Tag: pregnancy

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My Miscarriage Stories

My first miscarriage was in September 2015. The first month we started trying to get pregnant, we got pregnant! I felt so lucky and a little nervous, but mostly lucky. We told our family the day we tested positive. It was so exciting! I still have the videos of telling our family. Around 5 and half weeks, I noticed some brown stuff in my underwear. I remember exactly where I was–in the powder room of the house where I babysat. I immediately called my husband. That first day and a half, there wasn’t enough bleeding to be sure of anything. Lots of women spot during their first trimester, they say. I didn’t know if I was letting my anxious mind get away from me or I really was miscarrying…

I knew so little then. I didn’t even know if it was a miscarriage or a chemical pregnancy I was experiencing. I didn’t seek any medical supervision, because I don’t know why…I just didn’t.

There was a day and a half of mental torture—I would check my underpants obsessively for any brown or red discharge. No, I’m not! Yes, I am! After about 2 days, the spotting got heavy enough that I was sure I was miscarrying. It took me about a day of intense grieving—just lying in bed and being sad. The next night, I had the most intense pain of my life. Then after those days, it felt just a like a period but a little weepier.

That’s one of the biggest misconceptions about miscarriages, I think. Before I had my own, I thought they were these surprise, acute events and were over in a few hours. I didn’t realize they would happen (both physically and emotionally) over days, weeks, or even months. It can take over a month for a woman’s body to heal from a miscarriage. My body took six weeks. Emotionally, it can take longer. The longest emotional symptom I had was anxiety.  When I got pregnant with A, I was extremely anxious. Every single time I went to the bathroom for the three weeks between my positive home pregnancy test and my ultrasound, I checked for spotting. Luckily, it all worked out and I ended up with the sweetie little, hyper, happy boy we have today.

Flash forward to a April 2018. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post called ‘Joy, pt. 3’ and said that some things happened in our house and I needed to find the joy in motherhood. The main thing that happened that week was my second miscarriage. It’s almost an identical story to my first miscarriage. First month we were trying. Six weeks along. Spotting. Uncertainty (and that mental bargaining with grief) for a few days. Then finally, confirmation.

Again, I remember where I was vividly when I first saw spotting (something about the intensity of that emotion must cement the memory). I was peeing before my regular Monday yoga class, when I noticed just a little redness on the toilet paper. My yoga instructor, who I have known for years and went to prenatal yoga with while pregnant with A, asked if I was okay (my emotions must have been showing on my face). I cried during yoga class that day, and afterwards, cried to my yoga instructor.

The second time, I did get medical supervision, because I have a relationship with my OB (the same one that delivered A). Blood work and an ultrasound confirmed I was miscarrying on a Tuesday. I was by myself in the doctor’s office. Got a lot of hugs from the ultrasound tech, who said she’d had two miscarriages herself. Freaked out the Phlebotomist by crying when she asked me my birthday.  The only thing different between this miscarriage and my first is I didn’t have the intense pain, just a boat load (the *official* medical term, btw) of blood and clots. It’s only been a few weeks, so that intense pain could still come. This time, there was definitely grief. Not as intense as last time—since I had A, I’m just more distracted and can’t focus on it as much. There was more disbelief though—‘Is this really happening a second time?’ I said multiple times to my husband. Sometimes I’d laugh when I said it. Sometimes, I’d be serious.

Miscarriages suck. They are emotionally and physically tough, and often women have to go about their lives and pretend like everything is normal to their coworkers, friends, and family. I know I needed to talk about it to process it, and there were times I felt like people thought I was over-reacting or talking about it too much. Yes, lots of women experience them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t suck. Many women have a miscarriage story or two. These are mine.

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Birthing a human, pt. 3: Learning to love

Around 7:00am on July 29th, 2016, the nurses started setting up my room for delivery. I don’t remember the details, but I remember the rush of emotion when they told me it was time. When I had gone to sleep around 1:30am, I was 2-3 centimeters dilated after being in the hospital for almost twelve hours. I didn’t expect the nurse to tell me I was fully dilated and ready to go. I remember lying on my left side (my epidural only worked on my right side, so the nurse was having me lie on my left to let gravity help), holding my husband’s hand. I started to tear up just because of the sheer overwhelming-ness of it all. The most fundamental shift in anyone’s life—the moment you become a parent—was about to happen.

My OB was in to check on me around the time the nurses started getting the room ready for delivery. Sometimes pushing can take hours for first time moms, but for some reason, she decided to wait to see how pushing went for me. I think I start pushing around 7:15am, but honestly my memory of the timeline is a bit blurry. I have very vivid memories of a few select moments though. My OB asking if I wanted a mirror. What I saw in the mirror. My OB asking for soap (was it soap? I think so…) when A started crowning (apparently, they wash the baby’s head a bit. Not sure if it’s to make them smell nice or lubricant, lol). My OB strettchinnggg me. The sensation that my urethra was about to explode as he came out. Yelling “FUCK” when I thought my urethra was ripping (btw, I’m assuming that’s the ‘ring of fire’ people talk about). My OB saying “7:33am”.

When my OB placed him on my chest, I started crying right away. But honestly—and this is the main point I want to make today—not because I felt that wave of love that everyone talks about. I don’t even know why I started crying, probably just an overwhelming combination of hormones, relief, and excitement. In so many movies or from older women, you hear about this rush of intense love you get the first time you hold your baby. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt,” they say. In that moment, though, sure I loved A, but just because I knew I was now responsible for him. If you asked me later that day if I loved A or our dogs more, I probably would have said I love them about the same.

And that’s ok.

It’s ok that I didn’t have the “right” emotions at the time. It’s ok that the intense, maternal love that makes you want to scream, punch anyone who would hurt him, dance, laugh, and cry all in one moment took a while to develop. There is no “right” way to bond with your newborn. If you feel that rush of scream-sobbing love as soon as your baby is placed on your chest, that’s awesome. If it takes you a few hours, days, or weeks, that’s awesome, too. It will come though! And, man, it is the best.

 

P.S. In previous posts (here and here), I’ve touched on how I cultivate a positive outlook on childbirth and how race & class privilege have shaped that positive outlook.

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Birthing a human

I actually really loved giving birth. And I don’t mean I really liked the end result, but the process sucked. I mean I actually liked GIVING birth. I liked being in labor; I liked pushing. When my OB asked if I wanted a mirror to watch A come out, first I asked ‘Am I going to see myself poop?’ (she assured me no, though I don’t know why I cared), then I said ‘Sure!’.

In the internet world, you often hear this birth-positive narrative from moms who’ve gone the ‘natural’ route (aka, medication-free). I was about as far from a medication-free birth as you can get: I had Pitocin to encourage contractions after my water broke at 38 weeks, and then had an epidural at 2-3 centimeters dilated. One thing I do have in common with women who chose a medication-free birth, though, is that feeling of empowerment: I felt powerful, and I felt in control. I respected my doctor, and she respected me.

Now, I know a lot of this has to do with luck and privilege, which I will get into in future posts. Here, though, I want to say this: how we talk about birth can be an act of social justice. I know this blog is dedicated to mundane moments of parenting, and pregnancy/childbirth is far from mundane. How we TALK about pregnancy/childbirth, though, creeps into daily lives without even realizing it. Through chatting with friends, watching TV, or browsing the internet, images of pregnancy and birth are actually pretty ubiquitous. Outside of the natural birth world, there is a dominant narrative of anxiety and fear around pregnancy/childbirth. It is a huge and demanding physical experience to have, don’t get me wrong. But it is something that our culture teaches women to fear in small ways every day.

Talking about birth in a positive, empowering way isn’t just for women who choose a medication-free birth; it can be for anyone. I would encourage anyone who is pregnant or wants to be pregnant to consciously start curating positive images of pregnancy and birth and censoring the anxiety- and fear-driven ones. Living in a patriarchal society means that women have to be very concerted in their efforts to shape how they think about pregnancy and birth.

At times, during my pregnancy, I did think I was just trying to trick my brain into being positive. That patriarchal fear-driven narrative of pregnancy/birth is a pernicious, insidious thing. There were times when I felt nervous, anxious, and afraid. That’s normal and not something I’m ashamed of. I used mantras, yoga, and mindfulness to get me through that. Other women may use other strategies. You have to find what works for you.

In future posts, I want to reflect on how my Whiteness and class privileges changed how I gave birth and experienced in pregnancy. But today, I want to focus on this one message to anyone who is pregnant:

YOU ARE A MOTHER FUCKING BADASS. YOU LITERALLY HAVE A HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF YOU! THAT’S SO FUCKING COOL!

 

*P.S. Whenever someone asks me if I need help carrying something now, I often respond, ‘Nah, I’m strong as hell. I literally pushed a human being out of my body once.’ And you can still feel like this if you had a c-section: you literally GREW A HUMAN and had it CUT OUT OF YOU. That makes you badass as hell!