I had a miscarriage in February. The pregnancy did not progress past the five week mark, but the sac had grown to about nine weeks. I was devastated.
The night after my sonogram when I found out there was no heartbeat, I stayed up until five in the morning writing about the sadness of the experience.
Cut to a month or so later. I’m surrounded by constant reminders that I’m not pregnant and yet, I’m walking around feeling healthy and normal and, well, not depressed at all. I am functional and happy, despite two of my friends being pregnant (and due when I would have been due) and two of their friends being pregnant as well. They don’t even act weird around me, meaning I must be sending normal energy out into the universe.
Based on all my highly sensitive reactions to all things TTC (trying to conceive), I assumed I would be a wreck after this miscarriage. If I broke out pie charts of my life’s traumas and the resulting coping mechanisms, you would safely predict that my miscarriage would be a major setback. You might predict that you’d find me for 12 days straight, showering only three of those days, ugly-crying on a cot, in a dark room, living off of strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups and Totino’s Pizza. Because that’s how I cope with trauma.
But no. After that first wave of sadness, I’m good.
It helped to learn that one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Medically speaking miscarriages are actually, dare I say, relatively normal occurrences. That helped me feel better about what had happened.
While I was trying to conceive, I didn’t know if my body knew how to get pregnant, which was emotionally draining for me. While my miscarriage was terrible, I figure I should be thankful that my body does, in fact, still know how to get pregnant. Now, can it stay pregnant? I will cross that bridge when it’s time. After I shared the story of my miscarriage, I got an email from a reader saying that “it’s all about the right soul at the right time.” And that really helped. This time wasn’t the time.
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Also, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that I couldn’t really find many folks sharing my experience of recovering from my miscarriage… who’s really going to go on the Internet and say “I feel awesome!” after a miscarriage? No one would do that. (Ducks head behind laptop.) People who share their feelings of sadness are looking for others with a common experience. That is normal. That warrants a ton of Internet conversation — to relate to someone is huge part of the healing. So, when I did a search about not being depressed after a miscarriage, I shouldn’t have been surprised that I didn’t find much. But no one wants to be judged for not feeling the way she’s “supposed” to feel.
Sure, this “okayness” might be fleeting. I might feel totally devastated next week, next month, next year. Who could know? But for right now, I feel fine, and I don’t want to feel bad about this response. So if you’re reading this and you relate, well then, that’s great.
I will say it again so that it comes up in the search engine for anyone looking for validation like I was. I don’t feel that depressed after my miscarriage. And that’s okay, too.
I’m also so glad to come across this. Also had a miscarriage 2 weeks ago and I feel fine. Sad moment here and there but not devastated or anything. It’s not as though I can’t try again. I feel bad to say I’m okay too since people expect me to be sadder I guess…
Wow! This post felt like I wrote it. Both of my best friends are due around the same time I was due. I am in the same situation accept that mine happened in October. Thank you for this.
Thank you so much for writing this. We have our 12 week scan today and I’m really nervous something is wrong, and I know everyone grieves in different ways but just wanted some assurance that it’s ok (I tend to deal with things very logically).
7 years later and this post is still positively affecting women. I had a miscarriage yesterday at 10 weeks. I knew it was coming when the brown spotting turned red. We were flying home from being out of town for a wedding and I went straight to the ER. When I got to ultrasound, there was an empty sac. I was a hot mess all day. Crying in the uber on the way to the airport, at the airport, on the plane, the car ride home and was a blubbering mess at the hospital. Luckily, I passed everything at home and it was rather painless, more like a bad period. I cried and cried, but just for that day. My husband let me sleep in while he took care of our 1.5yr old daughter. I woke up feeling pretty good. I kept telling people how surprisingly ok I was. Even my husband was surprised, because I tend to be overly emotional about everything. As I sit her googling if this is normal, I came across this and now I can go to sleep. Thank you for sharing. I know everyone is different and processes differently, but it’s nice to know you’re not alone. I also trusted that my body knew what was the right thing to do. I have a beautiful daughter and a wonderful husband that I’m so grateful for. I’m confident we’ll get pregnant again. I’m focused on being positive, healing and trying again as soon as possible. I’m also still happy for my best friend who was due two days after me and my other best friend just had a baby and I feel so happy for them. I’m happy we can get pregnant and I know I can carry a healthy pregnancy. I I understand for women who don’t have a living baby, it must be so much harder. But thank you for this, 7 years later.
Thank you so much for this post. I too have recently experienced a pregnancy loss and feel (surprisingly) okay. It was an absolute shock to discover that my pregnancy wasn’t viable (and perhaps there’s a learning for me not to take such things for granted), but like you, I felt a a strong sense of ‘comfort’ (for want of a better word) in knowing that miscarriage is an incredibly common occurrence and that, notwithstanding the sadness I felt / feel, I was able to conceive naturally with few issues. Instead of feeling sad or lonely at the sight of newborns, or upon hearing the news of a friend’s pregnancy, I feel overwhelming hope that I will have that experience again too (I already have a very boisterous 2.5 year old). I chose to have a D&C after a week of waiting, waiting (after being told that the pregnancy was not viable) and the certainty gave me, I think, the closure I needed to say good bye. Thanks again for the post and for the others who have shared on this forum.
This is exactly how I feel. I had miscarriage and thought I will be consumed in sadness. But the fact that I was able to get pregnant after a month of PCOS diagnosis was a miracle by itself. This, at least gives me huge hope that I would be to conceive naturally. This also has profoundly taught me, that I will need to take care of myself in order to bear a healthy child. Perhaps, it’s a message from universe to me.
I’m glad I found this thread. I’m going through a missed miscarriage. I had an empty gestational sac at 6 weeks. It didn’t get better by 7 weeks and my body wasn’t removing the empty sac so I had to have misoprostol. That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be; occassionally very strong cramps.
The one time I almost cried through this whole process I remember thinking ‘this isn’t a good place to cry’ (I think I was at work?), and then I thought about something else and that was it.
I think part of my reaction is that I read so much before TTC, so I knew this was a possibility. And then, I don’t think we allowed ourselves to get emotionally connected to the pregnancy, it’s like we were cautiously excited. And from the first ultrasound we were a worried mess. I stayed optimistic, but was still super worried. And I had nausea, all freaking day, everyday. I was so tired, I napped. Taking the misoprostol helped me physically feel better despite the cramps, and maybe I was already mentally resigned to the loss and emotionally spent. I had to wait the weekend before getting the medicine, and I just wanted the not-pregnancy to end, since it was confirmed unviable.
My husband has been in his feelings, which has exasperated me but also made me feel like maybe I should also be in my feelings. He’s coming out from despair, and we will try again eventually although he wasn’t sure he wanted to, and I’m dreading the nausea and mental fuzziness. We’re both worried this will happen again, but we don’t have any children yet, so we figured we’d move forward with our plans, despite the fear.
Thanks to everyone who’ve shared their stories of being ok.