My miscarriage was an isolating experience until I saw I didn’t have to go through it alone

Essay by Miriam Finder Annenberg

(CNN) — There is no way to prepare.

For nearly two years, I couldn’t go inside one room in my house. If you had come over and cracked the door, you’d be met with stale air, a changing table and a tiny, crib-size mattress still ensconced in its brown cardboard shipping package.

I was 18 weeks’ pregnant nearly four years ago when I learned of my miscarriage during a routine ultrasound. I saw the image of my baby boy on the screen floating inside me, with no telltale flicker of a heartbeat.

As soon as I got home from the doctor’s office, still numb with shock, I gathered up the parenting books strewn about the house. I fished the handful of gifted onesies and baby blankets from their places nestled in colorful tissue paper and celebratory gift bags. I retrieved the sonogram images of my baby from my top dresser drawer.

I shoved all that evidence of our baby and the life we were planning into one of those gift bags, before my brain had time to fully register the pain radiating through my body. I knew I had to do this while I was still in a state of disbelief, before the wave of grief drowned me.

I pushed past the feeling that my body was collapsing, sweeping up all these items and depositing them into the would-be nursery, alongside the changing table and crib mattress. I closed the door and didn’t go back in that room for months.

The painful reality of miscarriage

Between 10% and 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, but the vast majority — 80%, according to the Cleveland Clinic — occur in the first 13 weeks. After we made it past the first trimester mark, I thought I had nothing to worry about. But my baby died anyway.

I learned of the miscarriage in the morning. By that afternoon, I was scheduled for surgery to remove the fetal tissue the next day. It was too much — the shock of the loss, the immediate surgery. I felt I didn’t have time to process any of the information. Tomorrow? But I just lost my baby today.

I knew he was gone, but I still wanted more time with him. I felt so deeply connected to the tiny body growing within me. Not having him as a part of me anymore felt unfathomable. I cried, not speaking, for 45 minutes after scheduling the surgery. My husband held my hand and cried, too. He also had nothing to say.

As I got into bed that night, an overwhelming sense of dread gripped me. I had the realization that my dead child was inside of me. I didn’t sleep that night, not at all. I lay in bed, staring at the clock, waiting for the morning to come.

Life after pregnancy loss

I can’t remember much about that winter.

I do know there were many days when it felt impossible to get out of bed. But I did, often getting dressed and putting on makeup, hoping that would make me feel some sense of normalcy. Many days, I crawled back in bed in the afternoon. Every pillowcase I had at the time was streaked with mascara stains from my tears that winter. It took months to get the stains out.

Part of my pain came from the blame around pregnancy loss.

Although 15% of respondents in one 2015 study reported that “they or their partner suffered at least one miscarriage,” most of those surveyed said they thought miscarriage happened in just 5% or fewer pregnancies.

Not only did respondents underestimate the frequency of miscarriage — 22% blamed the mother for the loss. “Commonly believed causes of miscarriage included a stressful event (76%), lifting a heavy object (64%), previous use of an intrauterine device (28%), or oral contraceptives (22%),” according to the study.

It’s no surprise that I felt guilty, a feeling widely shared by loss parents. My job as a mom was to keep my child safe. How had I failed so miserably so early? And that perception that it was my fault made it worse.

I also questioned the validity of my own pain. Without the physical evidence of a living, breathing baby to lose, many well-meaning people who had not experienced loss brushed off the impact of miscarriage with comments such as “you can try again” or “trying is the fun part” or the cliché “everything happens for a reason.”

Yet studies have found more than half of women report exhibiting symptoms of depression following a miscarriage. I found myself falling into that category but felt at times that my grief was unearned, leading to feelings of shame and isolation.

After a couple of weeks, all I could think about was getting pregnant again. My body was still healing, but I was anxious for it to hurry up. I began going on daily walks, envisioning myself sitting in the nursery, rocking a baby in my arms. Surely those who espouse the benefits of manifesting had to be onto something.

Sure enough, the first month we were cleared to try again, the pregnancy test turned positive. That pregnancy lasted just five weeks. Within a week of the positive test, I was bleeding, and with the blood went the first ounce of hope and happiness I had felt in months. As someone who always looks for the silver lining, it was an especially trying time. I often had trouble believing one existed.

Finding community amid loss

But if there was a silver lining to be found, it was the support my husband and I eventually discovered. The pregnancy loss community is a hellish club to join, but the most loving and supportive group I have ever been a part of.

Once people learned of my miscarriage, I began hearing from family members, friends and even acquaintances who had had miscarriages I had never known about. I had tearful conversations with so many women about miscarriage and pregnancy loss and infertility that, while heartbreaking, filled me up and gave me the fuel to keep going. I had close friends who had been through it before guiding me through the darkness.

I am forever grateful for these women, the love they showed me and the strength they displayed, convincing me I could find my strength, too. That’s the only reason I’m writing this for you now, really. Because if one person can feel seen, if one person can feel validated in their experience, it is worth it. Pregnancy loss is an isolating experience, but for better or worse, none of us have to go through it alone.

My husband and I were lucky. I ended up undergoing in vitro fertilization, or IVF, in December, and it worked in April of the following year. The pregnancy was safe and healthy, and I now have a toddler I love more than I ever thought possible. But when I was pregnant with him, I was terrified I would lose him the entire nine months.

But while we’re playing on the playground or reading stories before bedtime, the pain of losing my first baby never goes away. I still miss the son I never got to meet out in the world. I still think about him every day.

I recently found a miscarriage journal I bought shortly after the loss. One prompt suggested writing a letter to your child. In part, I had written, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep you safe. I’m sorry I didn’t get to be your mom.”

So how can anyone deal with pregnancy loss? For me, what happened became part of me. Uncertainty became part of me. With the support of my loved ones and this new community, I learned to find grace there, and maybe an unsettled peace. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe, but I did, and I do.

I think I found a secret reserve of strength my body’s been saving or borrowed some from another loss mama who has been there before. But on we go, with tears and love for my first and second sons, and all the silver linings I can find.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.