I Had a Miscarriage: A Memoir, a Movement

by Jessica Zucker

If God “causes” miscarriages, or at the very least allows them to occur, is this otherwordly being worthy of devotion? If our chosen faith is unable to carry us through grief, should we continue to live a life in service of that religion?

Religion and spirituality can and do provide another avenue to assist us in becoming reunited with our former, pre-loss selves, and better acquainted with the people we’ve become in the wake of pregnancy and infant loss.

Such reparation I found in this eventual naming—in being able to actually call her something. In my writing about loss, I could now not only talk about my loss, but also refer to the being who spurred this fierce, nascent passion in me: to change the cultural conversation surrounding pregnancy loss.

On October 15 of each year, in honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, I also light a candle. In communion with the countless women living in every corner of the world who have felt some variation of pregnancy and infant loss. I think of us all.

We spoke about motherhood in the absence of a baby and how invisible she feels in it, especially amid the countless women who have babbling babies in their arms; who have valid complaints about the utter exhaustion of parenthood—an experience those like Sage wish they could endure.

And so, memorializing seems vital. Through it, we might not only buoy ourselves in the throes of grief, but these rituals might also invite others into the very essence of what it feels like to be a loss mom, empty arms and all.

Moments in which the previous me emerges leave me wishing I could somehow rewind—to go back to pre–grief laden times.

But the length of one’s life does not dictate their impact. Brief stays can surely make themselves deeply felt, can’t they? A profound and mighty impression they do make.

Japan has a culture known for its humility; here, they grieve through action—grieve out loud, in the open—rather than hiding it, the way our culture is prone to do. The statues reveal ritual, protection, love, remembrance, beckoning pilgrimage.

I posted a piece of art of the Jizo statues, which I commissioned before my departure, and another with an illustration and the phrase “Empty arms, full heart” written in both English and Japanese. I wrote about the enormity of my experience and how much I wished we all had access to a culture where grief exists out in the open—amid the fresh air, accessible to all—not just gnawing and eagerly scratching within the confines of our bodies.

But if our children are being taught that sex (and other reproductive technologies) lead to babies, should they not also learn that some fetuses never make it that far?

“So the baby’s heart is beating one minute, and then not the next? Does it hurt the mommy’s heart when that happens?” he asked, curious and concerned. “They hurt indescribably so,” I told him. “But what do the mommies do the next day? Without the baby?” “They rest. They cry. They remember. They receive support,” I replied.

“Swim in it,” I said with a tinge of trepidation, wishing there was a better answer. “We fear we might drown if we lean into grief. But you won’t. You might feel like you are, but we won’t let you.”

Sometimes, a witness is precisely what we need.

As humans, we are prone to trying to rush through the tough stuff—be it mild psychological discomfort or a more extreme situation, like trauma or tragedy. And this makes complete sense, of course. Why would we want to be psychologically uncomfortable, for any amount of time? It simply doesn’t feel good. As a result, we sometimes attempt to skirt the issue at hand and skim the surface of pain because we want to get back to feeling good. As much as we’d prefer to skip difficulties entirely though, we all know that life doesn’t really afford us this opportunity. This evanescent luxury. It can’t and it won’t. And beyond this impossibility lies what we would lose if we were capable of sidestepping trauma, hardship, death, loss, pain, grief. Because when we attempt to stave off our personal truths, including the ones that hurt, we often inadvertently stymie our capacity for growth and resilience. We might, by the very nature of trying to fend off some of our feelings (i.e., the unpleasant ones), unwittingly clamp down on the juicy ones as well, feelings like joy and love and peace. And as a result, we are likely to find ourselves living a little smaller, loving a little less freely—out of fear born of self-preservation—with the sincere hope of staying safe.

Must we be “fixed”? Should grief have a time frame we must adhere to? And if we don’t adhere to it, then we are somehow seen as an outlier, a renegade who is not healing? I don’t think so.

Sometimes things don’t “happen for a reason” and sometimes there isn’t a cheerful way to look at a horrific or heartbreaking situation.

We can be hurt and healing simultaneously. We can be grateful for what we have and angry about what we don’t at the exact same time. We can dive deep into the pit of our pain and not forget the beauty our life maintains. We can hold both. We can grieve and laugh at precisely the same moment.

I’ve also learned that magic lies in allowing ourselves to lean in to our pain.

Through normalizing the conversation around what is in fact a frequent outcome of pregnancy, we work toward never again hearing a woman in the aftermath of miscarriage say, “I feel alone.”

Nothing had prepared me for grief’s labyrinthine complexity, its enduring nature, its serpentine permanence. Nothing. Nothing had previously educated me about the fact that grief can’t be bypassed or replaced with platitudes, “positivity,” or psalms. Grief commands attention. Grief demands time. And grief isn’t to be tamed or tampered with. It is to be traveled, investigated, lavished, even. Studied. It doesn’t give us much of a choice in the matter.