“I have miscarried four times”: on the barriers to grieving miscarriage
The journal Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics published an essay by SPL’s Executive Director, Monica Snyder, titled “When miscarriage is an emotional crisis, medical professionals can help.” The essay reviews Monica’s efforts to have genetic testing conducted and then obtain the remains of one of her miscarried children. One of SPL’s followers, Erika, left a heartfelt comment about this essay, reprinted here with permission.
Thank you for sharing your story. I have miscarried four times. I was raised in a very pro-life home, but even I didn’t know any of the steps needed to reclaim my babies’ remains for any of my four miscarriages. I never found the sex of my lost babies or had anything to remember them by. I’m ashamed that I didn’t have the thought to do so, even though I have been an active pro-lifer my entire life. I never even gave my babies real names; I just call them Eins, Zwei, Drei, and Vier (1, 2, 3, and 4 in German).
After one of my miscarriages, a friend of mine got pregnant, but I was having difficulty showing joy. I tried to be supportive to her and engage in her baby planning. However, she quickly told me I wasn’t being supportive enough. She said I should get over losing my babies since it was obvious it was easy for me to get pregnant. After all I could just have other babies.
At this point, I had had my second D&C in three months (two miscarriages back to back) about a week prior to getting together with her to plan for her baby. I am not an emotional nor a demonstrative person, but I actually cried when she said this to me. We are no longer friends.
The acceptance of abortion as a valid option for pregnancy makes it that much harder for women who dearly want but lose their children to get any consideration at all. Most of society believes the lies told by the abortion industry that unborn babies are less than human and easily and simply discarded once they’re found to be less than perfect.
I also believe the acceptance of abortion has made research into the causes of miscarriages practically non-existent. Doctors don’t even investigate recurrent miscarriages until after the third or fourth. Threatened miscarriages are just assigned bed rest and a watch and wait mentality.
I had to seek out a pro-life NaPro doctor in another state to get anyone to go beyond the hcG blood tests. When I began having bleeding early in my third pregnancy my primary OBGYN just put me on bed rest. I called my out-of-state pro-life NaPro OBGYN and he ordered hormone profiles and looked at my Creighton Model chart for any clues it offered. He was able to determine from examining both that I had practically no progesterone and a genetic defect that often threw clots between me and the baby. With his prescription of progesterone shots, baby aspirin, and methyl-folate vitamins I was able to carry my third pregnancy to term.
Sadly I lost my next two pregnancies as well, but the sixth was also successful.
I still have regrets, self-doubt, and guilt for the babies I lost and did not memorialize. My youngest ‘baby’ turns 15 this month, but I’m still mourning the babies I lost.
[Read more – Our cultural gaslighting of women who miscarry before 20 weeks]
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