1 in 4 women. That’s a 25% chance. 1 in 4 women miscarry. And I am that one. In the middle of a pandemic. Right before a holiday weekend. My baby’s heartbeat stopped beating at 8 weeks. We found out at 9 weeks. I was scheduled for a D&C the following week. 

Quite a few people around us knew about the baby. We were excited and it was good news in a sea of not so good stuff going on. But then, we had to tell people what had happened–what happened to our little baby. One person, behind my back, had said that this is why you don’t tell people the news until 12 weeks. Why was I supposed to keep my baby a secret until the 12th week? Would that have made my grief any less? Not having to share the news with people? Is my grief for my unborn baby–my husband’s grief– an inconvenience for you? 

Society has trained us to ignore miscarriages as if they don’t happen, but they happen to 1 in 4 women. Why do we abandon them like this? Why are we trained, as women, to feel bad accepting sympathy as if we don’t deserve them? Why did I feel bad accepting flowers from my coworkers for my loss? Why did I feel like it wasn’t a real loss? Because society has trained us to belittle them. Society has taught me that my 9-week old baby isn’t important because he was only real to me and my husband. But isn’t that enough? Isn’t all the love we poured into this child enough to allow us to grieve openly and with support? 

Even on the internet with all the answers in the world, miscarriage is hidden in the depths of Google. It’s not easy to find out what to expect and how to cope. Why is that? Why do we deny women support even anonymously through the internet? Why do we make it so hard for grieving women to understand what is happening to them and to figure out how to cope? We make them feel ashamed, but it’s not their fault. It wasn’t my fault and we have a right to support and information to help us through our grief. 

I am 1 in 4 women. I scoured the internet for anything to help me through my loss. I blamed myself through my fears and my anger and my grief. I deserve to be supportive, to be loved, to have someone that will help me up when getting out of bed is an impossible task. Other women deserve this as well. We need to show up. We need to do better. I am 1 in 4 women and I want to be there for you as you go through the unimaginable. There is power in numbers. There is support in numbers and it isn’t hard to be supportive. Be there. Show up. Check-in. Let them talk. Let them grieve. Be that shoulder to cry on. Let’s rewrite the rules. Let women grieve openly. Let them hurt and cry and yell and let it all out because that’s what starts the healing process. Keeping silent isn’t healing; it’s torture.