The following ten days passed by in agonizing torture. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was reminded of what I had lost. Every time I looked down at the pad in my underwear, seeing the bright red blood, I remembered my lost baby. I desperately wanted to use a tampon, anything to hide the blood so that I didn’t have to keep looking at it, but I wasn’t allowed. My husband didn’t understand my grief. He thought that as the bleeding subsided, I would start to feel better, feel more normal. But it wasn’t that easy. My grief came in waves, unexpected, and painful. There were waves of sadness, depression, guilt, shame, and anger. Anger was the worst. There were times I hated my husband, myself, the world. 

I went back to work three days after surgery. If it wasn’t the middle of the pandemic and I was working in the office and not from home, I would have taken more time. I was still sore and still taking Tylenol. I was thankful to just be sitting at home and seeing only clients. I couldn’t bear seeing coworkers and having my boss ask how I was doing. I didn’t want to see my two pregnant coworkers and I didn’t want to put on a brave face all day. It was easier to get through an hour at a time. Just get through one session. Then another. I didn’t talk to my husband about how I was feeling. I put on a brave face for him and kept myself put together around him. I ignored the fact that I cried every night. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him about it. It’s hard to explain, but part of me felt like it was too personal. I watched him go through every day as if nothing had happened while I was barely making it through each day. 

There was even a night where, while I sobbed, I screamed at my husband for not being there for me at the hospital, for working instead. I sat on the floor, curled in a ball, refusing to allow him to touch me. I didn’t want to be comforted by him. This was 12 days after surgery. I had stopped bleeding two days beforehand. The breakdown was brought on by his family asking why I hadn’t thanked them for a gift that I had received right after surgery when I was trying to manage my own feelings. That fueled a massive breakdown where I sat on the floor of our bedroom and tried locking my husband out. I screamed and cried and everything came spilling out. My husband didn’t understand why I was so upset. “You were feeling better,” he said. “I thought we were past this and starting to move on.” The closure for him was the surgery and he was able to start moving on. I hadn’t had closure yet. I was the one who was there when they found no heartbeat. I was the one that went through surgery and had to spend all day at the hospital. I was the one that saw the bright red blood on the pad every time I went to the bathroom. I was the one who miscarried and I was the one who’s hormones would come crashing down along with all of my emotions. 

Through all of this, I watched friends go through pregnancy. So many of my friends on Facebook were pregnant and about to deliver. Yet, here I was, alone, coming to grips with the fact that I lost my baby. Every time I logged onto any social media, I was reminded through pictures of their baby bumps and the ads that were tailored to the woman who had been pregnant, not the one who had miscarried. Three weeks after surgery, I had my follow up appointment with my midwife. We went over how long I had bled and the recovery. It was all so nonchalant. I didn’t like that. We talked about how it was probably my thyroid or a physical abnormality with the baby that had caused the miscarriage. We talked about the next pregnancy and the extra appointments to check on the baby. I would have my thyroid tested every six weeks to ensure my levels were within range to support the baby. I was told that we could start trying to conceive again after my first period showed up. Was it all this easy? Just start trying again? I had no basis on what to feel or how to cope. How do I start going forward? Am I a mother? Am I not? I have no idea what the correct answer is and I’m not sure anyone does.