I have heard the range of comments from friends : “Count yourself lucky that you don’t have to coordinate babysitters, lug all this baby stuff around, and you get a full night of sleep”… “It’s not your time, maybe you need to stop trying, but, oh, by the way, so and so’s is pregnant.”

In the midst of my grief, I dealt with an insenstitive doctor who did not believe that I knew my own body. I went back to him a few times with concerns that things did not feel right, my body still felt pregnant. In each situation, my body had retained tissue (but with out giving me a fever, thus giving me no credibility).
With my first miscarriage, I passed the fetus at 10 weeks and had a full exam and was given the all is clear, you will feel better in a few days. The whole next week I was feeling ashamed at my ability to recover and get back to work. I would try to work only to have the contractions start all over again and start nearly hemorrhaging all while trying to maintain my dignity and a smile till I could get home again. I could n’t even begin to deal emotionally with the pain because I was still in the throughs of the physical pain.
Nine days later I passed the placenta. I thought a part of my uterus came out ans I was scared to death. It was nearly the size of a potato and was rock hard. I was furious for all the shame and degredation I had been feeling for the past week+ because I had a doctor who would not take my concerns that things were not all clear seriously. A simple ultra sound could have prevented all of that craziness.

Your boards have been my lifeline for dealing with my miscarriages. Dealing first with my loss of a child, then my loss of children. This was a place where I wasn’t having a pity party, but that I was grieving and that all of those lovely women out there were hugging me and grieving all of our losses together.

Thank you so much!!!!!

I’m going to have to write six novels!

Also, recently my Mother-in-law has really hurt my feelings. All 5 years that I have been married to my husband our holidays always revolve around her OTHER son. The one that has kids. This year I am fed up. I am not going to bend over backwards to see her every year just because she chooses to always do what THEY want, rather than making an effort to see us. It’s upsetting to me. And I feel guilty. I feel like it’s my fault. I feel like my husband’s own mother won’t make an effort to see him on the holidays and always chooses to spend them with her other son…why? Because I can’t seem to carry a baby to term. My mother-in-law had a long talk about it last night and I told her how I feel. Just thought I’d share that. I’m sure I’m not the only wife who has these fears and notices the favoritism among siblings due to her “inability” to produce a grandchild. Even if it is just a perceived guilt…it is something I’m sure many women feel but never talk about.

After having had a missed miscarriage at 18 weeks, we then experienced almost three years of infertility. All the while, I kept up that brave face each time one of my group of 5 closest friends and my sister announced their pregnancies and went on to have beautfiful babies. It was like grieving that never ended. There could never be closure because I was still waiting for a child. “What if that was the only time I would be pregnant?” is all that went through my head. We finally went the IVF route (after a few failed attempts with Clomid and IUIs), and I am now 22 weeks pregnant with twins. Despite the stats that show the chance of loss are low at this point, not a day goes by that don’t think of that fateful moment three years ago when the doctor couldn’t find that heartbeat. Now, because I am so guarded I feel somewhat cheated out of some of the excitement of this pregnancy, and at the same time, guilty because I should feel lucky to be pregnant after our first round of IVF when so many others are not.

I’ve kept a blog (Conception Chronicles) since we started down the path of IVF–mostly to help me document my experiences. The majority of the blog describes my thoughts about infertility and the IVF process, but the Prologue provides the background story of our loss. While I’m not particularly proud of the writing on the blog, please feel free to use anything from it if it would help you to develop any of your characters or story.

I am so looking forward to hearing about your process of your writing and, of course, reading the finished work. Best of luck!

My experience with in the last few years was that each time I miscarried (three times) another friend was pg also. I did already have one child at that time of my miscarriages so I was able to join in their joy of the birth when my pregnancies ended early. Conversely…I went on to have three more children and each time I was pg with them a friend miscarried. These have been very very difficult relationships for a myriad of reason, which I am exploring in my writing these days….when I get something up on my blog I’ll post. If you can draw some fictional characters from it you are most welcome to do so!

I look forward to reading your work!

I also think the infertility issue after miscarriage is of great importance. Along with some damage to a marriage, I think the damage to self-esteem may be an issue that should be explorede, especially when the drs can’t find anything “wrong” with you. I personally have struggled with feelings of inadequacy as a woman and as a wife because my body doesn’t seem to be able to do what it was built to do.