Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Miscarriages are THAT Common?!

Miscarriages are THAT Common?!

There are many things that we are not disposed for in life - things around which nobody tells you before they hit you in the face. Everyone wants to sugar coat major life events, which only adds to our surprise and disappointment when they don't go out to be the fairytale we had formerly believed.

Some of the things that hit me without warning were my period, the trouble of marriage, and the emotional roller coaster of rearing children.

But another surprisingly common occurrence, rarely discussed before experienced, is miscarriage.

I only read briefly that the assumed miscarriage rate is 1 in 5 pregnancies! That's 20%! I suppose that statistic is substantial enough to refer to anyone even considering having children! However, the article went on to say that it's quite probable that the act is really more like 40 to 50% of all pregnancies, based on the fact that many women miscarry before they even realize they are pregnant! WHAT?!

Could my father or my bushel or ANYONE not take inclined me for this?! Or could the stars have aligned just so that, by sheer coincidence, none of the mass I knew were cognisant of the probability?! I DON'T Believe SO! And I believe it's a gross oversight to go to inform a mother-to-be of this very important fact!

Having had two miscarriages of my own, I was one who was informed AFTER THE FACT. There was a modest number of ease in the normalizing of the sad event, but I frequently wonder if I would have handled it better if I had been prepared for the opening in advance. It was awful to me, after sharing my miscarriage with others, how many other women responded that they too had had one (if not multiple) miscarriages themselves!

Then there was the OBGYN, who flippantly told me how vulgar it was (again) AFTER we made an assignment to get out what was amiss with us. I realize that one would not wish to alert a new mother-to-be with all the hideous things that could possibly chance to a pregnancy, but I DO find some feel that I had aright to know.

On one hand, most doctors don't see pregnant women until they have hit the 9 week mark. But how about some form of direction or folder that tells you why they won't see you until then and explains the emotional effects of losing a child - planned or unplanned - even in the earlier stages of pregnancy?

My account was only that. When I had my first (known) miscarriage, I did not plan (nor did I prevent) the pregnancy. I lost a point and plant out I was about six weeks pregnant just days before an abnormally heavy flow, which I was capable to describe as a miscarriage because of my consciousness of my pregnancy.

I give to say that I wasn't prepared for the emotions that followed. I also wasn't prepared for the reactions to our news. Most people momentarily sympathized with me. Some empathized, informing me that they had likewise had a miscarriage. Others were dismissive, in that it was so common, inferring that I should get over it. But the whip was my often forgetful and constantly insensitive father-in-law, who declared that it was better anyway because we were too new and we probably should have gotten a dog first.

I gave myself a day off work to remain in bed and be sad and so I touched on. I'm reasonably certain that my father-in-law's words pain me to some degree (judging by my 16 year old memory of it), but my opinion at that sentence was that, if I could go on in a day, others should as well. And so, I adopted my own insensitivity to the more despondent reactions of women in my circle who experienced the same sad and unfortunate result that I did.

Now, I think I am grieving the expiration of fear in my own life. It seems that others' (doctors, family members and friends) lack of concern for me, fostered a wheel of want of care. They didn't care well for me in my sentence of want and I, in turn, failed to charge for others who could get used kind words from me. And so the wheel goes.

At this stage in my life, I feel angry about the want of basic human kindness and consideration towards others. We all are wounded by life's events at one metre or another and we all need each other to make a deal when these times come. But wouldn't it be still better, if we cared by preparing each other for common life events such as miscarriage, hormonal shifts in adolescence and in middle age, difficult seasons in relationships and becoming a parent?

Wouldn't it be decent to give the cycle?

I'd love to learn from others who have experienced miscarriage (1) to kindly inform others who may be mothers one day, (2) to speak about ways we were or weren't cared for in our heartache and (3) to brainstorm ways that we can ruin the round and get more caring human beings. How beautiful would that be?

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