Pregnancy loss in our modern world has long been an unspoken part of life. I know this because I grew up never hearing the word. I didn’t know it was a thing until my adult life when I began thinking about having my own children.
When it is spoken of, it is in only a tone of sorrow. No doubt, the loss of a child can be a devastating grievance. That isn’t the only way it can be interpreted, though.
I had a little trouble becoming pregnant at first. It was nearly a year before I found myself looking at a positive test. It was an overwhelming feeling. Not necessarily one of joy. My head spun, I began to sweat as my heart raced. I grasped panically at my breath. Some sort of combination between excitement, fear, happiness, terror, relief, panic and regret washed through every cell of my body. The exact same feeling overtook me when I found out I was pregnant the next 2 times.
The Culture-scape and Pregnancy Loss
Society trains us into believe we’re supposed to feel only one way about situations and circumstances we find ourselves in. The social “Norm” says that pregnancy is to happiness as miscarriage is to grief. These standards leave us feeling guilty if we perceive it any other way.
Our emotions toward these very personal and powerful moments are relative to our individual circumstances. Happiness for some may be sorrow for many others in similar situations. There is no “correct” way to feel about these things.
It’s true that I grieved heavily over the loss of my first child, but I don’t for a moment think I would ever grieve over another miscarriage. This is because I desire deeply to not have any more children. The sheer thought of becoming accidentally pregnant sends absolute terror through my veins.
When my friend and doula, Kirsten, shared an article with me about women in the 19th century welcoming a miscarriage, I understood entirely. Kirsten lived what I would consider one of my worst fears, becoming pregnant again immediately after having a baby. She shares her story with us here:
Kirsten’s Story; 3 babies in 3 years
“This [article] is such an interesting and powerful read, talking about how some 19th-century women “welcomed a miscarriage,” women who “lived with limited access to contraception and experienced adult life as a series of unending pregnancies” and who “especially expressed thankfulness at the ends of pregnancies when their families were in perilous financial circumstances, or when they were living in frontier conditions.”
This makes me think both about reproductive justice issues (access to birth control options, access to abortion, access to support throughout pregnancy and birth and postpartum) and also about my own back-to-back pregnancies.
I had three babies in three years.
THREE BABIES IN THREE YEARS.
Wendell didn’t survive past 28 weeks gestation, so after I birthed him I knew I wanted to get pregnant again as soon as possible.
I became pregnant with Virgil 3 months after Wendell’s birth.
Four months after birthing Virgil, I became pregnant with Everett. And it was really, really hard to accept that pregnancy. I thought I was miscarrying around 8 weeks and I cried a little, but mostly felt a giant, huge wave of relief. It was such a strange feeling, to feel relief at the thought of miscarrying, after having lost a very wanted pregnancy & baby.
Obviously, I did not miscarry, which we found out the next day at the ER. I spent much of my pregnancy wrestling with the burden of carrying an unplanned pregnancy to term. I had a huge breakdown at one point, sobbing to a friend “I just DON’T WANT TO BE PREGNANT.” Even after birthing Everett and falling in love with his sweet self, I have told Josh many times that I love him, but I wish we could have had him several years after having Virgil instead of directly after (they are Irish twins, only 12 months apart).
After birthing my third baby in three years, I struggled with the intense physical toll of all those back-to-back births. My hormones had been through so many ups and downs through those years of pregnancy without a break and then nursing without a break. My body was exhausted. I had major postpartum depression (depression for me has often been hormonally influenced in a big way). I had huge struggles with fatigue. My body was literally and physically drained, nutrient depleted.
Three babies in three years was really, really difficult. If I could have chosen to postpone that last pregnancy by a few years, I would have (thanks no thanks to the pharmacies locally who refused to fill a prescription for a diaphragm!).
Reproductive Privilege
I share this facet of my reproductive story for two reasons.
One is to shed light on how people may have a wide variety of responses to their pregnancy losses & pregnancy experiences in general. I find it SO IMPORTANT to give voice to experiences that may not be the dominant narrative.
It is a part of my work and passion to support pregnant people who lose a pregnancy and need support as a bereavement and grieving process, because there often is little space given for that experience. I am grateful I had some incredible friends who guided me through my own grief process after losing Wendell. The space they made for my emotions was so healing.
It is also a valid experience to feel relief or joy or peace about a pregnancy loss, the way I do think I would have felt (at times, if not in entirety) if I had miscarried my last pregnancy.
The second reason I wanted to share this
Is to say hey… circumstances aren’t always far off from the difficulties of 19th-century life when it comes to women even here in America, even today. Lack of access to contraceptive options, whether because of financial barrier or other reasons, is a HUGE problem in the US. Women of color and who are in lower income brackets are especially vulnerable to this. So that means that many women are dealing with unplanned pregnancies and the consequences of them.
And pregnancies DO have consequences – they are a drain on financial resources, on physical resources. Having a new pregnancy can take away resources from an older child in the family. Having a new pregnancy can take away access to a needed job. Having a new pregnancy can take a huge toll on the physical well being of the mother, because there are many medical complications of pregnancy and birth and even if all goes smoothly, pregnancy is a physically-depleting physiological process, which is why good prenatal support is so vital.
This hit me from a reproductive justice standpoint, but I also want to share one more piece of my last pregnancy experience. So I said that personally, I felt relief when I believed I was miscarrying. That was also the first moment in my life when I felt a new understanding for women who seek abortion. Because I realized I was in a position of privilege – that I had an amazing partner who would support me and this baby, that I had family and friends who could support us, that we had the financial means to pay for this child (though, honestly, paying for three midwives in three years was financially taxing for us), that I had the privilege to be able to stay home with my babies.
All kinds of privilege… and abortion still crossed my mind because I did not want to be pregnant again and didn’t know how I’d be able to bear having another baby. In that moment, I realized how hard of a position many women are in when they have an unplanned pregnancy. If I did not have all those layers of privilege, I do not know what my choice about that pregnancy would have been.
Lots of thoughts tonight. This just hit me powerfully and I identified with some parts of this history. Pregnancy is a multifaceted experience and no two people experience it exactly the same.
“Sometimes, looking at the diversity of women’s historical experiences can help us see how much we reduce and conflate women’s lives today.
Reading the journal of Gertrude Thomas, in which the Georgian described her feelings relating to each of her 10 pregnancies, Withycombe points out: “Her writings reveal how each of a woman’s pregnancies could be differently construed”—a completely obvious statement that is revelatory when you think about how much pregnancy gets reduced into a universal experience in 2018.
Why shouldn’t we believe that a mother like Gertrude Thomas or Alice Grierson could want one pregnancy, but not the next?
Historically, and today, the particular circumstances of women’s lives matter.””
Permission to Feel the Way You Do About Pregnancy Loss
Such a powerful story Kirsten’s is. I can’t imagine the emotional strength it had to of taken to experience all of these powerfully life changing events back to back without rest. A story that many of us these days have the privilege and luck to avoid but many in history (and still today) did not.
No one’s pregnancy, birth or miscarriage falls under the same circumstances. We can’t treat these processes as universal. When you get into women’s reproductive health, strange things happen and nearly all of it is considered “Normal”. And that speaks volumes to both the individuality of the circumstances and the attitude we have towards them.
So many women are supressed, backed into a corner and made to feel like a terrible person for not feeling the “appropriate” way by people who have no idea what she’s suffering.
This post is your permission slip to feel however you feel about your circumstances. Whether that be grief and sorrow or relief and peace. You have the right to feel the way you do. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Especially those who have not experienced your position.
Bio: “Kirsten is a birth doula, a mama of three, an amateur gardener, and a Joanna Gaines wannabe who lives in Huntsville, Alabama.”
How to get in touch with Kirsten:
Other Articles you may enjoy:
- Common Pregnancy Myths & Fear Mongering Misinformation as Told By a Midwife
- Birthing From Within; a book review for new parents
- Your Beliefs Around Birth Can Make Labor Easier or Harder
- Expecting Trouble; Prenatal Care in America (A Book Review)
- The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding; a book review for new parents
Author
S.S.Blake; Spiritual Life Coach, Yoga + Meditation Teacher and Founder of Earth and Water
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