Miscarriage

Over the weekend, my lovely partner, lover, and spouse was hospitalized with excruciating abdominal pain. Urine test suggested pregnancy, which we did not know about. She's been bleeding for a week or so, and we thought it was her period. Ultrasound found no signs of pregnancy. bHCG blood levels confirmed pregnancy, and bHCG levels 24 hours later confirmed loss of pregnancy.

Megs asked all of us for names, and so we named the fetus Ronan Elrond Samwise Isabella Pippen Ady =). Me thinks perhaps we would never saddle a living child with such a name =).

Fascinatingly, Saturday (October 15th) was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. There's a lovely International Wave of Light in which folks light a candle on that day at 7PM in their own time zone in remembrance of lost pregnancies or lost infants. I think it shall be lovely in future years to participate in this in memory of Samwise =)

I've been reading and pondering a bit on what it all means. Following are some notes on things I've learned.

Apparently upwards of 20% of known-about pregnancies and up to 50% of all conceptions end in early spontaneous abortion (i.e. miscarriage). Apparently calling spontaneous abortion by that name is odious to some because the term is associate with induced abortion, about which lots of people have judgments.

The concensus reality seems to indicate that sadness an/or psychological distress is called for. The NIH says "many mothers and their partners feel very sad. Seemingly helpful advice like “you can try again,” or “it was for the best” can make it harder for mothers and fathers to recover because their sadness has been denied."

Here's a fascinating paper from the Journal of Clinical Nursing entitled "The experience of early miscarriage from a male perspective." The author says "there is a taboo in Western cultures surrounding sex, reproduction and death. Miscarriage embraces all three of these areas and is potentially a very difficult issue to research."

I've decided to believe that the miscarriage is perfect. I love babies and children, and I would be super delighted for Megs to be pregnant and for us to have another baby. And this recent miscarriage is exactly the perfect thing for us right now, a gift from a benevolent universe. I feel completely awesome about it.

Having said that, I don't want to invalidate the experience of Megs, nor of any of you, lovely readers. In fact, I'd love to hear about your experiences of miscarriage, if any. Whatever your emotional experience, I believe that it is or was exactly the right emotional experience for you, and I'd love to hear about it if you're willing to share.

I'm especially curious to hear about the experiences of other men whose partner has experienced miscarriage. The literature seems to suggest that some men feel both grief and confusion about their role, as well as possibly a need to deny their own grief so they can 'be strong' in helping their grieving partner. Not that this necessarily matches any particular person's experience. What was yours?