Miscarriage? Here's How I Got Over My Grief Of Losing A Baby

A miscarriage is not your fault. You need to get over your grief.

“I never wanted to have a baby. But the day I discovered that I was pregnant, the only thing that I wanted was my baby and I wanted it even more after the miscarriage.”

I lost my first child in a miscarriage during the early months of my pregnancy. It came as a rude shock to me when I went in for a prenatal scan thinking everything was fine and having none of the symptoms you read about. I could hardly believe the report which stated ‘Missed Abortion’. Not knowing what it meant, I panicked and rushed to another sonography centre to check again.

The other centre also confirmed that I had lost my baby and even though it had been a while since my baby was gone, I continued to feel pregnant thanks to the presence of pregnancy hormones inside me. It was almost as if my body was betraying my mind all the while. I sat there outside the clinic staring at the report in disbelief.

I Was Shattered And Hurt Like Never Before.

My heart was empty while my mind was full of questions…

Why did this happen?

Was it because I did something I was not supposed to do?

Will I ever become a mom again?

I buried myself in those thoughts and almost became immune to the professional responses from my doctor desperately trying his best to make me feel better physically. He advised us for an SOP (standard operating procedure) to dispose off my tiny baby whose heart had stopped beating inside my womb. My nameless child whom I saw only on the monitor. I was not prepared for this, even though I wasn’t very far with my pregnancy.

And even after all these years, my miscarriage remains one of the most emotionally painful experiences of my life. A silent grief I suffered all alone.

I couldn’t turn to my friends or family for emotional support because I hadn’t told everyone about my pregnancy yet. The handful of family members who knew about it tried to make me feel better by saying things like, “It is good it happened now and not later“, “Take care next time”(as if it was my fault), or “You will have another baby”.

None Of Them Could Understand How I Felt And How Desperate I Was To Get My Baby Back.

When we went in for the D&C surgery, it was all over in 20 minutes and that was when my husband broke down. Perhaps, the only time I have seen him cry for all the time we have been together. Knowing that there was someone with whom I could share my loss gave me some comfort. But the moment I was alone, I found myself immersed in uncontrollable tears. Whether it was the emotions, the guilt or just the hormones, I didn’t know yet.

I went back to work on Monday and found it extremely difficult to pretend as if nothing had happened. I walked among colleagues and secretly searched online for causes of miscarriage, I searched for something that would tell me why this happened to me. But one day I heard a colleague sobbing in the washroom and that’s when I realised I wasn’t alone.

Miscarriages are a silent grief for a lot of women.

These Are The 9 Things I Learnt From My Miscarriage :

Miscarriage can happen for any number of reasons, none of which are in your hands and it is never your fault.
You will never find the right answers or reasons as to why it happened on the Internet. So don’t waste your time looking for reasoning online.
Don’t judge your husband’s reaction, he may not be as sensitive as you are, but he is nonetheless equally affected by the loss.
Don’t make it your silent grief. Share your miscarriage experience with your friends and family, as you need a lot of emotional support during this time. Hiding it from your loved ones makes the ordeal even worse.
The more your talk to others, the more you will discover how frequently this occurs and that there are so many women who suffer a miscarriage. Many more than you think.
A miscarriage does not mean you will not become a mom again. I was blessed with a baby, a year after having the miscarriage.
A miscarriage does not mean you will not have a healthy baby in the future.
You will desperately want to have a baby immediately after a miscarriage but wait till your body recovers and till the time you are mentally prepared to start afresh.
You will always mourn the one you lost to miscarriage. So don’t rush yourself, deal with the grief first.

In India, a miscarriage is still considered taboo and is rarely discussed in public. But anyone who has experienced a miscarriage will tell you that there is no need to be silent. And that it is more important for them to break their silence and share their stories to get one step closer to overcoming their grief.

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