The weight of the ache

Early pregnancy loss, grief, and the gravity of love.

This post has been itching to come through my fingers for weeks, maybe even months. My brain does this fun thing where when I have an experience, it starts to turn that experience into a story without my permission sometimes. The joy of being a writer, I guess, everything is grist for the mill.

But not this. Or maybe this. I do not know.

I do not want to write about my raw, aching heart because aren’t all of our hearts hurting in some way?

Isn’t someone else’s loss graver than mine?

I shouldn’t talk about this because truly in the scope of my life, other’s lives, and the world, this is a blip.

But it isn’t. And if I do not write about it, I am reinforcing my own shame and the pain of women who have experienced an early pregnancy loss. By not writing about this, I am reinforcing the idea we shouldn’t talk about this topic.

So, here we go.

I have always thought the song Bigger than the Whole Sky by Taylor Swift was about a miscarriage.

I never had one the first time I heard this song, but I could feel it in my bones this song spoke of the grief of losing something you loved too soon. I have no idea if this is true, but once I experienced my own loss, I turned to this song for comfort.

“Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,

You were bigger than the whole sky,

You were more than just a short time.

I have a lot to pine about,

I have a lot to live without,

I’m never gonna meet

What could've been, would've been

What should've been you

What could've been, would've been you.”

I need everyone to know I thought the line where she sings “I’m never gonna meet” said “I’m never gonna be”….so I am now more convinced in my assessment, and I am crying all over my keyboard.

I have been struggling to write about this loss, but a friend just asked me how I was feeling, and I said how terrifying it felt to lean into what I was feeling because I was so damn sad.

I have been sad before, I have grieved loss before, I tried writing this poem to channel some of my grief but it only opened the flood gates.

I have been hiding from my pain, because when do I have time to grieve?

Especially something that only I felt, only I knew was true. I lost so early I never even got a positive pregnancy test. But I knew, my intuition knew. The world around me keeps moving just the same, but that spark of new life inside me is gone.

And the sadness is consuming, so I have shoved it down. I am an expert at that, going on as if nothing is wrong. But the body does not lie, right after the loss, my health spiraled out of control. I chalked it up to hormones of the loss and my son stopping breastfeeding at the same time.

The truth is something deeper is going on inside my body I am working to figure out now. But I also know emotions are powerful and unacknowledged grief will destroy. What is that bible quote? If you do not bring out what is within you, it will destroy you. Maybe he was just referring to feelings, I do not know.

I fell in love with those tiny bundle of cells, I fell in love with the possibility, I fell in love with the direction my life was heading in. I could feel her, I could feel her energy and then one day, after some painful cramps, it was all gone.

I prayed to God, I am not religious, spiritual sure, but I let go of my Catholic roots ages ago. But in the moment I felt it happening, I prayed please do not take this baby from me. I knew what was happening, I could feel it.

Even though I knew in the moment, I peed on a stick the next morning, hoping my body was wrong. When the stick was a resounding negative, I still tried to hold onto hope. It was not until I saw my herbalist later that afternoon that I connected the dots when she said…if you are trying to conceive, you shouldn’t be drinking that.

Good to know.

When I got home, I raced to Dr. Google for why because I was too ashamed to admit I had been taking it. The stupid AI generated response said, this specific herb could cause uterine cramping. I suspect the tincture I had been taking daily for years caused a miscarriage.

I only assume, there is no way to know. But just like I knew in my bones and soul, I was pregnant. I know this to be true. It was a total accident. I did not think to look sooner and I will not add shame for my mistake to the complex emotions I already am swimming in.

Glennon Doyle wrote, “It’s not just the love: it’s the impermanence of the love that makes us ache.”

This time was short and fleeting, but it was real. The loss is real, the sadness is pervasive. It touches everything and I do not how to move through it. I wonder how long it will live inside me.

Love does not last forever. Or maybe it does. Maybe it is the one thing that remains beyond all this stuff we experience in earth school. I do not know for sure.

But I believe that is why this hurts in such a visceral way.

Because I let love in, even for a short time, love came into my heart in a new way, for another being. I was at some sort of beginning again.

I wanted to hold onto that feeling forever, I still try to grab onto it but its fading.

And this is why this loss is different than any other grief I have ever known.

There are no memories, no time shared on the earthly plain, there is very little to remember those few weeks of my life by. There is next to nothing to cling to in my grief except the certainty this was all real and not a figment of my imagination.

Except, a bracelet my aunt bought me early on in my knowing. I chose the specific bracelet because it matched the energy inside of me. I wore it every day, I wore it after the loss, until one day I only felt the ache when I looked at it. So, I took it off and have not put it on since.

That is where I am in my grief.

Onward,

Emma

I wrote this weeks ago and it helped my heart immensely to write it all down. I hope sharing this helps to mend your heart whether you are grieving a loss similarly to mine or differently entirely.

If you have a story of early pregnancy loss, you want to share. I am collecting stories for my Motherhood Musing series. The form will be open until June 15th.

Thanks for reading Being in Motherhood, I’m a writer, artist, and mother constantly redefining myself. I write about being human while navigating motherhood, neurodivergence and living a full creative life. I believe reflection and compassion can change the world, the way we see things, and how we be here.

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