I texted him that I had news. He was too busy. I texted him that something really bad had happened, something I did not want to say over text, and I needed a phone call. He was still too busy. Eventually, I gave in and texted him that I had been pregnant and was miscarrying.
Soon after, I realized he had blocked me on social media. So I did what any normal person would do and asked my best friend to look at his stories. There he was, enjoying a fun night out with buddies while I was gutted, enraged, and demolished. I felt flooded yet frozen at the same time.
He spoke to me like an acquaintance at a funeral saying, “Sorry for your loss.” That’s when it hit me: the most excruciating loss of my life was his biggest relief.
You see, I had just turned 40. After years of believing I would need medical intervention to get pregnant, I saw two lines, something I never thought I would live to see. I planned to wait until I was further along to tell him. I bought a funny card with Maury Povich on the cover saying, “You are the father!” to give to him when I’d see him on my next visit in a few months. Twelve days after the positive test, my hCG levels started going down, and I was instructed to wait until my body got the memo. I was consumed with shame and felt delusional about my naivety on so many levels.
I posted about the miscarriage because I needed to get it out of my broken heart and release it into the universe. I used Jessica Zucker’s #IHadAMiscarriage hashtag without knowing it was tied to something much greater than I imagined. Support came quickly, along with private messages and comments from women holding their own pain in both shame and silence. Some wrote, “You’re so brave. I’ve had this loss too, but I was always too scared to talk about it.”
I would eventually learn that being open about miscarriage did not mean I felt safe sharing the full circumstances of mine. I held parts of my story back because I feared how people would respond to the way I had become pregnant.
Would they understand how much this pregnancy meant to me, even though it occurred unexpectedly and against all odds?
After that first loss, I considered getting a tattoo to memorialize the baby I would never hold, but that would’ve kept me associated with him. Instead, I planted a tree in Israel as a memorial for “Honey Cake.” This baby would have been due on Rosh Hashanah, so the nickname felt fitting.
After hearing the dismissive response, “Well, at least we know you can get pregnant,” from my OB-GYN, I embarked on my single motherhood by choice fertility journey full throttle. I was told this loss was common and that a subsequent pregnancy would typically result in a live birth.
Sperm banks were extremely expensive and IVF was not financially possible, so I found a donor through an app designed for people open to donating sperm to women and couples in need.
I became pregnant again on the first try, but my hCG levels were not doubling. I sat through labs every other day until an ultrasound confirmed that the pregnancy was not viable. This time, I could physically feel the purgatory of having pregnancy symptoms while knowing the pregnancy would not result in a baby. I saw the ultrasound of the fetus that wasn’t measuring up to the timeline.
I chose not to share this miscarriage. I felt ashamed of the path I needed to take in order to conceive, and I did not believe anyone in my life would understand the choices I had to make to have a family.
I became pregnant twice more, but the losses happened so quickly that I questioned whether people would even count them as tragic. The lines were there, and as I tested multiple times a day, every day, they began to fade along with my dreams and hopes of ever becoming a biological mother.
Four miscarriages in, my doctor and I agreed it was time to consider IUI or IVF, so I took a job as a unit therapist at a special-needs maximum-security prison for men. The work aligned with my interest in forensic and abnormal psychology, and the position came with a $50,000 lifetime benefit for fertility treatment.
This part of my journey felt safe to share because it was viewed as more socially acceptable. I took everyone along as I went for acupuncture, took supplements, did my injections, had two egg retrievals, and ultimately went for my embryo transfer. At that point, I still believed medical intervention would finally fix whatever had caused my repeated miscarriages.
Following my embryo transfer, I was pregnant for a moment, and then I wasn’t. Once again, I did not share the loss. I was 41 and had experienced five miscarriages without a partner. I had one vial of donor sperm remaining, paid for through a GoFundMe. I was back at ground zero, carrying a future I could not bear to picture.
Spoiler alert: I found a new doctor I felt safe with, advocated for myself, and used the one chance I had left. I kept this pregnancy close to the vest, without posting or telling people about it. There was too much on the line, and I was hanging on with the bare minimum I had left. Somehow, someway, my son was born when I was 42 years old.
Since then, I have reflected on the shift in people’s faces when I disclose my journey. It starts when I mention that my first pregnancy happened unexpectedly with someone from my past. After seeing their not-so-discreet discomfort, I began lying about other parts, saying I had purchased sperm from a bank and used an at-home artificial insemination kit.
My story did not feel as protected as it might have if every miscarriage had happened with a trusted husband or partner. I had to proceed with discretion, partly to protect other people from the discomfort of my truth, but also to protect my own reputation from their judgments and assumptions.
It was another version of the awkward “That’s nice, dear” face I had seen when sharing my achievements and work, as though none of it compared to family members with “real” achievements as doctors, lawyers, parents, and spouses. Could I do anything “right”?
Now even my pregnancies and miscarriages seemed to be met with that same dismissiveness. They happened, but apparently not in an acceptable way. I became pregnant, but as an unwed “Old Maid.” I experienced repeated losses of pregnancies that were desperately wanted, but the circumstances made people uncomfortable, and that was only what I chose to disclose. Imagine if they knew my full truth. I became a mother, but not through a path they understood, agreed with, or respected.
Somehow, every part of my life seemed to require discretion, justification or over explanation before other people could decide whether it counted.
There are losses people honor through instinct, modeling, and understanding, and then there are losses that seem to require a disclaimer before anyone decides how much compassion you deserve based on your circumstances. Grief becomes even more isolating when you first have to prove that what you lost deserves the utmost respect because it mattered, because it was significant.
Since when did grief require an impressive résumé to get hired? Why did I feel so strongly about needing to prove that my miscarriages were something that needed to earn proper respect?
Sometimes, it feels like people need answers to these questions before deciding how much sympathy your pregnancy loss deserves:
- Is there a husband, spouse, or exclusive partner?
- Was it planned?
- Was conception achieved through a physician and an approved medical procedure?
- Were they actively trying, and if so, for how long?
- Is there already a living child?
- Was this a chemical pregnancy?
- Was this because of medical reasons?
- How old is the birthing person?
- Are they religious?
- How long were they pregnant?
- Can they even afford a child?
For some, those judgments extend to disability, sexual orientation, race, education, and cultural background.
Sometimes, it feels like empathy for pregnancy loss isn’t “one-miscarriage-fits-all.”
I’ve been able to speak more openly about my repeated pregnancy loss since my son’s birth. I’ve gone back and forth between feeling like I have miscarriage imposter syndrome and feeling like I’m burdening others by shouting it from the rooftops, now that I finally feel safe enough to grieve.
I’m very aware that the circumstances surrounding my miscarriages aren’t neatly packaged. It was incredibly hard to go through each loss with no one holding my hand or sharing my grief. If I did have someone with me, maybe it wouldn’t have felt so bone-crushing. Each time, I received the news alone, waited out the inevitable alone, felt the physical pain followed by the hollowness alone, and watched a fading test alone. I also carried the high stakes alone, knowing that every loss could mean I would never become a biological mother.
So, does MY miscarriage make you uncomfortable? That discomfort doesn’t change what my pregnancies meant to me, how deeply I grieved them, or how openly I choose to speak about them now.
I’ve accepted my fate of never fitting in. The shifts in faces will continue, the comments will continue, and those who show up even though they can’t understand will continue too. Every miscarriage deserves a voice. Every loss counts. My grief matters, regardless of anyone else’s discomfort.
