** This is a letter I wrote to myself about what I would like to know before I experienced all my early miscarriages. Please keep in mind that each person will be different, and each miscarriage will be different. My main advice to you if you’ve experienced a miscarriage is advice that was given to me by a great friend. Think about what would help you to heal, and do that. Whatever it may be, and it may be several things. It could be anything but some examples are: a trip to visit a friend, seeing a therapist, or in my case: starting to work out, eating healthier, and writing a letter to myself. Also, open up and talk to your friends and family.
A Letter to Myself (on Miscarriage)
I’ve rewritten this so many times. And I still don’t think it’s perfect. But it’ll never be perfect. Because words really cannot describe what happens when you go through a miscarriage or several more. It will push you emotionally and physically. You will feel like your world is falling apart.
This is what you should know and always remember.
Losing a pregnancy that you’ve wanted and tried for is devastating. That seems obvious. But you are the type of person who will know this with your heart and when it actually comes down to it you will try to push your feelings aside. You think you are superwoman, but really you have to understand that no matter what you’ve been through before, this is a whole new ballgame.
Physically you will feel completely and entirely drained. That’s completely normal. Think of what your body has been through. You were pregnant, which came with all the pregnancy hormones, which for you was mostly feeling super tired. You were so hopeful because you’ve had trouble actually getting pregnant and finally you were pregnant. One of your miscarriages will happen after a surgery and while taking medication to help prevent miscarriage, so you were beyond sure that it would work. Your body is tired and needs to heal, give it a break and just take it easy as long as you need to.
Speaking of your body, you will expect to hate it after a miscarriage, but you won’t. You’ll actually start to treat your body better. It’s an essential Gd-given part of you that you can’t neglect. You’ll realize there are things you need to do to take care of yourself and you’ll feel better if you do.
You will go through an emotional rollercoaster but when it’s all over, you’ll still be you and you will be ok. You’ll be pretty depressed for a while, which will come and go for some time. You will feel distant from friends and family. The house may be messy, and you won’t feel like having guests for a while. That’s ok. Your family and true friends will always be there for you no matter what.
Cry. It’s ok to cry. It doesn’t mean you’re weak, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost all control. It just means you need to cry. You’ll feel better after you do. You’re a human being, remember that.
Unfortunately, there is so much stigma around talking about miscarriage. But trust me, the best thing for you to do is to open up. I know you don’t tend to do that. But maybe it’s time to finally realize that’s it’s ok to be a little more open. It’s ok to need someone else to lean on. Talk to your friends and family about it. When you do, you’ll feel so much better and people will listen and help you. Don’t suffer alone. It is so hard to be so depressed and feel so low while nobody else has any clue. No one can read your mind. So open up, as needed.
When we have problems we like to find answers. Why did this happen? How can I fix it? Sometimes, unfortunately, there are no answers. And all you can do from this experience is accept it and realize that this is a time for you to grow. Everything happens for a reason, even if the reason will never be obvious to us. A miscarriage will change you, but it’s up to you to decide whether or not it be a good change or a bad change.
Be happy with what you have. You have a great marriage, an amazing daughter, and good friends. Your body is healthy, just for whatever reason Hashem has decided you need to go through this. Hashem has blessed you beyond your wildest dreams. Thank Him for these blessings every day.
Also, thank Hashem and rejoice each and every time your friends and family are able to get pregnant and have a healthy baby. This may seem like an odd statement to include here but it will help you to get over your pain. At first, you will kind of be a little jealous each time you hear of another person expecting. This is totally normal and other people who have gone through miscarriages have felt the same. So don’t beat yourself up about it. But also realize you’ll get over it after you heal from the miscarriage.
Work on your emunah. No matter how much you think you have emunah, when the going gets tough it’s always hard to keep up the emunah. Strengthen it now. A great book to read is Trust Me! An Anthology of Emunah and Bitachon by Rabbi Eliezer Parkoff.
Realize that you won’t be able to have a lot of children. Let’s be completely honest, that’ll be best for your sanity. I know this is something you’re going to worry about so I’m going to address it… Gd forbid, perhaps you won’t have 2 children either. If that’s the case, that’s ok. Maybe there’s something else Hashem wants you to do with your time. And BH he has blessed you with the most amazing daughter you could have ever dreamed of. You’ll just have to make your mark on the world another way instead of relying completely on your legacy of many children. When you are feeling down and worried about this, remember Sarah Imeinu, and other great people had only 1 or even no kids. Many holy and great people have a lot of kids, but having more kids won’t make you more holy.
At some point, your fertility doctor will tell you it’s time to look into IVF. This in itself will send you on another emotional confusion storm. IVF is very expensive and not guaranteed. So above all, when this happens, don’t stress out about it. Don’t push yourself. When you’re ready emotionally and physically to try again, then start to look into IVF – if that’s really what you want to do.
Just the thought of IVF to you is going to sound crazy and maybe going overboard. You were pregnant before and BH had an amazing and wonderful and BH healthy child. But obviously now your body is different, something isn’t working like it should be. When the doubts cross your mind about even considering IVF, remember that Hashem is all powerful and the master of everything. The world and all of its resources are His to do with as He pleases. While you should always trust that everything will work out fine, you should also realize that having to use IVF to get pregnant again is also showing true bitachon.
On a couple of endnotes…
- Another thing that helped me to read again and again after each miscarriage was this: http://jewishmom.com/2013/11/26/ever-had-a-miscarriage-read-this/
- If you have a recommendation for a fertility doctor please let me know. Our current one quoted one IVF round at $25,000-$30,000. Like I said this, unfortunately, is not guaranteed and is not at all covered by our insurance.
- Also, have you had an experience with miscarriage? What helped you? I would love to know. Please comment below.