And Life Goes On

I guess I should follow up after my previous post. My anger was not long-lived; especially as it had been catalyzed by people who had decent intentions. Medically, Ann’s situation is currently healthy, and quickly getting back to normal; the potential problems cited by the doctors before my last post were non-existent upon closer consideration and extra procedures were not required. This is my very elliptical way of saying “it’s over now.” Let’s move on... but first:



Over the course of the whole ordeal that was our miscarriage, I learned one astounding fact. The numbers we heard varied from source to source, but miscarriages are surprisingly common. My father passed on information he learned 20 years ago in med-school to the effect that 5% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. That is one in twenty, or, quite a lot; and that information is more than 20 years old. It dates from a time when many people and institutions still didn’t consider you pregnant until sometime after the 12th (or 20th in some cases) week. If you consider a woman to be pregnant after implantation, that number, currently reckoned, is much higher. We were informed by nurses, mid-wives, and doctors, that the number is now known to be one in eight, one in four, or one in every two pregnancies end in miscarriage. In a variety of people we’ve talked to since, we have discovered individuals who have personally experienced: one of four, one of three, two of eight, two of five, four of fifteen, and plenty more people who just aren’t sure. Miscarriages are very common; so common, that I think we would all benefit from calling them (and understanding them to be) natural.

But, miscarriages are sad. If you know you are pregnant, it is nearly impossible not to start building your hopes around a baby who’s only existence so far is little more than genetic potential. I know it is nearly impossible, for I actively and intentionally tried not to build hope. But, as it turned out, those three weeks that we knew Ann was pregnant with living potential, felt much more like three lovely months. Hope we did, expectations we built, and when all was over, sadness we felt.

It is this sadness that keeps people from talking about miscarriages. Protecting other people from this sadness is why people don’t announce pregnancies in the first trimester. I totally understand this. But, with silence comes stigma, with stigma comes guilt or shame, and with guilt and shame comes pain. For some, it is easy to shed this cycle through understanding its origin, for others it is destructive, and for most… we lie somewhere between.


So, I want to go on record (in this protected forum first, and in the larger world when the wound is less raw) as a person who is not silent on the matter of miscarriage. They are common and natural, and it just may be very helpful for people to be able to speak about them openly. So, I declare myself forever open to frank discussion on the topic. Send me an email, write in the comments, anonymously, or not; let us talk.


Sigh, okay… life goes on, and so does this blog. My next post will be a story. Stay tuned…