I had a miscarriage in the middle of a pandemic, the most isolating time to suffer a great loss. The medical term is a missed, or silent miscarriage. I went to my 9 week OB appointment, thinking nothing was wrong, but my world was shattered there. The radiologist had turned the screen towards me. “I’m sorry, but there is no heartbeat…” Sometime between 6 weeks and 9 weeks, Bean had died but never left my uterus. My body still believed I was pregnant. I had walked around for a week with a big smile on my face, telling family I was pregnant. I had Snapchatted my family 5 minutes before the ultrasound with excitement that I would see Bean again. At each point during that appointment, I had continued to believe that everything was okay. When my midwife couldn’t find him with the doppler, I thought that he was just hiding. When she couldn’t find him with the abdominal ultrasound, I just thought he was being difficult and uncooperative. But then, they did the transvaginal ultrasound. And I saw my beautiful little Bean… but no blood flow, no heartbeat. I was devastated. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. This wasn’t in the plan. Bean had been fine three weeks ago. What had gone wrong?

I was sobbing even before the transducer was out. I suddenly regretted telling my husband to just go to work rather than come to the appointment and be late to work. I didn’t want to be there alone going through the options. But somehow I wasn’t. My mom, who works in the same building, had had a cancellation and had come looking for me to see how the appointment had gone. She happened to be right outside the door when I asked the ultrasound tech to go get her from work. She was in the room within minutes. When we were moved out of the ultrasound suite, I refused to leave without a picture of my Bean. I couldn’t leave without him.

We were brought to an exam room to wait for the midwife to go over options with me. I went over everything in my head. What had I done wrong? I had still been sleeping on my stomach. Was that what caused this? Maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten enough vegetables. What had I done that caused this? My midwife came in and the first thing that came out of her mouth was that it wasn’t my fault. I had not done anything wrong. I did not cause this. Sometimes there is a genetic abnormality with the baby and, knowing it is not viable, your body stops developing the fetus. She went over my options: wait for a natural miscarriage that could take up to 3 weeks, take medication to induce a miscarriage, or have a D&C. I could not bear having to pass the tissue that once belonged to what would become my first child. I wanted it all over quickly. I couldn’t wait and I couldn’t bear seeing my baby’s tissues come out of me. I chose the D&C and was scheduled for surgery. There were some issues with that, of course. It was the Tuesday before the Fourth of July weekend in the middle of a pandemic. In order to be cleared for surgery, I would have to have a negative COVID-19 test. And because of the holiday weekend, most of the surgeons were on vacation. Therefore, it would be a week before my D&C. I had to go about my days and work and pretend that my child wasn’t deteriorating inside of me, hoping I wouldn’t start miscarrying on my own.

After scheduling the D&C, I wanted information about the process and the experience. I wanted to know that I was not alone and in the middle of the pandemic, that was all I felt: alone and numb. I felt distant even from my husband because even though we were going through the loss together, he didn’t understand how aware I had become of what was inside of me. 

There was no information to be found. All I could find was all the medical jargon of what would physically happen during the procedure, but that’s not what I wanted. I didn’t want to picture what would happen to my little Bean. I wanted to know what would happen to me: how I would feel, how to cope, if it would hurt, and how long I would bleed. Everywhere I looked was a reminder that I was alone. There was no information. No one talks about miscarriages because if we don’t talk about them, they don’t exist, right? Every time I looked through my feeds on Facebook or Instagram, I was bombarded by ads for baby strollers, baby diapers, baby everything. I couldn’t do anything because everything reminded me of what had happened. I had to delete the baby registry I had started. I had to delete the pregnancy apps I had on my phone. I stopped taking my prenatal vitamin. I stopped eating as much because it was only me now. I had no other life to support. I packed up everything that belonged to Bean and reminded me of Bean and put it in our safe. I couldn’t look at the positive pregnancy tests, the onsie we had used to announce him, or the ultrasounds. At the same time, I couldn’t bear to throw any of it away. He had still been apart of me and he had still been mine for 9 weeks. 

The week until my D&C was the longest week of my life. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was terrified to see blood in my underwear. Every night, I would lay awake while my husband slept beside me, painfully aware that my baby was dying in my uterus. Yet, I continued to work. I had to. I couldn’t sit at home and stare at the wall, thinking of all the what-ifs. Every night was torture and I went through every day numbed to the outside world. Even though we had been told that we had done nothing wrong, I still questioned everything I had done in those 8 weeks and I grieved in silence because that is what society wants us to do and that angered me.