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By: Maria Servold EPLA Editor For more than a week, the world has been turned upside-down. Many of us cannot meet up with friends, attend church, or host birthday parties. The disruption of most of our daily activities, though, does not mean that all things stop. Sadly, there are still women around the world going through the pain and loss of miscarriage. These women and their families are not only experiencing the loneliness and sadness that come from losing a child, they have to experience these feelings while also “social distancing.” Thankfully, in our social media age, it’s still possible to connect with friends, family, and even doctors electronically. Now more than ever, we are glad to be a part of the online community who helps care for women after miscarriage. If someone you know is suffering from a miscarriage during this pandemic, send them our website link and Facebook page. They can still reach out for resources, and we will still provide them. We seek to help all women and families, no matter the state of the world.  Maria Servold is an Editor at the EPLA, Assistant Director of the Herbert H. Dow II Program in American Journalism, and Lecturer in Journalism at Hillsdale College.
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By: Nick Carrington EPLA Editor To remember the children lost to miscarriage, we must share about their short lives when given the chance. This practice does not mean forcing the conversation; we rarely jam in memories of other deceased loved ones when it doesn’t fit. We just need to treat miscarried children with the dignity they deserve. “When Aunt Andrea has her baby, she will have four kids”, my son declared as if we’d asked him a trivia question. Something rose up in my chest, my heart rushing words to my mouth. I could not leave it alone. “Yes, she will have four children, but she has had five kids. One died in her belly.” I had talked to Tucker about miscarriage before, but the concept still baffles him; he thought I was joking. As a five-year-old, he does not have a full grasp of death, and the idea that a baby would die without a discernible cause makes no sense to him. Tucker knows that babies form in a mama’s belly, but he sees the womb as a cocoon that ensures immortality. My wife and I tried to explain how prevalent and tragic miscarriage is: “Your Aunt Emily lost three babies. They were all your cousins and very special. We loved them all.” Why would we insist on telling him about his miscarried cousins? We want him and his brothers to know how precious life is at all stages, that we continue to mourn the loss of little ones even if we can’t play with them on holidays or send them birthday gifts. We want our kids to recognize the reality of miscarriage: a child was present, loved, and lost. We do not go into all the details; our little ones are not ready for that. But they will hopefully understand miscarriage better than we did growing up. As they get older, we pray they see and feel the tragedy of miscarriage so they can effectively come alongside the grieving, to both mourn the loss of those children and celebrate their short lives.
Nick Carrington is an Editor for the EPLA and Assistant Professor of Professional Writing at Cedarville University.
By Stephanie Gordon EPLA Editor When I went through my miscarriage, I didn’t share the news with the world until years later. I felt like talking about miscarriage was still a silent topic – even in 2012. When I shared the news with my 86-year-old grandma, Rosemary, she told me she, too, had lost a baby four months into a pregnancy. Her loss was something we never talked about until recently. In 1962, she became pregnant with her third child. Four months later, she lost her baby. At the time of her miscarriage, she had two healthy girls. “I didn’t talk to anyone about it,” Rosemary said. “Back then, miscarriage was kept a secret and wasn’t talked about. It wasn’t a good experience.” My grandma worked in a local school system at the time of her miscarriage. She made an appointment with her doctor before going to work one morning. She was experiencing blood loss, and wanted to determine if she was losing her child. “My doctor confirmed that I was losing the baby,” she said. “Back then, there weren’t options like there are today. The laws were different. I felt so helpless.” If you have experienced miscarriage, you know that there are options for mothers experiencing loss. A few options would be to pass the baby naturally, a D&C (dilation and curettage), or a pill, usually misoprostol, to help complete the miscarriage. My grandma’s only option was to wait to pass the baby naturally. To this day, she believes her doctor wished he could have helped more. She continued to work even though she was losing her child. She remembered crying to her doctor as she waited for her baby to pass. He again told her that he could do nothing to help her. A few days after bleeding began, my grandma passed her baby during the night at home. My grandpa stayed by her side as she delivered the baby. Apparently in the ’60s, it was common practice to be admitted to a hospital after miscarriage for close monitoring. “I stayed in the hospital for a day-and-a-half,” Rosemary said. “I felt so relieved that it was all over. I went home and it was fine.” My grandma went on to tell me that back then, women didn’t talk to their doctor, family, or friends about the things they do now. This was interesting to me. Was this a generation that just dealt with the situations they were put in with little support? Were they forced to bottle up their emotions and act like nothing happened? Sort of like an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality? It felt as though it was. After my grandma’s miscarriage, her doctor said that she wouldn’t be able to have more healthy children. I’m not sure what made him think that – maybe because she had experienced miscarriage. But, two years later, she became pregnant with my mother. She birthed one last healthy child, and I am so incredibly happy she’s here.
Stephanie Gordon is a paleo food enthusiast, wife, full-time SAHM of two girls with one on the way, marketing professional, and blogger. You can follow her on Instagram at @stephgordonblog.
Can Our Social Media Apps Facilitate Sharing, Connecting, and Healing on the Topic of Miscarriage?3/2/2020 By Stephanie Gordon EPLA Editor If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you know we touch on a wide range of pregnancy loss topics. I was having a bout of writer’s block last week when I was deciding what to write about. So, I reached out to my Instagram followers. I asked them what they’d like to learn about pregnancy loss. In a matter of minutes, responses were coming into my inbox. “Sometimes I feel like my husband is sadder than I am. To me, giving birth to a 10-week-old baby and holding it in my hand for three hours was some sort of closure. I’m not saying I don’t feel sad anymore, because I still have my moments. But now that I’m pregnant again, I have been able to start getting excited for this baby while my husband is just upset we don’t have the miscarried baby in our arms.” I received many messages like this one, and many wanted to hear a husband’s side of pregnancy loss. Some wanted to know how to support their husband during loss. Coping with loss was a popular suggestion. One person wanted to hear about a woman’s experience with a first pregnancy ending in miscarriage and not knowing anything about miscarriage. Someone asked me to write a letter to women who haven’t experienced pregnancy loss. “I’ve been shamed for not having a miscarriage and almost meant to feel unworthy (and like I don’t appreciate it enough) of having a child because I haven’t gone through something like that. I want to be sensitive to the topic because I couldn’t imagine the heartbreak, but I have a hard time talking about miscarriage because I feel like there’s a group of people who have miscarried hating on people who haven’t. There’s a disconnect.” I was surprised by the variety of messages I had received about pregnancy loss, just by the simple act of reaching out. There are so many different loss stories and emotions out there, floating around social media. If you are reading this and feeling alone, I can assure you that there is someone out there who has experienced a similar loss to yours or feels a similar way you do. “My wife just miscarried our first baby. With further digging, we found out the loss was due to blood type. She has an A- blood type and I have A+. The doctors said that it (the loss) was possibly from the baby being A+, and her body thought it was an infection. She was 11 weeks along when we found out.” By simply sharing a story on Instagram, I had people I could instantly connect with on this matter. I guess that’s the beauty of bringing awareness to this topic we are so passionate about here at the EPLA. With sharing and sympathizing, there comes healing. And for those who haven’t experienced loss, they’re interested too. Let’s keep fighting the good fight, because we’re all here out of love.
Stephanie Gordon is a paleo food enthusiast, wife, full-time SAHM of two girls with one on the way, marketing professional, and blogger. You can follow her on Instagram at @stephgordonblog.
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