When you find out you’re pregnant, a range of intense emotions engulf your every fiber. From fear to joy, the spectrum is wide and powerful. Hormones surge through your body at an alarming rate within the first three months, making the new state of being even more dramatic. As my gynecologist once told me, the first three months of pregnancy can be likened to a plane taking off- a rush of hormones flood our bodies and major changes take place rapidly. Rarely, though, do we realize that twenty percent of pregnancies end in loss, or think it could really happen to us, right around the time when the “plane” should be leveling off for the duration of the “flight.” That is, until we have a miscarriage. We’ve all heard of our grandmothers’ miscarriages, sandwiched somewhere mysteriously in between their multiple healthy babies. These days, though, when lots of women only have one child due to biological clock and/or financial limitations, a miscarriage can be more than a hiccup in the chronology of a huge family.
Not only are they devastating, but the emotional pain of miscarriages is still, for some reason, passe to talk about in most public circles. It’s totally acceptable to happily tell the checkout lady in line at the grocery store if you are pregnant, or if you’ve just had a baby- but to deliver the news that you had a miscarriage and are saddened, stunned, and depressed as a result could mean (worst fear) that you’re troubled, crazy, unhealthy in some way, or too sensitive. For many of us, we only talk about our miscarriages long after the experience creeps over our lives. We hold it all in, and suffer the loss of our pregnancy, expectations, hopes, and happiness alone. We obviously wonder why our bodies have betrayed us, or if there was something tiny and minor we could have done differently to avoid the catastrophic result.
Nowhere in the greeting card aisles of popular pharmacies or chain stores do you find choices offering condolences for the loss of a pregnancy, and no one has taught any of us how to console women who are in the midst of grieving. What do we say? What is she really going through? My own miscarriage was more than two years ago, and I still become extremely saddened by the loss of that pregnancy when I think of it. Remembering the consequent slew of blood hormone level tests that follow the situation also brings back fear, pain, and panic. Even during the joyous, wonderful birth of my last child, when I passed the part of the hospital where those tests occurred a year before, the dark, isolated memories washed over me. Therefore, I was overjoyed to find the undeniably incredible writing and pregnancy loss cards work of Dr. Jessica Zucker in Los Angeles recently, and wanted to share it all here with all of you. She is a clinical psychologist specializing in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health, with an international public health background. The cards are wonderful tokens of love for the family of someone who is grieving, or from the loved ones to the person experiencing loss. When I asked Jessica what emotions are typical for women experiencing pregnancy loss, she said, “Sadness, anger, fear, bewilderment, anxiety, depression, feeling alone and isolated. The research shows that a majority of women experience shame, self-blame, and guilt following a pregnancy loss. Grief is different for everyone. Do not judge your grief. Try to be gentle with yourself in the aftermath of loss. Processing feelings in the context of psychotherapy can be beneficial. Reach out and surround yourself with loving support. The isolation can be difficult and damaging.”
As her website states, “Dr. Jessica Zucker created this line of pregnancy loss cards with the aim of filling a gaping hole in the cultural conversation and in the marketplace surrounding pregnancy loss. Approximately 20% of pregnancies end in loss. Jessica hopes these messages help acknowledge pregnancy/baby loss in a meaningful way, honoring the subsequent feelings and puncturing the cultural silence. Jessica’s goal with this collection is to help people have the tools to connect after loss–providing the antidote to “I just don’t know what to say.” Dr. Zucker is a Los Angeles based psychologist and writer specializing in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health. Jessica specialized in this field long before experiencing a 16-week miscarriage. She launched the #IHadAMiscarriage hashtag campaign with her first New York Times piece in 2014 and has written over a dozen essays about the pain and the politics of loss. She has a background in public health and worked internationally for several years and incorporates this into her writing/work.”
Her writing is extensive and promising, and shopping for the pregnancy loss cards is something we should all probably do, to make the experience better and more humane for friends and family (and perhaps ourselves) when it should happen in our circles. She also has cards for still birth, which is also something unspoken about. I hope that everyone reading can check out Dr. Zucker’s site, and that the information here was helpful to any of you who’ve been through this loss.
Dr. Jessica Zucker is a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles specializing in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health. Jessica primarily works with women struggling with fertility issues, pregnancy ambivalence, pregnancy loss, during transitions in motherhood, prenatal and postpartum adjustments, perinatal and postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, pregnancy and postpartum body image concerns, and in the midst of relationship challenges after the birth of a child.
Rebecca Conroy is an artist, stylist, and editor of A Child Grows in Brooklyn. She is from New York City, and has an MFA from Columbia University in screenwriting. Rebecca often finds herself on film and photography sets making things run or look better, and is the mom of two outrageously wonderful kids.