The Moment I Felt Most Alone in My Marriage
Handling grief while surrounded by beauty
My husband and I had sex two times in 2017.
The second of these two times was the moment we conceived my son. It was an intentional moment of intimacy to conceive, timed perfectly with an ovulation app.
The first time was a rare spontaneous act of intimacy in a marriage that had long met the definition of “sexless.” I don’t even remember how or when it happened. The only reason I still remember this rare sexual act is that it resulted in a positive pregnancy test a few weeks later.
We weren’t trying to conceive, but we had just started talking about what it would be like to have another child.
The next few weeks gave me time to get used to the idea of a new baby. My husband and I shared a mutual excitement about giving our son a sibling.
We may have been lacking in the intimacy department, but at the time we were closer than we have become now. We were young parents with an 18-month-old son who still reveled in his wobbly walking and new words.
I could hardly wait for my first ultrasound appointment several weeks later.
I went there alone, as I usually did for pregnancy appointments. I discouraged my husband from missing work to join me. I would tell him I didn’t need him to sit around for nothing like “those other women” did.
I only realized later, after months of couple’s therapy, that my knee-jerk tendency to act tough and minimize my own needs led to years of resentment.
At the ultrasound appointment, I found out there was no heartbeat. It was simply an egg sac. Maybe it had always been an egg sac with no embryo, or maybe that embryo died before my appointment. But this would not be another child for us.
My first reaction was to sob uncontrollably and then apologize for doing so. The male OB had been around the block a few times, and he went through my options in a matter-of-fact manner.
I am still thankful for the nurse who was in that room. She had also been around the block a few times, but she had the empathy to know what I needed.
She sat with me while I cried and let me leave from a side entrance so I didn’t have to walk through a waiting room full of pregnant women.
As I left the appointment, I called my husband crying. He asked if he should leave work early, and of course, I said no.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured him. “I am not that upset. We weren’t even trying to get pregnant. I just need some time to process it.”
After hanging up the phone, I knew I couldn’t go straight back to work. So I drove to the woods, parked near a creek, and sat there and cried for exactly one hour.
When I was done crying, I felt okay. I went back to work. I picked up my son from daycare, and I had dinner cooking when my husband walked through the door.
He didn’t even mention it. Not a hug, not a knowing glance. He acted as if nothing had even happened.
But that wasn’t the moment I felt most alone.
The tough thing about finding out you will have a miscarriage, even if you’re not overwhelmed with grief over it, is that you do have decisions to make.
That gruff male OB explained very clearly that I could either schedule a D&C, take medication to induce a miscarriage, or wait for nature to run its course.
Of course, if I waited for my body to miscarry it could take weeks. I might start to feel morning sickness and tender breasts and know that there was no baby growing inside me.
Fortunately, I didn’t have a choice to make yet.
We were leaving in two days for a family trip to Banff National Park. There was no time to schedule any sort of procedure before we left.
I would have to wait until we returned, or miscarry on our trip.
I read terrifying stories online of miscarrying on your own. I read about women who had hemorrhaged or writhed in pain on the floor of their bathrooms. I calculated how far we’d be from the nearest hospital. I wondered if I should pack supplies for this possible event.
I didn’t know how to plan for a miscarriage on a family trip to Canada.
The miscarriage happened exactly four days into our trip. I knew it immediately when I went to the bathroom that morning and saw the blood.
We reacted in a practical manner. I got the Advil and the extra-large pads we’d bought at the grocery store. I wouldn’t let this stop our big hike that day on the Lake Louise Teahouse Trail.
My husband wasn’t unkind to me, but he definitely didn’t ask if I wanted to reconsider going on the hike given my condition. We packed up our gear and drove to Lake Louise.
The hike was stunning. I have memories of my son dozing in the hiking backpack while we ascended the hills to reach the Tea House. The views from this hike were like nothing I’d ever seen before. I felt grateful to be there.
But I felt the most alone I’d ever felt in my marriage.
I felt alone surrounded by so much natural beauty and the little family I loved while I bled through an extra-large maxi pad with the remains of a baby that would never be.
I still remember when we reached the Tea House and snacked on the patio. My son giggled as he fed the birds. I went to the outhouse for a while and let the blood pass while I doubled over with cramps. It was uncomfortable, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
The bleeding continued until the end of our trip when I finally passed what I believed to be the actual egg sac. I remember being mesmerized by the process and shocked that so many women went through this in silence.
A few months later, we conceived our second son. Years after that, our marriage continued on its downhill course.
In marriage therapy, I’ve brought up this moment as a time when I felt particularly hurt by my husband. I have learned recently from an article by Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten (Dr. Psych Mom) that this event symbolizes an “emphatic rupture” in our relationship.
The sense of utter aloneness I felt that day while miscarrying on the side of a mountain was a pivotal moment and my husband failed to meet my needs that day. But I don’t want to paint him as the villain.
My husband is not intentionally unkind or insensitive. He often lacks sensitivity in moments when others might know intuitively how to act. He waits for an invitation to intervene instead of initiating a caring act.
And without even knowing, I have done everything in my power to reinforce that in him. I have acted like I was okay so that I didn’t seem weak. I have told him I didn’t need his help so much more than I’ve accepted his help.
When we’ve revisited that moment in Banff in therapy sessions, he tells me he was simply following my lead.
“You kept telling me the miscarriage didn’t affect you much. I figured you would tell me if you needed me.”
I’m resentful that he isn’t the type of person who would just know to give someone a hug when they found out they were miscarrying, even if they acted okay. I’m annoyed he didn’t look at me and ask if I was okay on that hike, or if I was healthy enough to go at all.
I’m mad about so many moments like these and I don’t know how to stop feeling mad.
And that’s the thing about a “rupture.” It blows everything up so much that you don’t know how to start finding all of the pieces, even if you want to put them back together.
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