The Reality of Early Miscarriage For Most Women Is That They’ll Never Know Why It Happened

The unresolved trauma of unexplained pregnancy loss

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

I don’t need to tell my miscarriage story. I’ve mentioned it on and off throughout other stories, and that’s enough. But I feel compelled to contribute to the conversation. I have a platform where my perspective can be shared and heard, and I feel a sense of responsibility when it comes to this particular topic.

My story isn’t unique. In fact, it’s devastatingly common. 1 in 4, according to google. However, they believe this may be closer to 50% if you could measure miscarriages that occur before the mother is aware of the pregnancy.

Before I lost my first baby at eight weeks gestation, I didn’t know anyone who had suffered a miscarriage. When I talked openly about losing my baby by making a post on Facebook about my grief and frustration with the feeling of ‘taboo’ that surrounded something that had impacted me so intensely, I came to find I knew a lot of people who had lost babies.

Some were acquaintances, some close friends and even family. Some had lost early, some later. Some once, others multiple times. All of them had kept it to themselves as though talking about it was somehow wrong. Every single person who reached out to me said the same thing— “Thank you for speaking up. It’s so nice to be able to talk about it.”

As is my personality, I started digging. I searched for stories from others who had experienced what I was beginning to realise was an extremely common occurrence.

And I went looking for answers— Why does this happen? Why, with all the advances in modern medicine, can’t we predict or prevent it?

There are no answers. There are theories, but no one, including the doctors at the hospitals that give you the news you know in your heart to be true but don’t want to believe, can tell you exactly why. Particularly if it’s your first loss.

It’s the most complex experience of grief I’ve ever endured. I remember the look on my doctor’s face when I asked for a certificate for time off work, a mix of judgement and concern, but not for my wellbeing, for my lack of resilience— “I’ll give you one for the week, but then you need to go back.” I suppose I should be grateful I was given that much time.

I read stories of women miscarrying in the bathroom of their office building, cleaning up and heading back to their desks to work for the afternoon.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I was expected to have been pregnant one minute and not the next, given no explanation as to how or why I wasn’t anymore and then just to move on as though nothing had happened.

I went through the stages of grief in the same sequence as I would have had a family member or a pet died. But there was no funeral or wake. No opportunity to acknowledge the significance of what had occurred. I wasn’t even showing yet, so I guess no one except me had really connected with what was going on inside me. But should you have to be able to see the evidence to hold space for someone who is in pain?

In the absence of any valid medical reason for what had happened, I blamed myself mercilessly. Maybe it was that drink I had before I found out, or perhaps that second coffee I absent-mindedly made out of habit and consumed before I remembered I should only have one a day.

Or it’s possible I’m just broken. Perhaps my body isn’t built to do the one thing a woman’s body is supposed to be able to do.

As an anxious person, I know all too well the way anxiety thrives when its host feels out of control.

My miscarriage was so out of my control, and it was driving me mad.

The unresolved components of the loss of my first baby have altered me significantly. It’s affected the way that I view and approach physical intimacy. And, although I have now carried a baby to term, I still carry the fear and anxiety around doing it again. After all, I may have gotten lucky. There’s no way of knowing if the next one will stick.

If I never get pregnant again, I will never have to experience those feelings of absolute helplessness ever again.

Over coffee with a friend this week, I mentioned that I didn’t think I’d have another child, that my miscarriage and difficult pregnancy with my daughter had left me too scarred.

She summed it up perfectly when she said matter of factly— “Of course, it’s unresolved trauma.”

Unresolved. And will always be unresolved. There will never come a time when I am privy to why my first baby wasn’t meant to live. There is no amount of research I can do, even if I could travel back in time and ask all the questions I never thought to ask, I would still be met with the same frustratingly vague response.

“Sometimes these things just… happen.”

I believe this has a direct correlation to why miscarriage is often viewed as a ‘taboo’ subject.

When things happen without rhyme or reason, it somehow takes them out of the realm of appropriate topics of conversation. I can only imagine for medical professionals it’s a source of frustration, they are the ones being looked to for answers that they can’t provide, so the response is to act like it’s not a big deal— “Very common, it happens to lots of women. Particularly the first time. You’ll most likely go on to have a successful pregnancy next time, and don’t worry it’s not your fault. Nothing you did or didn’t do could have changed it.”

But how do you know?

This is the question I wanted to scream at everyone who said those same, cliché words to me.

How do you know it’s not my fault or that I couldn't have done anything to change it if you don’t know why it happened in the first place?

We know so much about the world now, how is it possible that there is absolutely no insight? And how is it possible that there is no urgency to gain any?

Women are expected to accept the 25% chance that the heart that beat inside them for the briefest of moments and then stopped is insignificant. You build a world around that heartbeat. You picture a face, a name, a life. You become attached to it, you love it before it exists in any tangible form. And then, as swiftly as it comes its ripped out from under you.

That is significant.

I make a point of mentioning my miscarriage in conversation as casually as I’d mention any other major event in my life. I see the looks of discomfort on people’s faces when I say it, which makes no sense because I didn’t get that same look when I told them my uncle died, or my dog.

I recognise the attempts to change the subject when I bring it up. But I refuse to let this be some kind of dirty little secret that sits buried. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Despite feeling deeply ashamed for a very long time.

But I think at least in part, I understand. Because it’s very rare that when something so impactful happens in your life and someone asks “What happened?” that you respond with “I don’t know.”

I wish I could end this with a hopeful take away. But the reality is, my reason for writing this piece wasn’t to inspire hope. It was to stand in solidarity with the countless women out there who still don’t have closure. And will likely never have it.

You may never know why it happened, but you’ll always remember that it did. It doesn’t matter if it was 6 weeks or 36 weeks, your loss matters. Your grief matters. And even if they can’t tell you why, or they tell you how common it is, that doesn’t change the fact that you need time to process and to heal. You don’t need to resume life and move on as though it never happened, because it did.

I see you. I hear you. I am you.

Thanks for reading. For more about my experience with miscarriage, a subsequent traumatic pregnancy and birth, and the path to healing, you might connect with this: