I Should Be Pregnant Right Now

A note about miscarriage, healing, and hope.

This feels scary to hit “publish” on. It’s vulnerable and I shed a lot of tears writing these words, but they are ones that I want to share rather than keep for myself or sit on for weeks in a draft folder. If it speaks to you, would you let me know? It helps me feel like the vulnerability hangover is worth it. Love you, fam!

TW: pregnancy loss, infertility

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I want to write this post before I’m pregnant again.

I say that with such hope and wishful confidence. It’s been three months. I should be 15 weeks pregnant right now. According to the site I used to calculate that, my baby should be going to Kindergarten in 2029 and turn 40 in 2064. Yet my baby never took a first breath. Never had a heartbeat. Never kicked my belly. Never was held in my arms or fed from my body. Never will look at me and say, “I love you, mama.”

And most days, I’m okay. Until I remember that I should be pregnant right now.

The thought can hit me anytime and anywhere. I don’t know if it’ll ever not sting. My due date will never be just another day. Neither will January 2nd or January 16th - the day I found out I was pregnant and the day my baby left my body - just two weeks apart.

Have you ever been so close to a miracle just to watch it fade away?

As much as I don’t love the phrase, “at least you know now that you can get pregnant,” I get it. I feel it too. There is increased hope for a future pregnancy now. I’m thankful for that after two doctors in 2023 told me they doubted I’d ever get pregnant naturally, even with lifestyle changes. I know, losing your first pregnancy is usually a fluke. It helps, but it doesn’t.

As much as I’d love to get pregnant again, that baby can’t replace the one I lost. I’ve heard some pushback on the phrase “rainbow baby” for several reasons and I understand the critique. The baby you lose in a miscarriage isn’t a storm but a tiny human. The situation is a “storm of life” so I get the sentiment, but I understand the pushback that a live birth after a loss is a unique human. It doesn’t make up for the one you lost or a consolation prize for enduring pain. (Side note: I will be 0% offended if you love the term “rainbow baby” and use it.)

For many years, one of my biggest fears was having a miscarriage. Then I had no choice but to face that fear, one that felt so present from the second I got my first ever positive test after countless negative tests. “This only ends two ways. I either lose this baby or I finally get to experience pregnancy, childbirth, and everything that comes after. There’s no more waiting to see if it’ll ever happen. It’s happening.” That was my thought process.

Emotional rollercoasters are my least favorite kind of thrill ride. Yet somehow, my motherhood journey has been chalked full of them. Infertility sends you for a wild ride as you pray and pee on sticks. Then add foster care and the crazy ride that is, with countless people having a say in what happens to kids they may or may not have ever met. Just for that to stabilize enough to feel the infertility side of your motherhood journey again, get pregnant, then promptly have all those hopes come crashing down. All the while, I’ve watched so many others seem to waltz right into motherhood with a Legally Blonde toss of the hair. “Like it’s hard?” (Okay, I know every mother’s experience itself is hard. It’s just the getting and staying pregnant part that seems easier for some.)

In facing such a huge fear and crushing disappointment, one thing that helped me was knowing I was far from alone and far from the first mother to face this. It’s a club I never wanted to be a part of, but it’s filled with so many beautiful souls whom I am deeply thankful for. Women are strong, man. We are resilient and frankly, rather incredible. We can hold life within us. And miscarriage is the one death that you experience within yourself… it’s the strangest thing that feels impossible to describe. I told my husband that it’s so hard to compare this loss to losing my father-in-law. Losing Brian was devastating because we knew who he was and we loved him so dearly. We had memories along with the hopes and dreams of the future. Losing my baby felt like a death within myself; the death of a dream and all the things that could be all while knowing nothing about them. It’s best said in this quote:

“A pregnancy loss is a death we experience in our own bodies: There is no death we experience more intimately than one that literally passes through us.” —Elizabeth Bechard

Surprisingly, I felt a sense of strength in my body during the loss, even though it also felt so wrong. One night in a lot of physical pain, I was feeling the need to stretch my hips and pace my room, feeling the ache in my back and womb, telling my husband, “This is so unfair. This feels like how I imagine labor feels. But there’s no reward. There’s no new life at the end of this.” But an odd comfort to me is that women have been doing this forever. I am not the first or the last. I belong to a bigger picture.

Having had a previously scheduled doctor’s appointment and getting some labs that looked good for my overall health, I didn’t feel shame for what my body couldn’t do as deeply as I had anticipated. I knew I had done all I could to give my baby a safe place to grow. I knew there was nothing more I could have done. That comforted me. Again, the hope for the future is high.

There can be hope for the future and deep grief for the loss. Both are true.

I should be pregnant right now. I’m not. Instead, it’s back to ovulation kits and reproductive endocrinologists doing all we can do to optimize fertility without starting any treatments because that ish is expensive and covered 0% by my insurance. It’s tinctures of herbal concoctions from a naturopath that I take on certain days of my cycle. It’s watching my basal body temperature fall and rise and fall with my Oura ring. It’s guarding my heart from bitterness as the pregnancy announcements roll in with due dates a little too close to my own and I attend a baby shower every month for 3 months in a row.

This is not where I want to be. It’s where I am.

In many ways, I “bounced back” faster than I thought I would. In other ways, I’ve had to give my body grace and time to adjust. I’ve had to give my heart time to adjust.

What comes next?

I keep celebrating my four little miracles every day. We just passed the one-year mark of being an official forever family and I’m so thankful for how we have settled into our rhythm as a family. I like us. I like the culture we are creating in our family. I love the healing and progress we’ve made together. I love how the kids are praying and hoping for a baby too.

I’ll keep eating as healthily as I can without becoming obsessive or restrictive, aiming for sustainability. I’ll lift weights once or twice a week. I’ll try to get good sleep and manage my stress. I’ll take Epsom salt baths and do castor oil packs. I’ll take my supplements and drink my filtered water with added mineral drops. I’ll take walks and maybe try running some and I ought to go to a yoga class again. I’ll do what I can to help my body be at its best.

And I’ll read novels, bake sourdough, write here, and maybe I’ll even finish the embroidery project I picked up during my miscarriage. I’ll keep embracing all the hobbies that are definitely just fancy copy strategies. I’ll keep throwing myself into church life and community and those things I’m passionate about that help the waiting feel less daunting. I’ll keep living my life and dreaming for the future, even without knowing if and when another tiny human will come along to flip my life upside down again.

Life keeps going in the waiting. In the grief. In the in-between. Life is still good. It’s still beautiful. It’s still full of joy and a million little miracles to be grateful for. And it can also hold something so tender just below the surface. One of my friends who also went through loss has called it, “the heavy and the light.”

This week, a good friend said, “I’m thankful you’ve been open about your journey. I feel like we’re all along for the ride at this point!” And I do think that’s a gift to choosing to share. I know I have people praying and waiting with me. Thank you to everyone who has wept and rejoiced with us — the friend who offered to scroll beside me on the couch while our kids play to sweet care packages and notes to just thinking of us and saying a quick prayer. I feel it all.

I cannot wait until we get to celebrate with you.

Until then, here’s to hope in the waiting.