Miscarriage and the Power of a Picture

By: Emily Carrington EPLA President and Founder

We mourn with Chrissy Teigen

I didn’t notice her socks. Not until a post from An Unexpected Family Outing showed up on my Facebook feed. 

The post starts simply: 
“You see those socks on Chrissy Teigen’s feet?
I know those socks.”

I gasped. I know those socks too. I know them well. I didn’t know other people knew those socks. 

My socks were blue. I was wearing them when I woke up from my D&C six years ago after my first miscarriage. Only a few days earlier I had been diagnosed with a missed miscarriage at what I thought was 11 weeks pregnant. The baby was only measuring at 8 weeks, and there was no heartbeat. After a very dark week full of research, questions, and tears, we decided that the D&C was the best option. 

My husband and I showed up to the surgical center on a sunny Friday morning in early May. The facility seemed to host a number of general low risk surgeries. It felt strange to sit there among the patients waiting for what seemed like unimportant procedures. 

They called me back to pre-op and my husband was allowed to come with me. They gave me a robe and asked me to change. Once I was dressed and back in bed they went through all of the typical pre-surgery routines. But nothing felt routine about it. They were going to take my dead baby out. How could everyone be so calm? 

My husband was sent to the waiting room with a buzzer, and I was wheeled away. They moved me into the operating room, and my doctor came in and sat down at the foot of the bed. His was the first familiar face I had seen. They started the anesthesia, and I didn’t believe I would fall asleep. 

I woke up alone in a post-op recovery area, and a nurse offered me snacks and a drink. My husband  arrived within minutes. 

I remember the blue socks. Everything was so cold, so routine, so sterile. The blue socks were warm and cozy. The warmest and coziest socks I have ever owned. And they served as the first comfort I had received since my miscarriage diagnosis earlier that week. 

I gasped. I know those socks too. I know them well. I didn’t know other people knew those socks. 

Once I fully woke up, we left the surgical center and were home by lunch.
I had a strange attachment to those blue socks. I almost felt guilty for liking them; they seemed like a souvenir from an event I never wanted to remember. 

Six and a half years later more healing came as I read the post about Chrissy Teigen’s socks from An Unexpected Family Outing. It reminded me that even though my loss was deeply personal and therefore “unique,” I was not alone in my experience, down to the socks on my feet. 
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Original Post: 

“You see those socks on Chrissy Teigen's feet?

I know those socks.

Rubbery bottoms, thin cotton. Presented to you in a sterile plastic package. Somehow they end up on your feet. Maybe it was a nurse, maybe it was your partner who put them there. Not really warm, not really comfy, but still you wear them.

​Those socks.

I've literally walked in those same socks as Chrissy Teigen. It's a terrible thing we have in common. Because even though our experiences were different, we know the same heartbreak.

Both of us know what it's like to hold our babies for the first, last, and only time.

Both of us know what it's like to enter a hospital pregnant and leave without your baby.

Both of us know what it's like to wear those socks.

And we're not alone.

Because even if you didn't wear the socks.

Even if your baby died at home.

Even if your baby died at 4 weeks or 12 weeks or 40 weeks.

You still know.

You know the heartache.

You know the emptiness.

You know the heavy, heavy grief of a parent living without their baby.

You know.

I know.

Chrissy knows.

And because of this, we are never truly alone.

Emily Carrington is a freelance writer, wife, mother, and founder of the EPLA.