When our son turned two, my husband and I decided we were ready to try to conceive another soul for our family. The first month we could try, I was going to ovulate while my husband was out of town. We practiced up until the day he left. Looking back on it, shortly thereafter symptoms appeared – I was overly emotional, tired, full of gas, constipated but it wasn’t until a few weeks later when I woke up and noticed that my breasts were enormous and sore that I was fairly sure I was pregnant. From the beginning it was just so unreal, so unexpected and so amazingly perfect!

We interviewed a few midwives and made our selection and started prenatal care immediately. I was very worried about miscarriage this time around – I kept thinking about it and wondering about it.  I hadn't been like this when pregnancy with my son so I noticed the difference. When I was about 6 weeks pregnant, I woke up in the middle of the night and screamed out "The baby is dead!" Figuring it was my imagination getting the best of me, we all went back to sleep. The next few weeks were a blur – I was so tired all of the time, my hormones were way up and I was having morning sickness everyday. In those first 10 weeks of pregnancy, I had two unexplained very minor incidents of spotting. I was almost not sure it was spotting – I had to hold my panties up to the light to see if it was colored or not. It was more or less just a tinge on the normal pregnancy mucus discharge. In my 10^th week I just didn’t feel right. I still had all the pregnancy symptoms but had a 3^rd spotting incident: same as the rest, very lightly colored and very small spot. Something inside me was screaming though – screaming that something wasn’t right.  Shortly thereafter, while sitting at my computer during a time of high emotions, I was trying to get in touch with myself and started listening to the physical cues of my body.  I noticed some sensations that didn't seem quite right.  As I kept listening, I realized my body was screaming at me that I had lost my baby.

I was due to go out of town for two days that week – I had no way to get out of the trip having already put it off twice and due to lose out on my work-from-home opportunity if I didn’t sign the paperwork that week. Knowing something was wrong, I called my midwife who ended up being out of town for the week. After talking with my husband for awhile, we decided to put my mind at ease (thinking positive still) and get an HCG reading done over the course of 48 hours. I called the obstetrician who delivered my son – an open lady who is okay to work with me and my views. She agreed to do the HCG reading but cautioned she was nervous about doing it and having the potential to deliver bad news to me over the phone while I was by myself away from home. She suggested that we could do an ultrasound if we wanted but she would leave the decision to me.

We went in for the blood test and something inside me was still screaming that this wasn’t the right thing to do. I spent some time searching my instincts and feelings and decided to go ahead with the ultrasound – I knew in my heart that the baby had died. As soon as they put the little instrument on my belly, I looked at the screen – I knew instantly that all my fears were right. They continued to search for a heartbeat with no avail. I was stunned and numb and in tears…. We had to talk to the doctor after that – she was compassionate and assured me she would not try to interfere in a natural process and I could take as much time as I needed to let my body work itself out.

I went home and entered the largest black pit of despair I have ever lived in. Nothing seemed to matter – I had a baby who DIED inside me. She was gone and there was nothing I could do. My body still wanted her, I still wanted her, we all wanted her but she was gone and all I could do was wait for my body to let go. We had to start the process of telling people that we had lost the baby which my husband took the lead on as it was too difficult to talk about for me. I spent some time meditating…telling my body that it was okay to let go of the pregnancy.

I went outside to play with my son and the women on my street, having heard from my husband, crowded around me in support. It was very tribal in a sense…all these women circling around me in a ring of protection, comfort and knowing sympathy. We talked about miscarriage – their miscarriages, my miscarriage. It was very surreal. I was in such pain and didn’t know how to express it. I could talk about what happened physically but I wasn’t sure about the emotional side of it.

The next day I had to board a plane for my trip out of town. I began bleeding the night before. I instructed my body to not release the baby until I returned home – I wanted to keep her and bury her. The next two days were the worst two days of my life. I had to put on a happy face, meet lots of new people and all the while I’m screaming inside "I LOST MY BABY. MY BABY DIED." …and no one knew. I couldn’t believe that it didn’t show on the outside. I was a wreck both physically and emotionally. I didn’t know up from down.

The morning after I returned home, I miscarried my baby. I was able to save her body and I thanked my body for listening to me. I did a meditation trying to reach the soul that was my baby and someone came to me. She told me her name as Amber and that she could not stay with us this time. After that meditation, we decided to name our baby Amber.

While I was still reeling emotionally it was like the whole world decided that I had had enough time to grieve. No one brought it up anymore, no one asked about the baby. It was like she never existed. I was stunned that people didn’t understand the impact of the miscarriage or its effect on me. I was amazed at the callousness and lack of compassion in the people around me including my husband. I felt all alone and began to question whether I was making a "big deal" out of nothing. WHY was I feeling so overwhelmed with sorrow and sadness and desperation when everyone else seemed to think it was no big deal.

People would say things like "You are so young.", "It wasn’t meant to be", "You’ll have more children.", "You can try again." But no one addressed that this was my baby, a baby and she was DEAD. She was DEAD and I couldn’t ignore that or treat her like she was anything less than a baby. She was my baby and she was dead and I was going to grieve for her and give her remains respect.

We bought a rose bush, an amber colored one, and I adapted a Pagan ritual for death. My husband, son and I all went outside and dug a hole, did a ritual and buried the remains of Amber beneath the rose bush. It was beautiful and cleansing and brought me some closure…. and, yet, when I would tell people about it, you could see them almost cringing. Again I felt like I was making a big issue out of nothing as if burying this child was something ghastly. I was confused as to why I was feeling such strong emotions, so much despair and depression when it seemed the rest of society viewed miscarriage as a blurb, a momentary issue, something to feel sad about for a day but no longer.

I have this neighbor – she has lived through more than I can imagine. She was widowed when her child was not even a year old and recently remarried. In the past 6 months she’s had 2 miscarriages. She brought me a book called "Miscarriage – Women Sharing From The Heart". It was the best gift I could have received. As I sat there reading through the stories and the words of other women who had been where I was, I realized I was okay. What I was feeling was normal and it is SOCIETY that needs a greater understanding of miscarriage and what miscarriage means to a woman. I wasn’t making something out of nothing I was grieving for my dead baby.

What I realized was it was okay for me to talk about it. It was okay for me to work through my grief in my way and if that meant talking about Amber, burying Amber, crying in public that was okay too. It was not only okay, it was normal and it was imperative to my mental well-being to allow myself to go through all the stages of grief. Having a miscarriage is losing a child not a "pregnancy".

If you know someone who has had a miscarriage ask her how she’s feeling. Tell her you are sorry her baby has died. Acknowledge that her baby was a baby. Acknowledge that she’s grieving and tell her that’s okay. Let her know you are still thinking of the baby and her loss weeks after the miscarriage..not just a few days. Let her talk about it with you and, most of all, stay away from those nice phrases –the ones that don’t really mean anything anyway because at the time a mother who has lost her child DOESN’T think it is okay or ever will be again, she doesn’t care if she has another child, she’s just LOST HER’S, she doesn’t care if she’s young or old and she certainly doesn’t want someone invalidating her feelings by telling her all those things. ACKNOWLEDGE her loss and let her grieve.

When people ask me how many children I have, I will say I have two but one didn’t stay with us long. Amber was my baby and she’ll always be with me in spirit.