Approximately 10 to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, reports Mayo Clinic. However, the actual number is likely much higher since many miscarriages occur very early in pregnancy. Often as early as when you may not even know you're pregnant yet.
And while we often hear that miscarriages are common and normal in our society, many still don't have a clue about how emotional, draining and life-changing the loss of a baby can be. No wonder many parents turn to grief in silence.
One brave woman named Kristen R. More broke this silence and shared her own heartbreaking experience of losing a baby. “Today, I paid over $1000 out of pocket for my miscarriage,” she wrote on Twitter and added: “They didn't tell me it would cost so much to lose a baby.”
But that was just the tip of the iceberg and Kristen shared all the “other things they don't tell you about miscarriages” in a very important and eye-opening thread.
The woman who experienced miscarriage shares what it's really like to lose a baby in a society where it's still not understood well enough
Image credits: Alex Green (not the actual photo)
So she penned this heartbreaking and brutally honest thread to share things they don't tell you about miscarriages
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
To find out more about the common misconceptions that come with miscarriages and the painful, difficult, and often silent experiences women go through after losing a baby, we spoke with Lauren Gourley, the author of “Truths Of Miscarriage” who shares support and advice for women on her Instagram page.
“Unfortunately, miscarriage is common. Approximately 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in loss. You never think you’re going to be that 1 in 4, until you are,” Lauren said. She added that people often think of miscarriage as one of those things in life that just happen. “Unless someone has been through this loss, they’ll never understand just how traumatizing the experience can be,” she explained.
Among many distressing things that come with going through a loss of a baby, Kristen pointed out the insensitive healthcare
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
“Women like me who have experienced miscarriage are seen as ‘just another statistic.’ But we’re not, were real people with real lives. We hear people say things to us like ‘at least you’re young,’ ‘you can always try again.’ Both of those things may be correct but they’re insensitive and don't make our pain hurt any less.”
Another common misunderstanding about miscarriage according to Lauren is that people don’t understand just how emotionally attached you can become with your baby in such a short period of time. “From the second you know your baby exists, you start planning their whole future. You imagine what they will look like and sound like.”
Moreover, “people who haven’t experienced a miscarriage don’t realize that we didn’t just lose our baby, we lost their whole future, and now we have to live every day knowing life should have been so different,” Lauren added.
Kristen also noted that miscarriages are not talked about enough as people don't have a clue of how to talk about them
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
Image credits: kristen4moore
One of the hardest things for Lauren after her loss was seeing everyone else’s lives go on around her while she felt like she was still stuck in this life of grief. “Grief is like living two lives, one where you have to put on a brave face to go to work and out in public, and the other where you can’t bear to hold it all in anymore,” the woman recounted.
As a woman who experienced the loss of a baby, she said that often we can’t get our heads around the fact nothing we can ever do will bring our baby back. “Its like living in a nightmare we can’t wake up from. We often find ourselves daydreaming of a future that no longer exists, the parallel universe we wish we lived in. It's hard to snap back to reality sometimes.”
As if it wasn’t hard enough already, after a loss, there are a lot of emotional triggers, like someone close to you having a baby, Lauren says. “We try to be happy for them but all we can think is, ‘why not me?’” Moreover, a lot of women suffer from PTSD after a loss too. “I am one of those women. I find it almost impossible to go into the bathroom in my home where I lost my baby and hospital rooms bring back so many horrible memories,” Lauren said.
Many women joined the thread to share their own devastating experiences of going through miscarriage
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“To anyone who has experienced miscarriage, I am so sorry. And to anyone who knows someone who’s experienced a miscarriage, maybe a friend, your sister, work colleague, be there for them. Even if lots of time has passed, I can guarantee they are still hurting. That’s the truth of miscarriage, life may go on, but the pain never leaves,” the author of “Truths Of Miscarriage” concluded.
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