Hiscarriage - A Simple Man's Perspective on the Complexities of a Miscarriage
I’ll always remember the day I became a father. Coincidentally, it was the day before Father’s Day this year.
Today marks the one week point, barely one week after I learned I was going to be a father, since my wife had a miscarriage.
Well, it was technically an “early pregnancy loss” but for everyone involved it was called a miscarriage.
I read an article from just a few years ago that said 1 in 5 pregnancies result in miscarriage. When we met with a doctor to talk about our next steps, we were informed that 1 in 4, 25%, of pregnancies result in miscarriage. At some point within the last few years the percent went up by 5%. That means a quarter of all the pregnancies result in this gut wrenching feeling of loss and being lost. A loss that feels like no loss I have ever felt before. Not like losing a grandparent, cousin, close friend, nothing I have dealt with.
We tried to stay positive. We even played “Positivity” by Koo Koo Kangaroo on repeat. I can’t count how many times I told her “Everything will be okay.” I wanted it to be true. That’s what I am supposed to do as a man and as a husband right? I am supposed to make everything better.
The thing that nobody tells you is just how helpless you will feel.
I had no control over anything.
I have no control over anything.
My wife had no control.
The doctor had no control.
It just happened.
It happened and I tried to do everything I could but I couldn’t do anything. I was helpless and watching my wife in pain and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Even while sitting, holding, talking, crying, giving all the support I could, I still felt helpless.
You seek a switch or something to make it just become better but you have to sit in it and wait.
Gradually it got better. We grew even closer than we ever were.
We cried for a week out of sadness. Sometimes randomly (I spent an afternoon lying in our hammock and crying while listening to the new blink 182 album and reading comics). Sometimes provoked. But this morning I cried for a different reason. For the first time in a week, my wife came out of the bedroom this morning, she hugged me from behind like she does, we sat on the couch and she smiled. She smiled in a way that wasn’t a cover and one that wasn’t held down by the underlying guilt of being happy. She was back to how she used to be. The spark returned to her eyes. The spark that helped us fall in love. That spark that says everything will be okay. That spark that holds a glint of our future, and is ready to try again (Maybe even stereotypically on our upcoming honeymoon).
Do either of us understand what happened? Not entirely. What we understand is that we cannot control what happened and we have no way of reversing it. It will always be with us and I could not ask for it to be any other way.










