It’s been on my heart to write about this for a while. I hear a lot of hurtful comments made and see a lot of unnecessary comments written on social media and I think to myself ….. sometimes it’s really okay to say nothing at all. Sometimes we are so desperate for people to know that we love them, that we care and are thinking about them, or that we are hurting right alongside them simply because they are hurting; that we feel we must speak up. It’s just not true.  We put these pressures on ourselves to be supportive for people and sometimes we’re not even sure how to handle our own feelings and emotions…..sometimes we don’t know how to respond. So I’m going to share my story, the story of my first miscarriage, in brief… and a few of the hurtful things I heard along the way. I’ll even share a few comments I’ve heard in the last few years since the first one and how I choose to deal with those comments and I’m hoping that it’ll help you……maybe it’ll help you to know it’s okay to hurt and it’s okay to cry and it’s okay to not want anyone to say anything and it’s okay to say nothing at all.

My very first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. The pain that came out of that time was so real and so raw, it made me feel everything and numbed me at the same time. There are only a couple times in my life where I can recall so vividly the feelings. I remember the physical and emotional pain associated with the loss, I remember the mental anguish, and the emptiness I felt within my whole being, I remember nearly every car drive down a back road with my white knuckles; clenching the steering wheel, cursing – in a fit of rage, while salty tears that seemed hot as coals streamed down my already burning face. Up until that moment in my life I’d never experienced that kind of love; I’d never experienced that kind of emotion in life. I’d never wish that hurt on anyone, not even my worst enemy, but I wouldn’t trade that season for anything either because I’m just as in love with my little baby now as I was the moment I first heard her heartbeat, and that’s something worth holding on August 2nd . . . that’s something to hold on to…I can still celebrate her due date, and sweet summer was never so sweet to think the fall would bring my baby to me.

I never got to hold that sweet baby. By the time my body physically showed signs of a miscarriage and I went to the ER (in my 2nd trimester) it showed the baby had stopped growing one month earlier; just one week after the last ultrasound I had done. I carried my sweet little Emma in my tummy the last month, talking to her, singing to her, telling her “mommy loves you”, and rubbing my belly ……. completely unaware that she’d passed. By the time they took me back for the D&C I had an infection in my body that was so bad from what the doctors called a “missed abortion”. (First let me say that the medical community needs to stop using this term. Just stop. Please. I yelled at the first doctor to say this. My follow – up paper even said “spontaneous abortion”. My ob/gyn reiterated that yes, it was a “missed abortion” and that was the correct term. I’ve since heard it called a “missed miscarriage” in recent years and that’s much easier to hear. If you are a medical professional reading this, or really anyone, please never call this an abortion. It’s just simply hurtful. It’s quite possibly one of the most hurtful things that have ever been said to me in my entire life. If you’ve had a “missed miscarriage” & someone called it something else, I’m deeply sorry for the hurt that must have caused you. Moving on) I was given multiple antibiotics via IV going into the surgery b/c they were afraid of the infection spreading to my brain it was so bad. I remember waking up from surgery and immediately grabbing my belly and crying out, “My baby! My baby!” I had never felt so empty in my entire life. My heart was empty. My body felt empty. I could physically feel the emptiness in my womb. This will probably sound sick  but in that moment, right before surgery, I asked the nurse was there anyway that I could just leave the baby in there. I couldn’t bare to part with her. I couldn’t live without her. She was my heart. She was my everything. She was my baby. I wanted to die right there along with her.

She was placed in a tiny little box and there was a little service. There’s a large plot out in the cemetery where she was laid to rest, it’s owned by the hospital where my ob/gyn worked, where I “delivered” her…..it’s for all the sweet little babies who were lost in utero or stillborn before 20weeks…..and if parents consented they were buried there. I think about her a lot but the cemetery is right across the street from my local Walmart, so I pass it all the time. The service was precious. I wasn’t going to go but a friend came and basically made me go. I didn’t bother telling anyone in my family about it. I was so depressed. I had complications in healing. The infection took a while to heal. I hemorrhaged once home and ended back in the ER. My doctor had me taking antidepressants but only gave me enough for three months b/c he wanted me to “experience my emotions” which made me hate him b/c I wanted to be numb for the rest of my life. Grief is a real nasty thing. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy! (“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 ESV)

The pain doesn’t go away. Time doesn’t heal any wounds. But you learn to move on with your life. And love. Love heals a lot of things. Love, not time, heals wounds. And I found a love in Jesus that I hadn’t known before. It doesn’t keep me from getting mad, sad, or confused all the time, it’s simply where my hope comes from. He’s where my joy comes from. He is my joy.

I really want to be sensitive when I write these next words. I can remember all too well the words that some spoke, while others seemed to just be slurred together. I know I’m not alone because I’ve heard these very similar words uttered to other mothers who have experienced miscarriage and infant loss, and it hurts me to the core to hear other women on the receiving end of these comments. I know your intentions are good, but take heart, you don’t have to say anything. The great Alison Krauss has a song I love, “When You Say Nothing At All“, and if you need any affirmation then just read those lyrics, sometimes “you say it best when you say nothing it at all.”

From the medical community, family, friends, coworkers, and more …….

“Everything happens for a reason”

“It just wasn’t meant to be”

“There was probably something wrong with baby anyway”

“God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”

“Do you think it’s from not sleeping enough”

“Do you think it’s because you have been taking tylenol”

“It’s only a clump of tissue”

“Maybe you weren’t eating enough healthy foods”

“It’s probably because you didn’t take folic acid before getting pregnant”

“It wasn’t a real baby yet”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been stressing so much”

“You said you didn’t think you were ready to be a mom, next time you can make sure you are”

“You’re going to be back to normal and feeling fine in a couple weeks”

“This is natures way of taking care of things”

“At least you know you can get pregnant”

“At least it happened now before it got bigger”

“At least you’ll know what to expect if it happens again”

Then after my daughter was born, here are some additional comments I heard for my 2nd miscarriage. For my 3rd miscarriage. For my 4th miscarriage.

“At least you already have one baby”, “You should be thankful that you already have one”, “Some people would do anything to just have one, you already have that”

*My OBGYN made the comment, in trying to comfort me, saying, “1 in 3 women will suffer a miscarriage in her lifetime”.

(That number is true, and in fact, another gyno later told me the number is probably higher but many will never know b/c they’ll have a “natural” m/c before they ever even know they’re pregnant to begin with. My doctor meant well. He had his heart in the right place. I know this, because his preceding words were, “…..if it makes you feel any better, 1 in 3 women”. Except no, that didn’t make me feel any better. It just broke my heart into pieces even more so.)

*I’ve even had a friend in recent years refer to my subsequent miscarriages (I’ve been pregnant 6 times that I know of, 4 confirmed losses), that, “you have a whole litter of babies in heaven”. I can’t remember much of the conversation or why it was said, she had zero ill-intent of that I am sure, but it’s those comments that will take you back and knock the wind out of you a little bit.*

I didn’t always handle the comments so well. I certainly wasn’t always acting very lovingly towards the givers nor as a receiver. I would criticize others for their careless, mean,  words, and I’d spew back hurtful words in my head…..God-willing they stayed in my head, because there wasn’t always a filter and some of the hurt came straight through that mouth of mine. Other times I took those hurtful comments that I heard over time, and not just during that first miscarriage (albeit that was the hardest time), but all of them …. and I’d feed those words to myself. Every sentence spoken to me I would eat up. I managed in the course of a day to convince myself that I was the only woman, since the history of creation, to make herself have a miscarriage by way of complete lack of common sense. I told myself that I caused it to happen. It was my fault. I told myself I would have been a horrible mother. I told myself I WAS the worst mother.

Let me tell you something ……. a grieving mother needs NO HELP blaming herself for the precious, significant, monumental loss she’s suffering, she’s going to do that all by herself. But the words you give her will either be a tool to help in her grief, or a torture device for the self-inflicting pain she’s going to thrust upon herself…..the pain she’s going to hide from you and the rest of the world.

A little tact goes a long way. Sometimes a sweet smile and simply grabbing someones hand or a pat on the back just to let them know that you’re there is really all that is needed. I have no ill will in writing this, it’s simply on my heart. I feel that the more educated people are the more they’ll know what’s appropriate to say, or what not to. Certainly if you feel the need to speak then do so but just keep in mind that the words you say have the power to tear a heart in two.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”   Proverbs 18:21 (KJV)

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