I was only five weeks pregnant, but I still lost a baby and Im allowed to grieve

I only knew I was pregnant for two weeks.

I wasn’t very far along, only five weeks and three days. 

I made salt dough ornaments by hand to announce the pregnancy to my family, and then I re-made them because they weren’t good enough. They needed to be perfect.

Read about how a mother's story of loss turned into a story of love — here. 

I took photos of my three-year-old daughter holding a sign that read, “For Christmas I would like: a doll house, toys and books, new clothes and to become a big sister August 2020.”

I downloaded apps to keep track of the pregnancy. My baby was the size of a poppy seed. And then an orange seed. And then I started getting nauseous extremely early, just like with my first.

I had my first appointment on December 10 at 1:40 p.m and I scheduled my ultrasound for the week after. But the next day at 7 a.m. I went to the bathroom and saw that I was bleeding heavily.

The Bad News

While I was waiting in the exam room for the doctor to return with my blood tests, I kept hoping that maybe I wasn't pregnant at all. Maybe my period was just late.

Not because I didn’t want to be pregnant, but because I’d rather have a false positive than know that I was losing my baby.

"People probably won’t see the chunks of hair that I catch between my fingers when I just run my fingers through it."

Later on, a nurse came in to give me a shot — I asked her if that meant I was miscarrying and she said yes, I was losing my baby.

In that moment it felt like my whole body became really heavy. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I felt like that for the longest time. I still do when I give myself a moment to think about it. I was devastated.

The Mourning After

I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell my family but I decided I would. I got a lot of different responses.

But the response I got over and over again was this: “It’s fine, you weren’t far along, it’s not a big deal, you’re young and you have time to have more. You can try again.”

But, honestly, I didn’t care if I was far along, I didn’t care if I could try again — I lost my baby.

I had ornaments sitting on my table and photos waiting to be handed out on Christmas.

Miscarriage narratives are so personal. Read about one mother's post-miscarriage life here.

I cried the rest of the night. Because I lost my baby, because I was having contractions with no beautiful ending to them and because there was nothing I could do to save my pregnancy. I cried because I was clinically advised to “pass the tissue into the toilet” and because that night I had to go pick up my daughter at daycare and continue life as usual.

I feel like my body failed me, like it betrayed me. When I go on social media I see gender reveals, pregnancy announcements, baby bumps — all the things that should be happening to me are happening to people around me, and it isn’t fair. But what makes me so angry is that I’m being told that I shouldn’t be sad because I wasn’t far along. But I don’t agree.

To any woman who has had a miscarriage, whether you were far along or early, our loss is real. I truly believe that. I believe I deserve to grieve at my own pace and that I shouldn’t be made to feel silly because I’m sad or feeling devastated. Because I lost my baby, and I lost my plans with and for that baby. My pain is real no matter how early it happened. Because I was happy. I was excited.

What you don’t necessarily see after a miscarriage

In every miscarriage story, you usually hear about the horrible event. But what about what comes after?

People probably won’t see the chunks of hair that I catch between my fingers when I just run my fingers through it. They don’t see the nights I wake up multiple times for a couple hours at a time until I realize the sun is starting to come up. They don’t see the exhaustion or the pain because I have become so good at hiding it.

But, here’s the thing, miscarriage isn’t something to be ashamed of, or something that should never be spoken about. It’s something that happens so often. Too often. And it can be very difficult.

As time goes by, I believe it will get easier. But for now, I deserve to grieve and feel the pain that I feel in my own way, without being told to stop.

I’m working on getting to a place where I understand that it wasn’t my fault and there isn’t anything I could have done. My focus continues to be on my amazing daughter, who I am so grateful for — but I had a failed pregnancy and I’m very, very sad. Let me grieve.