Healing After a Miscarriage
If you are reading this post, you’ve likely experienced a miscarriage. I want to express my heartfelt compassion for the loss of your baby. I’m right here with you in your loss. I’ve experienced a miscarriage too. And I was blown away by the emotions that accompanied it. When I found out I was pregnant in May, I was shocked, amazed, excited, and scared all at the same time. My husband and I started making plans and dreaming up fun ways to tell our friends and family. In June, we were shaken. The ultrasound was inconclusive. The pregnancy wasn’t progressing as expected. I was asked to come back in two weeks for another ultrasound.
Then came the researching. The academic part of me wanted to know everything. I read everything I could about early pregnancy. I was studying research articles about abnormalities in early pregnancy and studying charts showing the appropriate rise in hCG levels at each stage of pregnancy. I checked and double checked my dates, wondering if I could have been wrong about when I conceived. I became hypervigilant about every sensation in my body, trying to understand what it meant for my pregnancy. I tried to maintain hope that everything would be okay, but I found myself shrinking from the pain of hoping for something that felt unlikely to happen.
Everyone deals with uncertainty differently. My (unhelpful) method of coping with the unknown was to lean into research as a crutch. Having all the information in front of me gave me the illusion of control – the perception that I could have some influence in the outcome – or at least that I could rescue myself from the pain of living in uncertainty. But, of course, I couldn’t. My miscarriage was going to happen no matter what I knew – no matter what I did.
My miscarriage seemed to happen in slow motion. Even after my doctor was sure that the pregnancy would not continue, I still had to wait weeks for the loss to be complete. For me, my miscarriage highlighted what I could not control. All I could control – all I can ever control - were my own thoughts and behaviors. My initial tactics were to allow my thoughts to be consumed by the possibility of miscarriage and my behaviors defined by frantic researching. Looking back, I know that I chose thought over feeling. I let the anxiety (head space) run wild so that I didn’t have to hang out with my feelings (heart space). This is the realm where anxiety itself becomes a coping mechanism. I ran from the pain of feeling by feeding my anxious thoughts and allowing them to distract me. Feeling the grief of loss can be scary. It can feel like it’s too much to bear. But it is in the messiness and uncertainty of grief, guilt, shame, and fear that we find healing.
Identify what you need
A miscarriage can be an isolating experience. Many women (and men) navigate the experience with very little support. Unfortunately, miscarriage is still a stigmatized subject. You may even have found that well-meaning people around you minimized the loss, leaving you feeling as if your feelings about the loss are over-exaggerated. The truth is that you’re probably feeling a lot of things after a miscarriage, no matter when the pregnancy was lost.
Identifying our needs is a skill that needs to be developed over time. We tend to be pretty good at looking outside of ourselves and less adept at identifying the messages from within ourselves. Our feelings, if we are willing to face them, will lead the way to what we need. We have to look at our pain to know what we need. Getting cozy with our pain isn’t often our first choice of activity (trust me, I have a long history of beating my feelings off with a stick). It is easier in the moment to turn to unhelpful coping mechanisms that provide a short-lived distraction than to take a close look at what we need and choose to meet those needs. But healing requires that we acknowledge the true depth of the pain.
If you feel lonely... reach out to someone you can trust. Start with just one person and share your experience with them.
If you feel angry... express your anger. That may mean journaling about it, drawing it, sharing it with someone you trust, or punching pillows. Acknowledge that there is anger and let it out.
If you’re feeling shame... share your experience. Shame can only survive when we are silent. Shame exists in the realm of “I’m not good enough,” “I’m not deserving” and “It’s just me.” About 15-20% of women will experience a miscarriage. You are not alone. You don’t have to go through this alone.
If you need to grieve.... let yourself grieve. Acknowledge the pregnancy and its significance. It’s tempting to minimize the loss in order to lessen the pain but the whether or not the loss is fully acknowledged, it is still there, and it will remerge later demanding our attention.
Your miscarriage story may be entirely different than mine. Maybe you couldn’t relate to the specifics of my experience, but if you take anything from this post, I hope it is that your pregnancy loss matters and that you deserve to heal. I hope that you will allow yourself the time and space to acknowledge the plans and the expectations that were lost; to feel the grief of the loss of your baby. If you’re like me and you’re feeling the strong urge to distract yourself or to shrink back from the pain, it’s a great time to see a therapist. A therapist can help you process your experience and develop healthy ways to cope. Remember that unpleasant emotions don’t go away when ignored. They continue to influence our thoughts and behaviors in ways we may not even recognize until they are brought into the light.
When to get help
It’s especially important to get help if you are experiencing any of the following symptoms.
Flashbacks, nightmares, or severe emotional distress related to your miscarriage
Avoiding people, places, or activities that remind you of the miscarriage
Feeling hopeless about the future
Feeling unable to talk about your experience
Difficulty sleeping
Difficulty concentrating
Overwhelming guilt or shame
Irritability, chronic anger, or aggressive behavior
Self-destructive behavior (drinking too much, over-eating or under-eating, drug use, etc.)
Thoughts of suicide
I’ll end with the words of Postpartum Support International (PSI), the leading organization that supports the mental health of women who are pregnant, postpartum, or experiencing pregnancy loss.
“You are not alone. You are not to blame. With help, you will be well.”
Click here to learn more about post-partum therapy.
