2nd loss, just ranting

Let's talk about miscarriages and the barbaric nature of how we are expected to deal with them.

Miscarriages can pass quietly and painlessly. They can be retained for weeks and weeks and lead to sepsis and even death of the mother. They can pass traumatically and painfully, and lead to complications that can arise in the death of the mother. They rip through like a tornado hell bent on destruction and leave behind the shell of an expectant mother to somehow go back to life as usual as if their whole world didnt just implode. The doctor's offices don't offer you excuse notes for work and if your job isn't sympathetic, you might be expected to go back the very next day after having a procedure that literally changes the entire trajectory of what you thought was your life. People don't talk about it. It's taboo. It's too awful for people to know about, and you are over sharing if you tell anyone. People might make silly assumptions out of ignorance. People trying to help may say things that actually hurt- not intentionally, but just because the situation is so awkward and so unexplored in an open setting that nobody really knows how to handle it or what to say. You dont receive the same grace period for grief that you would for any other death, and when people ask how you are doing and you cant muster up the energy to fake that you are fine, they expect you to tell them what's wrong even when you barely know the person. This happened to me last week. Someone asked how I was and I just said "I'm ok" and they said "well that doesn't sound very good". I just shrugged and said "yeah". They then didn't get the hint and asked what was wrong and I just said "I'm ok". Because fuck, sometimes you dont want to get into it. Then there's the whole aspect of keeping it a secret because you hadn't told anyone yet and it's almost worse to tell people now, but it's also extremely isolating and lonely not to reach out to people. I'm in a situation right now where my mom has just started treatment for cancer so I didnt tell her we were expecting out of caution, and when I lost the embryo at 8 weeks I couldnt tell her what I was going through because I didnt want to crush her. But I am being crushed in so many ways. My husband is great and sweet and very understanding, but there is only so much a person who hasnt physically experienced a miscarriage can actually understand. He doesn't get the hormonal mood swings that come from a rapid drop in hcg, or the random things that might set you off because you had a life inside you that is now just gone. Walking by the baby aisle in Walmart. Seeing a heavily pregnant person walking past in a parking lot. Hearing an infant crying somewhere nearby. An innocent reference to the month that your baby was due. It's all too fucking much. And I was reading about people's experiences passing miscarriages either naturally or with the use of medications, and I absolutely can't understand why in this year two thousand and twenty fucking six, we are expected to do this shit at home. It's dangerous, cruel, and I know I already used the word once, but fucking barbaric.

Writing this was therapeutic for me and while I'm not really expecting any replies, I thought it might be something that someone else could relate to and get some comfort through commiseration.