, used ovulating strips to help pinpoint my ovulation cycle and bam got pregnant. I dreamed and prayed about this for months leading up to today. To get the positive test, to then lose it all. It’s an indescribable feeling and no amount of “I’m sorry” helps make it any easier unfortunately. Not when you’re directly faced with what you’re losing each time you go to the bathroom or change clothes. Deleting the pregnancy in all my tracking apps, bookmarking all the lists I had started to make of how we needed to shift our lives to adjust to two kids. Now, as quickly as it happened it’s gone and I have to start over again.

Lucky for me, I have had a wave of outpour of support, empathy and people reaching out to check on me. I work for a mental health company and have resources available to me if I need them. There are many support groups of people you can talk to, women who have experienced the same wave and know what lies ahead. It truly means so much and has been so helpful to know that if I need it, there is a long list of people I can turn to and count on to help lift me back up. I also take comfort in having my beautiful and healthy daughter at home to snuggle and remind me of how lucky I am. While others are not as lucky as I. There are hundreds, thousands of women struggling everyday to just get one successful pregnancy. In my searching for the right words to give me comfort during this process, I’ve found a number of women who have experienced 3, 4, 5 and 6+ miscarriages and who still keep trying. Who still keep fighting the fight. Who still keep holding onto hope. Women who have never experienced a healthy pregnancy, yearning for what they dream of most. I’m beyond blessed to have my daughter, and I pray that God blesses me again with another beautiful, happy and healthy baby.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”