But after my husband and I got over the initial shock of this little surprise, we started breaking the news to our closest friends. I know they say you should wait until 12 weeks before you tell people. But we were excited, both young and healthy, and we thought nothing would happen. At the appointment, when we got to the ultrasound portion, the doctor pulled over her dinky little machine and got the wand in place. Then she just went quiet. Looking back now, this moment still feels like a hazy dream. It seemed to last forever. I don’t see anything, she finally said. She kept looking, and still, nothing. She explained that she saw the gestational sac, the yolk sac, and some other things, but no heartbeat. She sent me for blood tests to confirm what she thought the ultrasounds were showing, and said we would go from there. Afterward, my husband and I sat down in shock, and tried to process everything. He reassured me that we would try again, and that everything would work out. I just remember hearing him but not quite taking it in. That night was one of the hardest of my life. I made the dreaded phone calls to my mother, mother-in-law, and all my friends that I had told about the pregnancy, who had been anxiously awaiting my ultrasound pictures. Those friends and family members were the perfect people to talk to in that moment: Three of them had experienced pregnancy loss, and my mother-in-law went through the same type as me. While waiting for those results over the next few days, I was in a zombie-like state. I remember lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, holding my belly, just wondering why. Then we received the results, and they showed that my blood levels were rising like they should in a normal pregnancy. So my doctor sent us for clearer ultrasound pictures. Afterward, she informed us that it was what she had expected from the beginning: I had suffered what’s called a “missed pregnancy loss” in which the baby stops developing but the body doesn’t recognize a problem and continues the pregnancy process. When I thought my body was finished three weeks later, I called my new doctor and went in for a follow-up ultrasound. I remember him just looking at me and shaking his head. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear,” he said. “But you didn’t expel everything. What’s left needs to come out now before it makes you sick — you have to get the D&C.” This was almost two months after first being told there was no heartbeat, and I just wanted to be done. I needed to try to start moving on. But now I was going to have to do the last thing I wanted to do. We scheduled the D&C for two days later. In the operating room, I stared at the ceiling, trying not to cry. The anesthesiologist was having a hard time getting his computer to work and couldn’t put me under right away. The longer I laid there, the harder my heart started to beat. My doctor looked at me, held my hand, and said, “It will all be over soon.” Two days after the procedure, I came down with a fever and severe abdominal pain. I was clotting badly and had an infection. The doctor said that if I didn’t pass the clots over the next week he would have to do another D&C. The thought of that was more than I could handle, and I begged my body to do something correctly for once. Finally I passed the clots, broke my fever, and got the good-to-go from my doctor. The physical process was over, and I had suffered only some pain. But I learned that the mental torment of going through a pregnancy loss is a pain like no other. You lie awake at night wondering what you did wrong. Was it that glass of wine you had the day before you found out? Or maybe that Italian sub you ate full of processed meats? Every day, you think of something new that could have been the cause — and then you spend hours trying to convince yourself that it wasn’t your fault. My husband was my pillar through it all: He held me anytime I asked and never questioned if I started crying. But the more I look back on what I have been through, the more I realize there is one thing that still irks me: Why is pregnancy loss so taboo? My dad died when I was 17, and when people would ask why I was sad, I would tell them. But throughout my experience, if someone asked me what was wrong I could only say, Oh it’s nothing. Just having a bad day. At one of my follow-up appointments, my doctor told me that that week he had already had five patients with pregnancy loss, and it was only Tuesday. Every person probably knows at least one person who experienced this type of loss without knowing. We shouldn’t have to hide our sadness. Pregnancy loss needs to be treated like any other tragedy, so women can turn to any of their friends for support, not just the ones who have gone through it too. I’m now sharing my story not because I want sympathy but because I want other women to know they are not alone. I know that one story isn’t going to change society’s views. But I like to think that it will be a start.
