I'm Pregnant!

And it's really early, so let's talk miscarriage!

Miscarriage (or spontaneous abortion, in medical terms), is extremely common. It is estimated that more than 1 in 10 known pregnancies end in miscarriage. And if you include unknown pregnancies in that statistic, the number is probably more like 3 in 10 (although we will never know for sure). Yet miscarriage is still a taboo topic - swept under the rug, uncomfortable to discuss out in the open. It is not considered polite conversation. I want that to change. Pregnancy and motherhood is how the world has come to be, it is what creates and sustains all life, it is the basis for everything. The ins and outs, ups and downs of it deserve to be discussed and respected.

When I decided I wanted to get pregnant, I started paying meticulous attention to my body. I am very type A - I like data, organization, and to control what I can. I was never going to be casual and laid back about trying to get pregnant, I just don't have that in me! So, I cut back on alcohol, started a weight training program, and tracked my menstruation/ovulation using my basal body temperature for a few months. Once I started paying close attention, I even felt the cramps/pains of ovulation a couple of times, which was very empowering for me. I therefore found out when I was pregnant almost immediately - I got a positive test less than two weeks after conceiving. And because I wear my heart on my sleeve, I started telling loved ones the very next day!

To share pregnancy news early and widely is still a bit uncommon. Many couples choose to wait until they are more "in the clear" with their pregnancies - either after ultrasounds have confirmed healthy development, or after the end of the first trimester when the statistical risk of miscarriage has dropped drastically. I guess the thinking here is that if you don't give the news of your pregnancy, you will not have to give the news of a miscarriage. Women can spare themselves from having to share the shame and sadness that has come with miscarriage for far too long.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this approach. For one, the stigma surrounding miscarriage is completely unfounded. Even the English word - miscarriage, or "to carry wrongly" - is a misnomer. It automatically puts the responsibility of a healthy pregnancy (and the blame of a lost pregnancy) on the woman. As if the man's genes and lifestyle have no contribution. As if a healthy pregnancy that ends in a perfect baby is the norm and a given after every positive pregnancy test. Spoiler alert: it is not a given. Anyone who has had a miscarriage, anyone who has struggled with fertility, anyone who has undergone IVF treatment, knows that a healthy baby is not a given. So let's stop blaming women for miscarriages. Let's stop sweeping the topic under the rug. Let's stop expecting women to hold the weight of miscarriage all on their own.

Humans thrive on connection and community. And to create strong bonds, we have to be willing to be vulnerable. We have to share in our emotions and practice empathy with one another. Speaking about miscarriage can help take the unnecessary shame away from it. Humans have the ability to hold space for so much. We do ourselves and our loved ones a disservice to not make space for sharing pregnancy fears and complications with one another.

So, I will publicly go first. Although I have never experienced a miscarriage (and all of my fingers and toes are crossed that I never will), I can't help but to have fears about it. I suspect all women wanting to have a baby have some degree of miscarriage fears, even if it is never consciously acknowledged or brought up in conversation. It is only natural to consider the worst. This is part of the human experience. Hello, parenthood! But pushing aside your fears cannot make them go away, and it certainly cannot make the possibility of miscarriage or complications go away. Below is a graph of miscarriage rates by week of the first prenatal visit. The earlier the pregnancy is, the higher the risk it will be lost.

Based on this graph, early fears of miscarriage are obviously valid. I am now technically 5 weeks pregnant, and there is not a single trip to the bathroom where I don't check for blood to "make sure" everything is still okay. In fact, I actually became inspired to write this piece after I woke up from a bad dream that looked a lot like the scene from the movie The Help, where Minny Jackson breaks into Ms. Celia Foote's bathroom to find her on the floor covered in blood and tears, (except that it was me, of course). My first ultrasound (coming up in a couple of weeks) could easily go poorly. The embryo could lack normal activity, or it could be poorly positioned (ectopic pregnancy). Then will come the genetic testing. We could find that our fetus is not compatible with life, that there are issues with its DNA or development and it has no chance of growing into a healthy, happy child. As much as I hope that it will not, this pregnancy could easily fail, leaving us without the baby we are hoping for next July.

Acknowledging this possibility is actually extremely helpful for me, though. Knowing what could go wrong and putting voice to my fears makes them all the more manageable. It has helped to shape my personal definition of "when life begins," and it gives me the space to consider how I might cope with a pregnancy loss should it happen pre-viability. And here is what I have come up with:

Now more than ever, I am still "pro-choice." I still believe that each and every woman is capable of deciding for herself what defines "life" in regards to her own pre-viable pregnancy, as well as what is best for herself and her family. The ability to choose how to medically manage a miscarriage is also extremely important to a woman's health and wellbeing. Incomplete miscarriages that leave fetal tissue behind in the uterus can be dangerous to a woman's health, and the treatment of this is, in medical terms, an abortion (whether you like the negative connotations that have been unfairly attached to that word, or not). Any medical intervention to completely end a pregnancy, regardless of the reason, is an abortion. To tell another woman what to believe and how to manage her pre-viable pregnancy is a violation of the beliefs and autonomy that she is fully entitled to, and makes this country's current situation very hard for me to stomach. But, that is a separate conversation (which I have been very loud about already), so I digress.

On a more personal note, I also still do not believe that life begins at conception. If I am being completely honest, at 5 weeks pregnant I do not feel like a mother yet. I do not feel like what is growing inside of me is a baby yet. And I do not think there is anything wrong with that. I have been lucky in that I have not really experienced many pregnancy symptoms yet. I am tired, have some brain fog, and have had a little bit of nausea here and there, but anyone who knows me knows that these things are not all that uncommon for me at baseline - I am a nap queen. It has not fully hit me mentally, either. Ben and I do not feel like parents. We have not discussed potential names any more than we have pre-pregnancy. We are still going about our lives as normally as ever. Sure, I have purchased one or two things for a future baby, and I have a "nursery" board on Pinterest for our potential child. But I certainly do not feel like the embryo growing inside of me is a person yet.

I'm not worried about this in the slightest. I know my feelings about my fetus will change at some point. Maybe slowly, or maybe all at once. Maybe at the ultrasound in a couple of weeks. Maybe as the risk of miscarriage decreases. Maybe when it starts to kick. I don't know and to be honest I don't really care. Because I believe that what is meant to be will all work out. I believe that the soul meant for us will come to us in time. Whether that be this pregnancy, or the one after a miscarriage (or a few), or in the child we adopt. I don't care when or how, because I know that the soul(s) meant for us will find us. The universe (or God, if that aligns with your faith) has plans, and now that I have done my part in trying to get pregnant, I am just along for the rest of the ride.

Yes, I have miscarriage fears. But my current fears are not so much about the "death" of my "child." I don't personally see miscarriage that way. Not right now at least, not while I am still unsure whether or not this fetus is even healthy or capable of becoming a real child. As a biology major, I know how much can go wrong, and therefore believe that it is a true miracle when it all goes right. Right now my fears are more so that the timing is not right, and that I will have to wait it out for another pregnancy, another way of becoming a mother. I fear what is out of my control. So for now, I am just controlling what I can. I am focusing on my health, and enjoying the early excitement of forgetting and then remembering all over again that "oh yeah, we conceived!" I am holding onto hope, while also holding space for the belief that "what is meant to be will be."

As a quick post-script, I want to make it crystal clear that these beliefs are strictly my own, and I am sharing them simply to share my perspective. I can not speak to the experiences of any other woman. I have complete and total empathy for women that believe differently than me, for women that believe in life at conception for themselves. I can not imagine the pain of losing a child, and I hope more than anything that I never have to. I feel deeply for women that lose a pregnancy that they believe held a baby with a soul. And regardless of our differences, I will always be open and available to hearing those stories and holding space for that grief. That is what feminism and sisterhood is to me. Seeing, respecting, and loving one another, despite our differences.

Sources:

Expecting Better:

Why The Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong And What You Really Need To Know

by Emily Oster

For anyone struggling with miscarriage or fertility issues, I also recommend following the Instagram account and podcast of Natalie Crawford, MD. She is an OB/GYN specializing in fertility and IVF, and she personally went through several miscarriages of her own before having healthy children.