Pregnancy After Loss

No, It’s Not My First

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monochrome photography of children on swing

Three weeks after Maliyah died, I reached out to the Pregnancy Loss Support Program, and they matched me with a Peer Counselor, who I spoke with a few times. The thing I remember most from our conversations was when I asked her when I would feel normal again, and she said “never.” She said, “even if you decide to have another pregnancy, a random stranger will stop you in the grocery store aisle and ask you when you are due, and if it’s your first. And for the rest of your life, you’re going to face that, and other questions that have no good answers.”

At the time, I thought she was insane. Another pregnancy? Over my dead body. Literally.

But she was right, of course. I am still non-pregnant-passing in most random-stranger scenarios, but at the gym, in spandex and tank tops, it’s become obvious.

The issue is: it’s not my first. But unless I want to follow up with “my first one is dead,” then I never quite know what to say. If I say I have another kid, then they ask how old she is (dead) or how I feel about being a mom of 2 (probably not the way they think I’d feel, since one is dead). If I do say it’s my first, then people assume I don’t know what’s coming, and offer their unwelcome advice, and I do know.

When I first started to tell my coaches at the gym that I was pregnant, only one of them knew about my pregnancy last year. For the ones who didn’t know about it, I figured they would ask me if I wanted modifications for certain exercises, and I wanted to nip that in the bud. To get ahead of that question, I came in for the kill with the overshare. After their squeals of excitement, I said, “I don’t think you know this, but I was also pregnant last year. The baby died, and I almost died. So, this time around I have a very large team of doctors giving me a lot of advice, and I’ll be following that advice and making some of my own modifications.” This was usually followed by shock, nods, a few “I’m so sorries” and “of courses,” and from then on, I was free to take things at my own pace, unbothered.

I wish I didn’t have to be so blunt, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of playing dumb. I didn’t want to pretend I needed help with a modification for a cross-body woodchop when I was already 25.5 weeks pregnant less than a year ago. I knew what to do and what not to do, and I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.

It’s not my first. I know what exercises to modify. I know what foods not to eat. I know to try not to sleep on my back. I know to take the trash out daily because the smell makes me want to vomit. I know every test and scan that exists. I know how my body will look and change and feel. I know, because I’ve done it before. RECENTLY.

This time, I also have a huge team of doctors giving me (sometimes conflicting) medical advice, so I don’t need any more people’s advice, especially less qualified people. I now have the BEST OF THE BEST on my team, experts in their field, sometimes the foremost in their field in the country, thanks to living in New York. They know their shit. As I said to someone recently, “you know the saying, ‘there are too many cooks in the kitchen?’ Well, I have too many doctors in my uterus.”

Also, my pregnancy is not a normal one. Most people under the age of 85 don’t have a nephrologist on speed dial. Therefore, while some coaches at my gym may have training in coaching normal pregnant people, they probably don’t have training coaching “special needs Emily.” I don’t blame them, even most doctors wouldn’t know! Heck, I had different advice from 2 doctors on my own team! But the point is, this ain’t my first rodeo. I know more about the specifics of pregnancy than probably 99.9999% of childless non-doctors; I’ve dedicated the past year of my life to research and information-gathering.

I also know more about pregnancy than a large percentage of people with living children. That’s because I’ve now gone through 2/3 of a pregnancy twice, first with a very complicated pregnancy, and now, a super high risk one. I know every possible scan, every possible blood test, every possible complication. I know the different trisomies by heart, and which tests can screen for them. I know multiple different types of cerclages. I know when bed rest is recommended (almost never) and which recommendations are old wives’ tales. Most people go through a pregnancy with naïvity. I have none of that, but I have a boatload of knowledge. So no, it’s not my first.

The complicated part, of course, is that I have nothing to show for it. How do I explain that I have been 25 weeks pregnant, AND 14 weeks pregnant, but I’ve never parented a child? I don’t. I just stay away from people, mostly, especially parents. I steer clear of conversations I don’t want to be a part of or can’t contribute to. When I see people talk about how they don’t want their kids to grow up, and they want them to stay just this age forever, I shut my mouth. Because I know that’s not true. I know they’d be devastated if their kid, in fact, never grew up. I know because mine never did.

I find that the more often I share about Maliyah as part of my story this time around, the more comfortable I am. Instead of just saying, “I’m pregnant!” I’ll say, “I’m pregnant again!” Depending on the situation, and if I’m in a charitable mood and want to lighten the emotional load on the listener, I sometimes add some humor or jest.

I used this humor tactic recently when I went to the dentist. One year ago at the dentist, I was pregnant. At the time, my gums were bleeding every night when I flossed, so I mentioned it. The female dentist said that it happens often in pregnancy, and not to be too worried about it. Then, 6 months later at the dentist, I wasn’t pregnant. Unfortunately, they assigned me to a dental hygienist who was 9 months pregnant. She asked me if anything had changed “in my general health” since my previous appointment. I said, “I was pregnant, and now I’m not.”

Last month, pregnant YET AGAIN at the dentist, I was asked this same question about my general health. This time I laughed, and I said, “it seems I’m on a schedule to get pregnant annually, so I tend to have the same issues every other time I come here! Still no living babies, but hopefully this time’s the charm!” I laughed, she laughed (uncomfortably) and then the moment passed. I didn’t want to go through the fake chit chat about me being pregnant before, so I led with the facts and a joke.

It turns out my Peer Counselor was right, people always ask about the rest of your family unit when you mention a pregnancy or appear pregnant. I’ve decided that in most scenarios, I am not going to say it’s my first. Usually when I think about the reasons I’d say that, it’s to save the listener from an awkward encounter; but it’s not awkward to me, it’s just my family. My feelings have definitely evolved over time, sharing here on the blog has helped me feel more comfortable sharing IRL. Hopefully I’ll have a living addition to the gang this summer, and he’ll be my second.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 6 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

Gender Disappointment

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boy and girl cutout decals

“All I want is a healthy baby.” Everyone says that. It’s true, but it’s also not the full story.

The topic of “gender disappointment**” is a hot button issue in pregnancy in general, and in the “normal pregnancy” world it isn’t talked about much, but in the loss-mom-world, it’s talked about quite a bit.

In normal pregnancies, people have expectations and wants, they picture the little outfits, and the hairstyles, the sports they want to teach their kids, the dance recitals, the blue or pink nursery, and sometimes, they are disappointed when they find out what they are having. This is 100% normal and 100% understandable. Almost everyone thinks about their future and what it will look like, and it makes sense that if you find out it will look different than you imagined, it will be disappointing. That’s human nature.

With loss moms, it’s that, and a dumpster fire more. With loss moms, you not only had those dreams, but you had the baby! You possibly already had the clothes. The nursery. The pink carrier on your registry. And then, it’s all ripped away. Not just the tangible items but the hopes and the dreams. It was so close and within reach, and then it was so far. Therefore, the “gender disappointment” can hit even harder.

With my first pregnancy, we decided we didn’t want to know what the sex of our baby was. Chris didn’t feel as strongly as me, but he agreed with the decision, and he said he didn’t care, he would love them either way. I had my own reasons, and one of them was exactly that: I’d love them either way. But there were other, less benevolent and more rational reasons, too.

  1. I always wished I had a big brother growing up. Or a little sister. Those were the two things I didn’t have. I had a big sister and a little brother. So I figured, if I had a boy first, I’d be elated! Then I’d have that possibility of having a family with a big brother and little sister! We could have a built-in someone to look out for her.
  2. I knew I wanted “at least” one girl at some point. I literally have a business styling hair, I was MADE to be a girl mom! Plus, tutus and sparkles and headbands are kinda my thing.

For those two reasons, I knew it didn’t matter. Girl first, FAB, I get my girl. Boy first, FAB, I get my “older brother” dream. The third reason we chose not to find out the sex of our first baby was:

3. We wanted to be “surprised.” I figured, this was one of the final surprises left in the world, and I wanted to have that amazing moment in the hospital. Besides, like I said, I’d love them either way.

HA! We sure got a surprise. A dead one. Not exactly the surprise we planned for. But you know what they say about plans… We did love her, and do love her like we planned, but the surprise part? We did not love that.

Early on, post-loss, Chris and I decided we definitely wanted to learn the sex of our next baby. We decided this LONGGG before I was pregnant again, possibly even while I was still in the hospital.

We made this decision for a few reasons. Some were for Chris. We both wished he had more of a connection with Maliyah before she died. He came to literally every appointment and ultrasound with me (and there were a lot!). He knew all the facts, he sat (and slept) by my side in the hospital for a week. He spent time with her after she was born. But, the bond of a carrying parent is just not the same as the bond of the non-carrying parent during pregnancy. And since we only knew her during pregnancy, it felt uneven. We talked about how we could help him create a stronger bond, if there was a “next time,” and one of the things we agreed upon was knowing the sex. Knowing the sex would help him create more vivid and specific dreams of the future for his child. He could think about himself as a “girl dad” or a “boy dad” and what that meant to him.

As for the reasons for the decision for me, I knew for a FACT that I had enough surprises for a lifetime. I was full up on surprises. Done. Also, I know now that 99.9999% of pregnancy is completely out of my control. For an anxious control freak like me, this is not an ideal situation. Therefore, I knew I needed to control the controllables. I needed to gather absolutely every piece of information that I could. That included everything from reading scientific, peer-reviewed papers on placental health, and it meant learning the sex of my baby ASAP. I know now, I do not do well with surprises, and I needed time to adjust to the news. I did not want that “adjustment” time to be in the delivery room.

We knew we wanted to know, and we wanted to know FAST. Unlike last time, where I didn’t care which sex I was carrying, this time, I felt completely different.

I wanted a girl. Everyone says they “just” want a healthy kid. And that is not a “just” for me. OBVIOUSLY that’s what I wanted. That’s what I still want. I know it’s not a given. I know it’s out of my control. I know I’d do ANYTHING to get a healthy baby. But still… I wanted a girl.

So why did I want a girl? I asked myself this question millions of times. In my head. On support groups. In therapy. To Chris. Why did it matter to me? I listened to a few podcasts and learned I was not alone. It seems almost ALL loss parents want the same sex next baby as the one they lost.  At first, it seemed so strange to me. I knew this next baby would never replace Maliyah. I knew she was gone, and I knew she was irreplaceable. A new baby doesn’t replace a dead baby.

But still, deep down in my soul, I wanted a girl. By the time I saw those two lines on the pregnancy test again, I had 9 months of images in my mind. Maliyah as a baby. Maliyah as a toddler. Maliyah as a teenager. Maliyah at her wedding. Those were all milestones I would never see because they would never come to fruition. I had a girl, but I didn’t get to raise her. I carried her and I birthed her, but I never got to dress her, create a bond with her, TALK with her, learn her hobbies, braid her hair, it was all missed opportunities. I felt in my soul that I needed a girl back. Not the same girl, but a girl. I needed a chance to do all of the things I had imagined for Maliyah throughout the previous year.

I’m not getting a girl. I had my girl, and she died. And now, we’re having a boy.

When we first received the results, I thought I’d have a lot more trouble with the sex.  I thought all of the thoughts I had above would come to me in a deluge. It didn’t happen that way, they didn’t come to me until many weeks later. Instead, when we first received the news of our new baby brother, I just had trouble accepting he was a human. The more I thought of him as a boy, the more I thought of him as a person. Of course, I have no idea what his likes and dislikes will be, whether he will love laptops or lacrosse more, but just thinking of him as a person who HAS likes or dislikes was really troubling. I was so terrified to think of him as real. Thinking of him as a boy was TOO real. The more I thought about him as a person and not just a parasite, the more I was terrified to become attached. Those feelings lasted for a month, maybe more. We held on to the information without telling a soul (besides my therapist) for 7 weeks.  I felt that sharing the news about him being a boy would immediately make me attached to him. But then, I listened to a podcast that said, if you’re afraid of becoming attached, it means you’re already attached. And I knew it was true.

Part of me is happy I am carrying a baby of the opposite sex. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am constantly looking for differences between this pregnancy and my previous one. I am trying so hard to see a different outcome, so any time I can hold on to a tangible difference between pregnancies, I am hoping that is more evidence that a different outcome is in our future. Is this rational? Absolutely not. There is literally zero evidence that Y chromosomes in general cause less pregnancy complications. But for me, I am trying to trick myself into believing that this marks an important change.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling less kind to myself, I think I caused this. Not just that I caused myself to have a boy this time around because I wanted a different pregnancy, but also that I somehow cause Maliyah’s death because I originally said I wanted a boy as my firstborn. I have been to many, many hours of therapy and I am very aware that my thoughts did not cause Maliyah’s death. But sometimes, I still let my mind go there.

Practically speaking, raising a boy terrifies me. I don’t know anything about boys. I barely understand my husband. I think about the different relationships of men and their mothers versus women and their mothers, and it makes me sad. I know I call my mom to chat 3-4 times/week, and I know my brother only calls when he needs something. I know I talk about my feelings constantly, and my husband pushes them down. I know most men don’t love a tutu and a bow, and I live for them. I don’t know how to teach someone to pee standing up. None of those things mean I won’t be a good mom, they just mean I may have a steeper learning curve.

There’s another piece, too. I won’t just be raising a man, I’ll be raising a black man in the United States. I know there are so many things about his experience in the world that I simply won’t be able to relate to. Not just that, but there are also fears. I know that the United States is not a safe place to be a black man. I know that while things are possibly moving toward equity, we have a longggg way to go. This is a whole other post that I don’t feel fully qualified to speak on, but I will just say, it’s something I think about a lot. I know that I am anxious in pregnancy because I fear for my boy and he’s inside me, and I know that fear for his safety is not likely to go away after he is born.

Since I found out about having the opposite sex pregnancy, I have been talking to a lot of loss moms and listening to podcasts about this, and I have realized that almost all loss moms who had girls in their first pregnancy, have a boy in their subsequent ones. I actually could not find one single person who had a girl who died, then another girl. I found a couple who had a boy and then another boy, but ZERO girl-girl. The good news about this is, I’m not alone. There are many stories out there for me to see, and there are many people for me to talk to. I have realized that all of my feelings are common. Many loss moms who had girls who died have talked to me about how they notice things they never looked at before, like moms and their sons of all ages on the subway. I have tried to look closely for these things, too. I need to reframe my whole schema of what my mothering relationship will look like, so I am seeking out examples. I find much more in common with moms-who-lost-girls-and-have-living-boys than just mom-who-have-living-boys. There’s this grief and sadness that pairs together with extreme happiness of living children that I find myself at the intersection of. This is another example of feeling “other,” like I talked about in my post on being a “loss mom not a regular mom.”  I know this “mom-of-living-boy-after-dead-girl” seems like a small sample size, but now that I exist in these spaces, I know there are actually very, very many of us.

I don’t think my what-ifs will ever go away. I will continue to wonder if my only girl I will ever get to parent is dead. I will continue to think about my unrealized dreams for her. But I am also now looking to create new dreams for our son. I find myself constantly looking at old photos of Chris as a kid, and seeing how cute he was. When we have conversations, I look at his face and his gesticulation, and I notice little things in him, mannerisms and physical traits, that I hope our son inherits. I watch him snoring away at night, and wonder if our little boy will sleep as soundly.  One thing I know for sure is that we will love him a LOT. He is already loved so much, and we can’t wait to meet him (but not too soon)!

**Sidenote: I know the term “gender disappointment” is a misnomer, since what we are actually talking about is genitalia and sex, not gender expression, but historically, the term has been “gender disappointment” so that’s what I used here. Also, “sex disappointment” reminds me of a whole other thing: what most women experience throughout their 20’s.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 3 days)

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Pregnancy After Loss

I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Loss Mom

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There are so many things I lost when my baby died. I lost my baby, obviously, but there were a million secondary losses. One of the big losses was the sense of community. I was in the “expecting” community, then all of a sudden, I was not. If you are the type to join the “bump groups” on reddit or Facebook or anywhere, where you find thousands of women looking to have babies around the same time, all of a sudden you are left behind. Personally, I’m not that kind of gal, and those groups always made me a little uncomfortable. However, last year when I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Maliyah, I did join a local moms group, looking to see where people were signing up for daycare wait lists, what the going rates were for nannies in the neighborhood, and who was selling second-hand strollers, etc. When I came home from the hospital empty-handed and empty wombed, I immediately exited all of those groups and it was devastating.

But I’m pregnant now! I’m back in the club! The COOL MOMS CLUB! The regular moms club! Except… I don’t feel part of the club at all. In fact, I feel exactly the same as I did before, like I have a dead baby. Yes, I’m growing a new one, but I feel completely out of the club.

I didn’t realize just how “other” I felt until last month, when I saw an Instagram friend repost from Vogue Weddings the announcement that Sophia Richie Grainge was pregnant. The photo showed her in an unbuttoned, oversized men’s shirt and underwear, belly on full display. It had 1.9 MILLION likes. I saw it, visibly cringed and recoiled, and clicked away. I couldn’t look at it. I had to take a moment and realize my own reaction. Why was I so uncomfortable seeing a woman pregnant, when I myself was pregnant with a little bump of my own? I reflected on how I felt the week prior at my doctor’s appointment. As it happens when you go to a maternal fetal medicine specialist, most of the people in the waiting room, indeed are carrying babies. It’s why they’re there. But to this day, I look around the waiting room and I can’t stand looking at them. I find myself averting my eyes from anyone pregnant, even walking past strangers on the sidewalk.

After Maliyah died, when I had to go to my doctor for follow-up appointments, I was similarly disturbed and triggered seeing pregnant women. I thought this would be temporary because of grief and trauma, and that I would somehow find myself “fixed” and “back in the in-crowd” once I was pregnant again. I’ve been waiting for this moment, but it hasn’t happened and now I’m not sure if it ever will.

Whenever I think I’m in the clear and I’m feeling more part of the club again, I get shoved back into my place by random seemingly-innocuous conversations. Since I’m in my mid-30’s, of course more and more of my friends are expecting (living) babies. Therefore, many conversations revolve around upcoming births. I was feeling so much better about these conversations. After all, I have one coming up, too (hopefully). But recently, I realized my worries and complaints are just SO DIFFERENT from other expectant mothers.

Once you have a kid, if you have living parents or in-laws, you also make them grandparents. What a gift! I know my mom is dying to be a grandma with a new tiny baby to hold. I also know that some people have overbearing parents and grandparents. Recently, some friends were talking about their parents/in-laws and their involvement in their kids and lives, and I again realized how different my guilt and struggles were. Don’t get me wrong, everyone complains about their parents and in-laws, and I don’t want to minimize any of their struggles, but in 2022, I promised my parents they’d become grandparents and then I gave them a dead grandkid. Instead of visiting their new grandkid in the hospital, they came to visit me, babyless, hooked up to an EKG and 4 IVs. That’s not what I promised, and my extreme feelings of guilt for letting their grandparent dreams down by giving them a dead grandkid, they just don’t compare to all of the “regular mom” guilt.

Now, two years later, I am once again promising my parents another grandkid. Hopefully this one will be alive. My friends complain about how involved their parents are, imagine how uninvolved they’d be if your kid was dead? Imagine how hesitant they’d be to show their excitement if they weren’t sure if this one would survive? Or if they weren’t sure how you’d react to the excitement because you were so terrified yourself? My parents are scared to even ask about my pregnancy unless I bring it up. We have been very clear about not accepting gifts yet because of our extreme caution. I wish more than anything that I could be a “regular” mom getting gifts from excited grandparents-to-be, but instead, we just skirt the subject and wait with baited breath.

The subject of me feeling so incredibly “different” came up recently when I was talking with my husband. He asked who I told about the pregnancy, and I told him that all of my close friends and immediate family knew. He asked what they thought about it, and what they said. I said, “well, they said congratulations, but I don’t really talk to them about it. Who wants to know about my hundreds of appointments and blood draws?” He was pretty surprised to hear I don’t discuss my pregnancy with my friends, since I am so open and outgoing and extroverted usually.

For weeks, I thought about why I don’t feel comfortable talking about it, especially now that many of my friends have kids of their own. I think that is actually why. There are two groups of friends, the people who have babies now (many of whom I was SUPPOSED to have a baby before), and the people who don’t have babies. My friends who have never been pregnant don’t really understand, and those who have been pregnant but haven’t gone through an extremely traumatic loss, I feel like they can’t relate. Sure, I could talk about the scans or the tests to my friends with kids, and they would be able to speak knowledgably about them because they had the same ones. But I doubt they had panic attacks in the waiting room every time. I doubt they didn’t sleep for weeks as they waited for their metabolic blood panel to come back. I doubt they broke out in a cold sweat in the Uber on the way to the hospital. I doubt they literally sob EVERY time they have an ultrasound. I doubt their charts say “SIGNIFICANT ANXIETY” in all caps in the notes section.

I could share more with friends, but I don’t feel like anyone would get it. I’m not a regular mom, I’m a loss mom. Some of this could be in my head, and I like to think all of my friends are sympathetic people, so even if they couldn’t have empathy I think they would feel bad. But I don’t want my friends to feel bad, I want them to understand and it feels like no one can. That’s what the internet is for, I guess, to find other PAL moms who similarly have panic attacks in waiting rooms, and can suggest their favorite progressive muscle relaxation techniques when they feel the cold sweats coming.

My regular mom friends with living kids talk about picking baby names. One mentioned how they settled on a name months before the birth, but they wanted to reserve the right to change it if the baby didn’t seem to match the name. For me, I have a list of names, but then a backup list of names for if the baby is dead. I have my top favorite names, and then I think, “if this baby dies too, would I want to save that name for a living baby? Would I ‘waste’ it on another dead one? What is the meaning of the name, and would it be awkward as a memorial name instead of on a breathing kid? Like if it means energetic or ‘full of life’ isn’t that weird for a dead child? Does the name go with Maliyah’s name? How would it look on a memorial necklace next to hers?”

Regular moms don’t think about those things when they’re deciding names. Regular moms think, “Is this a pretty name? Do we like it? Are we naming them after someone? Does it go with the last name?”

Loss moms have a list of names that go with their last name, and a list of names that don’t, because last names don’t really matter when the baby never gets a birth certificate. Every single decision is made differently.

I’ve talked before about how my excitement is different than other moms-to-be because mine is complicated and tinged by 100 other emotions, and I had a perfect example of this a few weeks ago.

I mentioned to a friend when I announced my pregnancy to her, that I think my body looked at 12 weeks the way that it did at 24 weeks with Maliyah. When she heard that, she told me it made her want to see bump pics. I have a complicated relationship with bump photos to begin with, since I’m not 100% comfortable with my body changing outside of my control, so even with Maliyah, I didn’t take many photos of my changing body, and I certainly did not share them publicly.

When my friend asked me for a bump pic, I told her I didn’t have any. But then I remembered, I did. The morning of my doctor’s appointment at 10 weeks, I took photos in the mirror. I had completely convinced myself that I was going to find out that day that my baby was dead. I was sure. I told myself, “I better take a photo of myself so I have something to commemorate this baby.” I took a couple photos before I put on an outfit and headed to the doctor, where I found out that everything was perfectly fine.

I had actually forgotten about those pictures. I didn’t take them to flaunt or show anyone. I took them for future memories when I figured I’d be left with nothing else. Empty womb, empty arms, yet again. I needed something to put in the memory box.

Regular moms don’t do that or have those thought processes. Regular moms take photos for Instagram or to send to friends and family. Regular moms hold up avocadoes to compare their baby to an inanimate object. Loss moms think about putting photos and memories inside an inanimate object since that’s all they are left with.

I will admit, it made me really sad to realize that the only reason I was taking pictures was because I thought they’d be the only ones I’d have. I realized I had been doing that with other things too. For this pregnancy, I saved the pregnancy test (in a ziplock bag because ew), and I saved my wristband from the hospital from my 12-week scan. I worry that these are the only items I’ll have to remember this baby.

I have tried to think differently and get excited about this new baby, but as you read, it’s been difficult. I get very sad when I see happy and naïve people post pregnancy things because I’m jealous. I wish I had that excitement. I wish I could excitedly receive gifts. I wish I could confidently schedule a baby shower. I want to be a regular mom. But I’m not, I’m forever and for always a loss mom.

(Written at: 13 weeks, 0 days)

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Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Pregnancy After Loss

My First Pregnancy Was a Dead Baby

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Last week, I wrote about how difficult it is to be excited about my new pregnancy. That’s because it seems impossible to believe that things will end well.

Before this new pregnancy, I used to say, “100% of my babies are dead.” That was true. That was also why I was terrified to consider another pregnancy. Based on the only evidence I had, when I got pregnant, I almost died, and my baby died. That was the only example I had.

I am a very realistic and logical person. If X, then Y. If not Y, then not X. It’s basic algebra. The contrapositive. When I got pregnant, my baby died. Therefore, in order for my baby not to die, the only way to ensure that, was to not get pregnant.

I may catch some serious hate here, but I’m saying it anyway: losing your first pregnancy is worse than losing a later one after having a living child. I know, this is extremely controversial, but hear me out. When your first pregnancy is successful (as in, it results in a living child), you had one glorious naïve experience. You not only had the absolute freedom of joy in a pregnancy, but you had unadulterated excitement in a birth. Also, you have at least one example of how things can go right.

Once a dead kid comes out of you, you have lost naivety forever. Every single bit of the journey is tinged and you know every little thing that could go wrong. This is true for every stillbirth, no matter the birth order. But when it’s your first, it is impossible to consider something breathing leaving your body. You have no reason to believe things can go well, because they quite literally never have.

When Chris and I talked about possibly growing our family, it meant completely suspending my sense of reality. My reality was: get pregnant, nearly die, baby dies, birth a dead baby. Don’t get me wrong, I know for other people, pregnancy, labor and delivery don’t end that way. But for me, with my body, it does. And it did. I have the evidence. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying misattributed to Albert Einstein, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.” To me, when I thought about considering another pregnancy after loss it was exactly that: insanity. Entering the space of considering a different outcome felt entirely unrealistic and plain stupid to me.

I remember when Maliyah died, people called me strong a lot. People don’t say that to me as often anymore. The irony is, the true strength is happening right now. The idea that I would consider entering this beast of pregnancy again, knowing what I know, with the evidence I have… THAT is strength. That is bravery. And that deserves recognition. I always think about other types of trauma, and how most people would never consider willingly and knowingly putting themselves in similar situations again, making themselves vulnerable to the exact same type of repeat trauma. If you were bitten by a shark, would you willingly and excitedly open-water swim ever again?? But for PAL (pregnancy after loss) moms, we do it time and time again.

Last week, I promised the story about my breakup with my therapist. Our conscious uncoupling was about this very issue. I could tell immediately from her reaction to my pregnancy announcement that we were operating on different emotional planes. Despite my months of prepping her for my storm of emotions that I knew would come with a next pregnancy, she didn’t seem to understand. Week after week, things came to a head because she was so extremely excited for me, and I was… confused and scared.

Eventually, after weeks of her excitement and my hesitancy, I received a test result that had me terrified. It was the exact same elevated liver enzyme that went haywire last time, which was the second indicator that my body was going to shut down from my pregnancy. Staring at the test result, seeing that exact same elevation AGAIN, was even more evidence to prove my theory that being pregnant would cause both my death and my baby’s death.

We got into a huge fight. Raised voices and all. She kept saying “what if everything is fine and you have a healthy baby?” For me, that was an absolute impossibility. The conversation was not productive, and I did not think we could ever be on the same page. She didn’t understand my fear, even when faced with scientific indisputable (later disputed due to lab error) evidence. I knew we needed to separate.

Later the next week, I repeated our conversation to my other therapist. We usually focused on EMDR, but I felt like I needed to disclose that I had parted ways with my other therapist. Also, I wanted her opinion on the conversation. I wasn’t necessarily seeking validation on my “side” of the fight, but I was looking to see if I was unfixable by therapy. I wasn’t sure if my “inability to be optimistic” (quote from ex-therapist) disqualified me from therapy. I figured I would check before throwing more money down the drain. (Thank you, American healthcare system.)

We spoke for a while about affirmations. Specifically, she talked about phrases people write on their mirrors and repeat to themselves every morning until they believe them. Sometimes they work. But sometimes, the phrases are so incredibly outlandish, that they are impossible to imprint in one’s thoughts. They are just too far-fetched to become reality. She used a simple example: the difference between saying, “my body is beautiful and I like myself,” versus, “I am as beautiful as Beyonce.” The first one is more likely to “take,” because it’s easier to believe, and closer to a person’s current truth.

For me, the idea that “everything is going to be completely fine and I’ll have a healthy, full-term baby” seems like an insane thought that is so far from my current truth. There are hundreds of hurdles to get over and past before we get to that point. I cannot possibly wrap my mind around it. My EMDR therapist said, “that makes sense. It’s hard to believe because it’s never happened before. So, what can you believe?”

Since then, that has been my motto. What can I believe to get me through each day? Can I believe that I’m doing my best? Can I believe that I’m taking my meds and monitoring my health, and going to all of my appointments, and that’s all I can do? Can I believe that it’s only 4 more days until I can get visual confirmation that my baby is still alive? And can I believe I will get through those days, one way or another? Can I wait 24 more hours to take my blood pressure again, and feel peace that it’s exactly the same as it was the day before? Then, can I maybe believe that it will also be the same the next day? I may not be able to fast-forward 5 months and believe that it will stay steady 180 more days, but I can maybe allow myself a couple days of peace at a time. For now, while it doesn’t seem like a lot, it will have to be enough.

I can no longer say 100% of my babies are dead, because I have an alive one right now. I think. And I’ll get confirmation of that again next week. And maybe… just maybe… my second pregnancy will not be a dead baby. I am not sure I can believe that yet, but hopefully, someday, I’ll have evidence. In my arms.

(Written at: 12 weeks, 0 days)

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Grief and Pregnancy Loss, Pregnancy After Loss

Invisible Grief

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lonely woman walking up a road filled with shadows of people

Maliyah’s birthday is coming up, which means I’ve been living in the grief and loss community for almost a year. It seems crazy to think how long it’s been, and it’s been a blur.

There are so many terms I’ve learned in the past 11 months. A lot of them are medical, like Diluted Russell Viper Venom Time (not related to a snake), but some are death and grief-related. Something that comes up time and time again in this community is the concept of  “disenfranchised grief.” According to WebMD, the Wikipedia of medical issues, disenfranchised grief is when a person’s grieving doesn’t fit in with the larger society’s attitude about dealing with death and loss. There are a lot of examples of this, like when a person’s pet dies, and society thinks it isn’t a “bad enough” loss. Or when someone dies from suicide or addiction and society says that it’s the person’s “fault.” Other examples include loss of something that isn’t a death, like divorce or loss of a job. Society tends to think these things aren’t “as bad” so you don’t have the “right” to grieve them in the same way.

Most people agree that losing a child is REALLY bad. But what if the child is someone who never lived outside your body? Then it doesn’t count.

I sometimes think of late term pregnancy loss as disenfranchised grief, but more often, I think of it as invisible grief. It’s something that no one else sees, both literally and figuratively.

I feel like the one good thing about typical grief is that it brings people together. There’s a whole concept in Judaism called shiva where people come together for seven days to discuss their loss and accept the comfort of others who maybe knew the person who died. But in the case of late-term pregnancy loss, no one knew the person who died. No one met her. No one saw her, not even in photos. Some people may share photos of their uterus but that’s not really my style. In a lot of cases, people didn’t even know Maliyah existed!

I recently went to a work conference that was full of land mines. I work for a membership organization with more than 1500 members. I never announced my pregnancy to the members, and there was no live birth, so most of them had no idea. The last time I saw most of them, I was pregnant, but in secret. There were so many conversations that began, “how was your past year?” Or “it’s been so long! What’s new?” Or my favorite, a person who called across the hall to me, “everything good, though, right?” NO. Everything is NOT good. Everything is shit, actually. But you can’t say that to tangential colleagues, especially because nobody knew what happened, nobody knew the person who died, and some people wouldn’t even have considered her a person.

It’s less hurtful to have people ignore or not see your grief when those people are minor characters in your life. It’s a lot worse when it’s close friends or family. The hard part is, I know it’s not intentional, but it’s hurtful nonetheless. And since the grief is invisible, the hurt is, too.

I had an example of this at Christmas. I brought Maliyah’s ornaments with me to Texas, where I was celebrating Christmas with my in-laws. We celebrated Christmas with them last year when I was 4 months pregnant with Maliyah. Everyone in 2022 knew I was pregnant. Everyone talked about it a LOT.

When I arrived in Texas this year, I told my sister-in-law that I brought ornaments to hang, and she instructed her son, my 15-year-old nephew, to hang them. He took one look at her name and said, “who’s Maliyah?”

Here’s the thing, I know he’s a kid. I also know that it’s quite possible her name was never spoken in their house. But if she was alive, he’d know who she was. They’d be first cousins! They are first cousins. And yes, it’s very possible he never even knew she was born. I know people are weird around death, dying, grief, and kids. Some people think they can’t handle it. And I get that he never met Maliyah, but he knew all about her the year prior when she was in my body, and the next year… POOF. No recollection.  When he asked who she was, I just said simply, “remember how I was pregnant? She was my daughter who died.” End of conversation. I could have ignored it, but he asked a direct question and I wanted him to know the answer. For me, the hole in the family is gaping. For others, it’s not even visible.

I held off on publishing this post until I broke the news about my new pregnancy because now, Maliyah and my grief about her death is even more invisible. I follow enough loss accounts on social media to know that this is common. I know that most people believe a new pregnancy “fixes” the previous loss. This seems absurd if you think about your baby as a person. No other humans are just replaceable or interchangeable.

I saw a post on Instagram that said, “this is how it would sound if we responded to every loss the same way we respond to baby loss.” There were six slides after that, where they went through different scenarios, like if someone’s father died, and someone said, “it’s ok, you can always find another dad,” the way people say, “you can always have another baby.” Or if someone says their sibling died, and someone answered, “at least you know you can have siblings” the way people say “at least you know you can get pregnant.” There were 4 more examples, equally as disturbing, but equally as true. I heard all of those things.

It was less than one month from Maliyah’s death when people started asking if we had considered “trying again” or if we were allowed yet to “try again.” The “again” word, as if we could just replace Baby 1 with Baby Version 2.0.

My grief has become more invisible as people now think of Maliyah as a stepping stone on the way to our happy eventual family. I heard concrete examples of this in the reactions I heard from people after announcing our new pregnancy.

There is an added wrinkle here, which is that to others, there is an extreme sense of déjà vu. My new pregnancy is less than two months off from the previous one, so when we told family before Christmas last year, then this year we were at Christmas again, announcing a pregnancy again, it seemed like Groundhog’s Day. I understand that it seems repetitive to others, and that it seems like the same thing.

To me it’s not. It’s a new pregnancy. A different baby. I repeat a mantra to myself every single day, “different pregnancy, different baby, different placenta, different outcome.” But to outsiders? It’s the same.

When we started to share the news of this new pregnancy, we received messages and phone calls, people saying they were praying for us, that they can’t wait to celebrate with all of us together next year, including the new addition. But, they said the exact same thing last year. Same prayers. Same hopes for a Christmas with a new addition. And then there was no new addition. And no mention of her whatsoever. Nothing. All I saw in church at Christmas was the baby in the row ahead of me, and the baby missing in our row. But to everyone else, they saw the same old Emily and Chris, with no living child and the same possibility of one growing.

People like to look forward, especially when the present is uncomfortable. People like to have hope and belief that things will improve. But for me, I need to hold both. I have the loss of Maliyah in my mind still, and I always will. Of course, I hope for a different-looking holiday season next year, but I also hoped for that last year, and I didn’t get that, and no one acknowledged that. I didn’t forget last year, it was only a year ago! The “yes, and” is STRONG in my head, like the dialectical thinking I mentioned last week. Yes, I’m pregnant. Yes, I may have a baby next year. AND, I still have a dead one. Forever. And I remember what everyone said last year. The hopes and the excitement that people seem to have forgotten. I haven’t forgotten.

I had a full breakdown on Christmas Eve. I explained to Chris how I know people don’t think they have memories with Maliyah because she was never outside of me, but I think of all of the times I had with friends and family when she was with me as memories I have with her.

I have 150 days of memories with her. 150 days of memories of her. I have 150 days that I still think about. But no one else does. It’s strange to feel that those memories are completely invisible to others. It makes ME feel invisible. I’m working on this feeling, trying to feel less invisible, or make my feelings more visible so it’s less lonely. This blog is part of that. I’ll take you with me, whether you like it or not.

(Written at: 11 weeks, 3 days)

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