One in four known pregnancies end in a miscarriage.
One in four.
If this is so common, why don't more people talk about it?
Because miscarriage is hard.
It is painful...so painful.
It is exhausting.
It is emotional.
It is personal.
It is devastating.
It is intimate.
It is heartbreaking.
It can destroy a woman more than anyone could ever imagine. We question why our body wasn't good enough, or healthy enough, or strong enough. We can't stop thinking about things we could have done differently to save our baby, even if there was a way possible that we could. We doubt our ability to be a good mother, since we couldn't even carry our baby to term. We are overwhelmed with fear that it's going to happen again...and again.
Saying that miscarriage is hard, is an understatement. So why, as women, do we choose not to talk about it? We talk about all the other hard things in life, especially about fertility issues, but why not about miscarriages? Maybe it's because we are scared of the bad things in life actually happening to us. Maybe it's because we don't know what to do with our emotions once that bad thing happens. Maybe it's because we don't want to accept that these things do happen to good people. Maybe it's because we just set aside our feelings when horrible things occur in our lives. Maybe it's because no one is talking about it.
Miscarriage itself is a roller coaster. Most often, the time between finding out you're pregnant, to the time you actually miscarry, is extremely short. In a matter of a few days, you can go from being overwhelmed with excitement and nervousness, to feeling broken and beat down. Your body goes from an over abundance of hormones, to zero. Your mind fills up with crazy amount of thoughts, and then overflows with conflicting emotions. Your heart goes from being the most full you ever could have imagined it to be, to being so broken. Nothing on this planet could ever prepare a woman for a miscarriage - because for some reason, it's just not something women want to talk about.
It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to be a strong woman and not be okay because of the devastation caused by a miscarriage. What's not okay, is not talking about it. Be more open to talking about the difficult things, because you might be peacefully surprised to find that someone else went through what you just unfortunately experienced. You'll have so many questions, you'll ask why, you'll want to ball your eyes out, you’ll want to scream in sadness, because it's hard, trust me baby girl it is so hard - but being a strong woman sometimes isn't enough for our hearts to heal properly from a miscarriage. Find comfort and peace in talking to friends and family members that may have experienced a miscarriage, because having a miscarriage is a feeling like no other, and talking through it could be the best way to heal our broken hearts from a pain as hard as this. Our husbands won’t ever truly understand what our bodies go through - as much as they want and try to understand, the truth is they never will. And that's okay, because they were not meant to fully understand. Nothing could ever even remotely prepare a woman to experience a miscarriage, but finding comfort in being more open with the ones close to you about experiencing miscarriages could ease some of that devastating pain. Talk about the hard things, talk about miscarriages, talk about infertility issues. Because you don't always have to be a strong woman. To the woman who had a miscarriage - it’s okay to not be okay.