What is The Monthly Miscarriage? Is this really such a thing? For many women, especially women struggling with infertility, it absolutely is a thing and it can be devastating. I have experienced it myself although not monthly as my cycles were not that close together but it is a horrible experience to say the least. So let’s talk about it.
The miscarriage begins. It begins with that “inkling” that there may be a baby brewing within your womb. The place where you aren’t quite sure but think you might be. We question every twinge, cramp, emotion, or feeling and try to place it as an early pregnancy symptom. Desperate to know, yet scared to confirm. All the signs could merely be the beginning of the next cycle but they also might be the beginning of the rest of your life.
For here, there is where your life changes. You may pee on a stick. You may hold your breath as the stick holds your fate. Will there be celebration or the feeling of defeat? Will there be excitement or fear? What will this little stick share with you?
So you put it off. You wait and hope for a particular outcome. Maybe delaying the test will give me another day of hope? But what if you don’t really want to be pregnant again? What if you don’t really want another baby? Yet you know you will feel utter disappointment when you pee on the stick and it reveals you are not pregnant.
Those feelings and emotions can also be very confusing. You thought you were done or could no longer have children. Maybe you were planning your family and it’s not the right time but it seems a life may be desperate to get here and you have been chosen. You have been chosen to carry this new child.
But you still haven’t confirmed it. This is where it starts. Those hopes and dreams; that possibility of your life changing. You begin to imagine. You begin to plan. “If I am pregnant, I will…” “If the test is positive, I want to…” “I will tell my husband by…” “I will share with my children when…” “I need to purchase…”
You visualize the pregnancy, your life within you, and can see this child after they are born. You wish, you hope, you pray. Then, you pee on the stick. It was time. You needed to confirm it. You could no longer hold out for what you know is coming. If you are not pregnant, it’s better to find out this way then to see the redness on the toilet paper.
The blood is a sad reminder of what isn’t going to happen. You would rather a stick tell you. So you pee on it.
You hold your breath. You wait. But you can’t not look. You watch and hope to see a line. But nothing comes. You put it in the trash and say you won’t look at it again. That all those signs and the thoughts in your head weren’t real. That the disappointment you feel is silly and shouldn’t be felt. “I don’t have the right to grieve what I never had”, you think to yourself.
But later, you return to the stick in the trash. You look. You stare. You hold it up to the light. You take pictures of it. You reverse the pictures digitally, hoping it will reveal a line. But you can’t see it. You share the picture, desperately hoping someone else will see a line, but they don’t.
You are sad. You mourn. You are angry. You grieve.
Because what you really see is “Not Pregnant.”
Then it comes. The red on the paper. The monthly miscarriage. Your devastation confirmed.
– Breaking the silence of First Trimester Miscarriage
Even though I have not had extensive challenges of conceiving, I can still relate to this deeply. That hoping and wanting and holding your breath while you pee on the stick is like another dimension that nothing else in this world can touch. Thank you for being so open and vulnerable and honest Elizabeth!
Thank you for taking a moment to comment. So many women can relate to holding their breath while peeing on the stick. Is it or isn’t it? Will I or won’t I? It can be a difficult moment.
You hit the nail on the head. I have never said that to anyone. Ashamed of pulling it out of the trash to check it again. Thank you for posting.
Thank you! I pull them out all the time. It’s so hard. Hugs to you.
Thank you for sharing. Testing weekly when you’re late pulling it back out if the trash, crying yourself to sleep…I’ve been there…it’s miserable
I completely understand what you are describing. I went through that for years. I completely disagree with the name you gave it. I have watched family and friends who lost a child. The grief of an actual miscarriage is far worse and lasts a lifetime. This monthly heartbreak you describe is only a moment and we get the hope renewed a month later. A miscarriage is a loss never to be regained. That child is gone and the hope of their life is never to return. I know the pain you speak of is real, but let’s call it what it really is – the monthly heartbreak. Our hearts are broken because we didn’t get what we wanted so badly and we have done so much to obtain. It’s okay to speak about this heartache and wonderful desire and the disappointment and pain when we don’t get it. Let’s not compare our pain to something it’s not. It is different so let’s treat and call it something different.
Hi there. Thank you for your feedback and response. As someone who has experienced the loss of two children to miscarriage I can tell you that the pain is very similar; however, miscarriage is a term and can be used in many different ways; such as, “Miscarriage of Justice.” It’s an unplanned outcome. The loss of something that was expected that never came to be. Miscarriage is not even a medical term (which I have blogged about recently in my post My Wanted Pregnancy – Aborted. I can understand why you disagree with the term monthly miscarriage. I hope you can understand and empathize with the pain so many women experience on a regular basis.
Just. Yes.
Thanks.