Hello community,
I am choosing to share more details of my recent miscarriage in this blogpost, in the hopes that it may provide healing for me and anyone who has gone or might be going through something similar.
I had a 10-week pregnancy and a 14-week miscarriage.
The physical and psychological toll these events have taken on me has been tremendous. But I have been finding that there is much healing to be found in sharing grief with others.
Pregnancy loss continues to be a mysterious and taboo subject for many people. One of the hardest parts of my miscarriage has been how little information is out there to orient folks going through this experience. Not just the physical/medical aspect of it (though that part is extremely important), but the emotional, mental and spiritual dimensions as well.
I am so grateful that I was pregnant.
That I was blessed with mothering the spirit I grew in my womb for the amount of time I had her.
That I was introduced to a new dimension of love, grief, and being that I did not know was possible, one that has made me feel so humbly and delicately human.
I am still very much in my healing journey. Still testing the waters of how much I can and want to handle at the moment. But right now, sharing my story in this way, this amount, feels right.
If you feel called to read this, please do so with an open heart. And if you feel called to respond, please honor this loss and refrain from statements that begin with “at least” (at least you’re young and you can try again, at least you know you can get pregnant, etc). Feel free to share this with anyone who you think might find this helpful.
My heart goes to anyone struggling through their own miscarriage story, whether you are in the midst of it now or it happened to you years ago. It is a sacred journey. It is your own.
With breath & carinho,
Marina
***
I found out I was pregnant on Mother’s Day, May 10, 2020.
I was terrified, elated, and everything in between. My husband, Bobby, and I had been talking about building our family for a few years now, and I was finally feeling ready. Our baby would be due January 14, 2021, and already we were excitedly thinking of names, buying baby clothes and downloading pregnancy tracking apps. Getting to tell our friends and family this special news (coinciding with the week of my 32nd birthday) were some of the happiest moments I have experienced in my life.
We went to our first doctor’s visit on the 10th week of my pregnancy. Bobby had brought his fancy camera, wanting to document this historic moment in our lives when we would get to hear our baby’s heartbeat for the very first time. When the doctor said she could not find the heartbeat, Bobby immediately stopped taking pictures.
She said, “I’m afraid I don’t have good news...”
I felt Bobby reach for my hand, and the rest became a blur.
I remember hearing the doctor say that this was normal. That 1 in 3 pregnancies result in miscarriages. That she had gone on to deliver healthy babies for countless women after their miscarriages. That I had several options on how to have my miscarriage, but yes it would be quite painful. That, even if it wasn’t hitting me now, I should expect to feel very sad in the coming days. She was extremely sweet and caring, and when she saw me starting to cry she had me take off my COVID mask so I could breathe better. She patted my knee and treated me like a human being, not just another patient diagnosis. When she left the room, Bobby and I crumbled. We held each other and cried in a way we had never done before. On our drive home, I called my family to let them know the appointment had not gone well. I could barely get the words out.
That was June 18.
I spent the next weeks in the deepest heartbreak I have ever experienced. My baby had died, but my body still thought I was pregnant. I was still fatigued and nauseous, waiting for my body to recognize the truth, to release my baby from me. I could have had a surgery, I could have induced it, but I chose to wait and follow my body’s natural rhythm. It took another 4 weeks for the bleeding to start.
In that time, my body became a walking tomb.
My womb housed life and then it housed death.
And I felt my spirit somewhere in between, in a deep dark space I didn’t even know existed.
My contractions finally started July 13, slow and mild, but after 3 days of cramps and hardly any bleeding I decided to take medication to speed up the process. If I had known what that would have been like, perhaps I would have waited longer. Within an hour of taking the medication my mild cramps had escalated to full-blown contractions I was nowhere near prepared for, and for the next 7 hours I endured the worst pain I had ever felt. I bled and bled and bled. I watched my baby’s remains leave my body. I ached and vomited and cried and tried to catch my baby’s remains in a jar and sang for Iemanjá and Oxum over and over because that was the only thing that kept me sane. My midwife convinced me (after much patient pleading) to get in the bathtub and run warm water on my lower back, which I did for hours. My husband had me on a steady and meticulously calculated schedule of half a dozen pain meds the entire night. I stopped counting the number of times we almost got in the car to go to the hospital, the pain bordering on unmanageable for what felt like an interminable amount of time.
By early morning, my contractions had eased.
But still I bled.
I went on to bleed for 10 more weeks.
***
What I had is medically called a “missed miscarriage”, when the body takes a long time (up to months in some cases) to start bleeding, i.e. miscarrying, once the baby dies in the womb. They are fairly common as far as miscarriages go, though rarely talked about or depicted in media, making it an even lesser known experience in the already extremely taboo conversation of pregnancy loss.
The limited amount of information around pregnancy loss has been one of the most daunting parts of my miscarriage experience.
I was told by medical professionals to expect so many different things that never panned out. That I could start miscarrying within a few hours or days (I didn’t, it took 5 weeks). That the pain of the miscarriage would feel like severe period cramps (it didn’t, it felt like full-blown labor). That the bleeding after the miscarriage would most likely last 2-3 weeks (it didn’t, it lasted 10 weeks). That I should expect to feel sad for a while (I didn’t just feel sad, I struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety for months).
This is not to say that such scenarios don’t happen for other people—in the many blog posts and chat forums I scoured, many described experiencing some version of these things—but being outside of what’s considered “normal” by the medical establishment, at virtually all stages of my miscarriage, became a constant source of anxiety and worry for me. As warm and considerate as my OBGYN was, the most useful information I received came from my incredible team of local holistic healers and other women & people who bravely shared their own miscarriage stories.
These stories spanned a universe of different experiences…
Folks whose miscarriages lasted a few hours and went right back to work the next day; who opted for surgeries that didn’t go well and had to come back for 2nd and 3rd procedures over the span of many months; who experienced suicidal ideation as a result of their miscarriage; who were relieved and even happy when they miscarried; who miscarried up to 7 times before carrying their babies to term; and who never again tried having children because the fear of miscarriage was too great.
I have learned to make space for all these experiences— to affirm all of them as true and valid— and know, deep down, that mine is as well.
***
I found out I was pregnant on Mother’s Day.
The serendipity of it felt like magic. Cosmic affirmation. Divine alignment.
When I found out I was miscarrying, I felt angry for a long time. Like I had been cheated into thinking this was meant to be, only to have it ripped away from me.
I was mad at my altar. Mad at my ancestors and orixás and prayers. At my candles and crystals and sage. Everything and anything that made me think this was a blessing.
It was not.
It was pain like I had never felt before. And all I could do was rage.
I remember one day my midwife telling me, with such care and tenderness,
“This too is in divine alignment. Someday you’ll see that.”
I remember not believing her.
But she was right.
Learning to see that is the bravest thing I have ever done.
***
Three months later, I am still harvesting so many gifts and lessons from my miscarriage.
Learning to see myself as a mother, even though I have no baby to show for it.
Learning to be grateful for my postpartum body, softer and heavier than I have ever known it to be. Feeling it slow me down enough so I could tend to my healing.
Learning that it is possible to spend months feeling like your body has betrayed you, convinced you won’t ever be able to trust it again, and still come back. Finding joy and movement and rhythm, ever so slowly, ever so tenderly.
There is also something about learning from darkness that I am still striving to find words for…
The darkness of giving birth to death.
Of straddling earth and spirit world for months on end.
Of severing from your body, only to be closer to your baby. Or maybe God.
It is devastatingly sacred… “a darkness as much of the womb as of the grave.”*
I am learning that this darkness makes (re)birth possible.
***
I want to end this blogpost by sharing the information of the many pregnancy loss-related articles, platforms, communities, and health workers who I had the good fortune of coming across. These resources provided me with vital information, care, and community during some of my most vulnerable moments.
I hope they do the same for you in your time of need.
ARTICLES
PLATFORMS & COMMUNITIES
HEALTH WORKERS & HEALERS
(note— most are Los Angeles-based, all are open to virtual consultations)
Raquel Lemus— Licensed Full Spectrum Midwife & Community Partera, Peristeam Hydrotherapist, Placenta Specialist, and Pre/Postpartum Yoga Instructor
Zhaleh Boyd— Intuitive Healer & Herbalist, Organ Readings and Pelvic Steam Consultations
Dr. Elena Esparza— Chiropractic, Nutrition, Herbal & Energetic Medicine
Marisa Reyes— Mayan Womb Massage & Vaginal Steaming
Andrea Penagos— Licensed Acupuncturist, Herbalist & Reiki Healer
Andrea Valencia— Licensed Acupuncturist, Herbalist & Yoga Instructor
Ana Paula Duarte— Licensed Acupuncturist & Herbalist
Erica Rey— Ayurvedic Practitioner, Herbalist & Healing Justice Consultant
Parijat Deshpande— High Risk Pregnancy Specialist & Somatic Trauma Professional
Ana María Delgado— Trauma-Informed Yoga Instructor
Aline França— Postpartum Doula & Maternal Health Consultant (based in Brasília, Brazil— all services available in Portuguese)
Jo Iraheta— Co-Founder of SOMOS: Plants, Ideas & Café, Hair Nourishment & Plant Medicine
On this final note, I want to take a moment and say a special heartfelt thank you to my midwife and querida amiga, Raquel Lemus. Raquel was the only person—outside of my immediate family—that I spoke to for the majority of my miscarriage, which spanned almost 4 months. She paid me home visits, generously set me up with my own vaginal steaming chair, taught my husband how to make my herbal teas, led me through yoga, breathing, and meditation, and coached me through, not only the physical dimension of my miscarriage, but the heart-break and heart-mend as well. She lovingly asked me, “how is your heart?” in all of our conversations, and honored my grief as sacred and important. She wisely told me that miscarrying was the same as going into labor, that I would enter the same spiritual and energetic channel as any other mother giving birth. And I needed to prepare for that in a very real way. I don’t think I’ll ever find the appropriate words to thank her for the guidance and support she provided us with... for now, this will have to do.
Deepest gratitude, mi querida Raquel.
*quote from Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
