For All The Fallen Stars

A wonderful friend is in a serious amount of pain, a suffering so deep and personal that I do not know how to begin to digest it. I suppose I must start by breaking the silence, by saying the word few will say out loud. Miscarriage.

At twelve weeks the baby that grew inside her died. She wanted this baby so badly, so deeply that the love she felt exuded from her skin. She glowed. She was radiant.

But now that light has gone out, and though the glimmer of hope for the future remains there is an unsettling stillness there, an inconsolable anguish that burns beneath her brave smile and broad shoulders. Today we laughed and today we cried as we tried to piece together the incredulity of this life we live.

She is certainly not the only woman to experience this heartbreak. The numbers are substantial, especially considering we do not talk about this. One in five pregnancies ends this way, one in five mothers-to-be suffering in silence. Including myself.

My story is different, but still causes me terrible pain some two years later. My baby was barely there, barely a twinkle in the sky of my mind’s eye, but its fire branded my soul. For less than six short weeks we lived and breathed together and I still mourn. The child was accidental, but not unwanted – or so I believed.

I knew before the first twinges of violent, caustic heartburn that something had changed in me. My body felt different, my breasts and center. I felt lighter and brighter. It was mysterious and magical. At once I recognized its presence and I knew it was beautiful and that I loved it; the overwhelming love that parents speak of and the rest of us don’t quite understand. The connection was complete and it was holy.

My partner had wanted a child so badly he threatened to leave me if I would not produce one for him. He dreamed of a family of his own and I was uncertain. But when I broke the news I was confident, changed, and he stood stunned – stunned while I held my breath waiting for his gleeful cry, waiting for his loving and accepting embrace. I waited over a week, sick with anxiety. Sick with worry that he would reject me or the child. Our child. The child we had made together.

When he finally let his breath go, when he finally released his reaction he was cold and distant from the beauty of the life that grew inside me. Frigid and analytical he told me he could do it if he had to, that he didn’t want it now, that he wasn’t ready. Ready was not the word I would have used to describe my own place either. I was terrified and overjoyed all at the same time.

I felt the light fading before my body began its work. I would awake in the night clutching my stomach and praying. I prayed for the life of my child and that my partner would embrace me and the growing life inside me. But he slept farther away now, the distance on the mattress a cold and vast canyon. I cried myself to sleep, waking all too frequently in a delirious whirlwind of worry. That last night I knew it was over and I soaked my pillow with wracking sobs as my uterus contracted on the life within me.

The blood was thick and the reddest I have ever seen. It poured and dripped and seeped out of me and every time I saw it I wept. The heartburn stopped and I longed to feel its prickly acid again.

When I told my partner his breath did not catch in his throat, he did not blink or sigh. His face told the story. He was relieved. He hugged me and told me he was sorry, but I could feel the tension that he’d held in his body leave him and enter the space between us. It stood like a wall, blocking him from me. I was more alone in that moment than I had ever been before or since. It was more than the end of this precious life when he told me two days later to “get over it” that “it’s not like you were really pregnant”.

As I mourned my loss, my baby, I was comforted knowing I had dodged an enormous bullet. Or that’s what my friends told me and I believed them. But now as I try to comfort my friend who lost her child after three months of knowing, loving and breathing with her I am overwhelmed by guilt. Her light had been brighter and still faded. Her child was desired by both herself and her partner. Her child was created with intention, love and purpose. My own loss is shameful in comparison, but it is also the only understanding I can offer, the only context I have.

I love you, my friend.
I love you, baby.

Women do not have to endure this pain in silence, putting on brave faces for our friends and family. No one need shake their head in secret code. Your loss is real, your pain is justified. Do not hide in the shadows of guilt and shame, share your stories and know you are not alone.