There are numerous blogs written by American expats in Paris. A surprising number of them (or maybe I'm just hypersensitive) are tended by women who are pregnant or recently gave birth. I read them, admire the photos of the little Franco-Americans in the making, and take in their accounts of doctor visits, sonograms, and the endlessly magical moments when the reality of the baby kicks to the forefront.
I also wonder, with sadness, if any of the soon-to-be or now and forever mothers miscarried prior to the successful pregnancy? Obviously, this is a self-referential question. And unfortunately, this is the way in which the woman who miscarries is doomed to perceive and react to the scene.
Before my husband and I actually put ourselves in the category of parent hopefuls, pregnancy floated politely around my consciousness as a natural, beautiful occurrence that I'd get to at some point, and one that would pursue a normal, albeit fatiguing and nauseating course. Not once - and this might be my singular naiveté, but I don't think I'm really alone in this boat - did it occur to me that something might go so chromosomally wrong that my body would, without my knowledge, cease to nurture the life developing inside me.
Why didn't I know of this possibility? It's a question I ask myself a lot lately, a little less than one month after the sonogram that revealed a stilled heartbeat. Why was it such a knock-the-wind-out-of-me shock, sitting in the gynecologist's office robotically discussing follow-up procedures and staring at the tiny fetal form on the grainy print-outs? Questioning my capacity as a woman to make -- and keep -- a baby, wondering what I'd done, eaten, breathed wrong. Trying so hard not to break down in a gut-deep cry that I knew would not prove brief.
I had been so good, abstemiously declining alcohol or caffeine, avoiding the entire Parisian population of smokers and undercooked red meat. Was it a boy or a girl? I would have loved my Bastille Day baby - didn't he... or she... know that? Know it enough to hold on? And always, when encountering a ripely pregnant woman in the streets or in discussions with friends, the unceasing shame of my envy and demanding to know: why not me, too?
These are the droning, killing thoughts that a miscarrier must learn to battle with an iron optimism and practical relativity. I know that miscarriage does not equal infertility, but the nagging fear that it could can't be rationalized away. The internal dispute between what the brain posits as scientifically proven fact, and what the red devil on your left shoulder emotionally hisses into your susceptible ear about your inhospitable body is not just my experience. It is the experience of so many women, right here in Paris, living through the death of a début. Not until you join the quiet legion of mourning would-be mothers do you realize how prevalent miscarriage really is (approximately 20% of all pregnancies end in "spontaneous abortion," I was informed) and how hush-hush the members remain, except when in each other's company, like members of a scorned, misunderstood sect.
The compulsion to want to share the painful event with those who were privy to the pregnancy, but not want the pitying eyes and cheerleader platitudes ("It happens to a lot of women - you'll get pregnant again in no time, and have a healthy baby- just wait and see") is confusing to say the least. I want to explain my devastated, emotional state but am frustrated by the listener's compulsion to want to turn my half empty glass upside down. I lost a pregnancy and the hope of a baby - there is nothing you can tell me right now that will turn the situation into rosiness and bright. But wait, please don't avoid the subject because you don't know what to say. I don't either. But your ears and my mouth were both functioning fine the last time I checked let's try to make this easier...
I didn't want to divulge my miscarriage on a blog; I'm not looking for sympathy or encouragement, and it's deeply personal, which this blog is not. But it occurred to me that much of the suffering that women who miscarry go through revolves around feeling like they've been afflicted with the plague. The result is a self/socially imposed quarantine on anything relating to babies, parenting, menstruation and swelling breasts. It's a punishment that is manifested in a disconnect from the bewilderingly fast-moving process of life exploding around us and the honoring of nature's capacity to produce healthy life.
I also wonder, with sadness, if any of the soon-to-be or now and forever mothers miscarried prior to the successful pregnancy? Obviously, this is a self-referential question. And unfortunately, this is the way in which the woman who miscarries is doomed to perceive and react to the scene.
Before my husband and I actually put ourselves in the category of parent hopefuls, pregnancy floated politely around my consciousness as a natural, beautiful occurrence that I'd get to at some point, and one that would pursue a normal, albeit fatiguing and nauseating course. Not once - and this might be my singular naiveté, but I don't think I'm really alone in this boat - did it occur to me that something might go so chromosomally wrong that my body would, without my knowledge, cease to nurture the life developing inside me.
Why didn't I know of this possibility? It's a question I ask myself a lot lately, a little less than one month after the sonogram that revealed a stilled heartbeat. Why was it such a knock-the-wind-out-of-me shock, sitting in the gynecologist's office robotically discussing follow-up procedures and staring at the tiny fetal form on the grainy print-outs? Questioning my capacity as a woman to make -- and keep -- a baby, wondering what I'd done, eaten, breathed wrong. Trying so hard not to break down in a gut-deep cry that I knew would not prove brief.
I had been so good, abstemiously declining alcohol or caffeine, avoiding the entire Parisian population of smokers and undercooked red meat. Was it a boy or a girl? I would have loved my Bastille Day baby - didn't he... or she... know that? Know it enough to hold on? And always, when encountering a ripely pregnant woman in the streets or in discussions with friends, the unceasing shame of my envy and demanding to know: why not me, too?
These are the droning, killing thoughts that a miscarrier must learn to battle with an iron optimism and practical relativity. I know that miscarriage does not equal infertility, but the nagging fear that it could can't be rationalized away. The internal dispute between what the brain posits as scientifically proven fact, and what the red devil on your left shoulder emotionally hisses into your susceptible ear about your inhospitable body is not just my experience. It is the experience of so many women, right here in Paris, living through the death of a début. Not until you join the quiet legion of mourning would-be mothers do you realize how prevalent miscarriage really is (approximately 20% of all pregnancies end in "spontaneous abortion," I was informed) and how hush-hush the members remain, except when in each other's company, like members of a scorned, misunderstood sect.
The compulsion to want to share the painful event with those who were privy to the pregnancy, but not want the pitying eyes and cheerleader platitudes ("It happens to a lot of women - you'll get pregnant again in no time, and have a healthy baby- just wait and see") is confusing to say the least. I want to explain my devastated, emotional state but am frustrated by the listener's compulsion to want to turn my half empty glass upside down. I lost a pregnancy and the hope of a baby - there is nothing you can tell me right now that will turn the situation into rosiness and bright. But wait, please don't avoid the subject because you don't know what to say. I don't either. But your ears and my mouth were both functioning fine the last time I checked let's try to make this easier...
I didn't want to divulge my miscarriage on a blog; I'm not looking for sympathy or encouragement, and it's deeply personal, which this blog is not. But it occurred to me that much of the suffering that women who miscarry go through revolves around feeling like they've been afflicted with the plague. The result is a self/socially imposed quarantine on anything relating to babies, parenting, menstruation and swelling breasts. It's a punishment that is manifested in a disconnect from the bewilderingly fast-moving process of life exploding around us and the honoring of nature's capacity to produce healthy life.
Comments
I'm glad that you wrote this post, and I know you wrote it more out of a personal sense of understanding, of trying to get those thoughts and feelings into words -- and you do it so well. I know that nothing I can say will make you feel any better, but I just want you to know that I am here, that I want to be here for you, if I can.
Thinking of you so very much these days... XO, Alice
Please take care!!
delphine
I recently saw Doc (10 rue de la charme) and she divulged information that you might want to hear. Hmm... That there is a light at the end of this tunnel though you may not be ready to hear it yet. Again, the platitudes.
Anyway, what I find truly shocking for a woman who has miscarried is that she must go to a gynecologist just like the round bellied... there should be more sensitivity on that score when a woman is mourning.
Hugs.