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October 31 - November 9, 2024
The Venn diagram of laughter, rage, and sorrow is our wheelhouse. We hope to meet you there.
Today, we have a different cultural silencing method—the trendy lexicon of “the journey,” which short-circuits any rage or sadness by insisting it was all essential to get you where you are today. That every loss has a silver lining, every misfortune is worth it, even if the ensuing road is a hellscape. America’s idea of comfort is deeply discomfiting. Particularly for assholes like us, who want to feel angry and sad and will never be grateful it happened no matter how many essential oils we sniff.
The helplessness and loneliness so many of us feel after pregnancy loss are not a coincidence. They are the result of a culture that is deeply uncomfortable with grief, particularly female grief.
She terminated fifteen years ago. The day of the Dobbs leak, she was at a funeral for a friend’s mother who had ten children. “I realized, when I die, no one would talk about my third child because no one knows, and I won’t be a mother who had a daughter, and I won’t be a mother who lost a child. And I knew it was time to start sharing my story,” she said.
She was never screened for depression. No one said “come back and check in.” She was just dismissed. At least two dozen women told us this—that they weren’t screened for depression, they weren’t told about depression or anxiety as a side effect of miscarriage or stillbirth, and they weren’t clear on what to do if they felt depressed. How sad was too sad?
“It has shattered our lives,” she said. Crystal talks about him all the time. She has to talk about him to survive. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, because they don’t know what to say or how to handle her grief.
None of these people wanted any of this to happen. They had to make a terrible choice, and they were doing what they believed was the best and most caring thing for their babies. That’s what being a parent is.
Texas, for example, already has one of the most significant physician shortages in the country, which is expected to increase by more than 50 percent over the next decade. The shortage of registered nurses, around thirty thousand, is expected to double over the same period.42
Infant deaths have risen in Texas since the state banned abortion. In 2022, about twenty-two hundred infants died in Texas, 11.5 percent more than in 2021. This is attributed in part to an increase in overall births since the ban. But the spike in infant deaths caused by genetic and birth defects was 21.6 percent, suggesting “that many Texas patients who would have otherwise terminated pregnancies with fatal defects are being forced to carry them to term.”43
Grief looks weird. Some of the people we spoke to were quiet about what happened, and it came out in other ways, like needing to sleep or feeling depressed or watching a lot of dumb reruns. For others, the grief was a slow burn, a low-level anxiety that never went away. Others had panic attacks. Some cried. Others didn’t. It’s just impossible to paint a composite photo of grief. But unless they fit into a specific category—sad but not too sad, talking about it but not too much or for too long—eyebrows get raised.
Erica Bailey gave birth to a stillborn in Missouri, where abortion is now essentially banned. “My precious son who lived for 39-weeks, was not seen as a person in the eyes of the law. We did not receive a birth certificate, even though I still gave birth to his 7-pound 6-ounce body,” Bailey wrote in Motherwell. “We were not able to claim him as a tax dependent, even though we paid for all the same things in preparation for his arrival, in addition to the funeral, burial, headstone, and years of trauma therapy at $150/hour. In the eyes of my very ‘pro-life’ state, he didn’t even exist.”15
“There’s still this fear that anytime you start talking about fetal lives, you are going to endanger Roe even more, which is impossible,” Lens told us.23 “I think if we could all get a little bit more realistic about how inefficient human reproduction is, I think it would benefit everyone, right? If we were honest, like 70 percent of fertilized eggs don’t turn into people, because they don’t implant in the first place, we’d all be better off, and we’d be able to allow for the space that people need when, you know, they give birth to a dead baby.”
Most people we talked to had no idea what they qualified for and either had to do rigorous research to figure out what was available or were lucky enough to have a manager or coworker guide them through the process. Many went back early because they didn’t think they met the requirements, though some also went back as a distraction from grief or because they financially just didn’t have any other choice.
When she finally did go back, it took time to adjust. “I was thinking, how weird that this baby was born and is alive and fine. Nothing bad happened to anyone. How?”46
“It’s really hard to live in your body as a postpartum person without a baby.”
Once my son Heath died, I felt the taboo. I still feel it, but at the same time, my son is dead so what’s the worst thing that can happen to me at this point? It already happened. If I say how I feel and that causes someone to feel uncomfortable, well, guess how uncomfortable I’m feeling? I’m the one who has to live with this.”19
The first transfer failed. “It never crossed my mind that you could go through that and spend that amount of money and not end up with a baby. I felt so embarrassed by how much stock I put into that embryo that wasn’t really a baby yet. But eventually I realized I was allowed to grieve. I was allowed to acknowledge that I had gone through what I had both physically and emotionally and didn’t have to be embarrassed for hoping, for falling into the fantasy that this science experiment was going to work,” she said.
To be fair, it’s not just about pregnancy loss. America shies away from all grief, a side effect of a culture that elevates relentless optimism and plowing through hard times and sidesteps feelings at all costs.
Alishia Anderson, an author and advocate who lost a son to stillbirth, has a father who is a pastor. “The anger that I felt toward God was very strong, but I also stayed connected to God. It was a weird conundrum,” Anderson said. “When you grow up in the church, you don’t question God. He knows, you’ll be fine, everything will work out. I had numerous conversations with my dad about how church can sometimes be a hindrance for parents who are grieving, especially Black church. You can pray and still seek counseling or help without feeling like you are betraying God.”
“There’s no handbook to deal with this,” Westchester-based Nicole O. told us about her TFMR and miscarriage. “I have lost more than anyone that hasn’t been through this could ever imagine or be able to identify. It has affected me on every possible level. I look at a picture of myself before, and I look different. People don’t understand. You lose so much of yourself.”24
Nothing. We understand this instinct. Many people are afraid they’ll say the wrong thing, so they say nothing at all. Or you’re worried that if you bring it up, it will make the person sad. Most loss parents, especially in the immediate postpartum period, are thinking about it all the time. You bringing it up won’t change that. Use the tips below to say the right thing. Silence isn’t helpful. Also Avoid: Fortune teller statements “You’ll be fine. You’ll have a baby. I know it.” You don’t know anything! Stop it.
