Shannon + Louisa

St. Louis, Missouri

I don’t want any more kids, I don’t want to go through the miscarriages again. I was told so many times that the first three were a fluke and it wouldn’t happen again, and then when it happened again….yeah. 

My first miscarriage was with my second child at sixteen weeks. Everything had looked good up until my sixteen week appointment and we didn’t have a heartbeat. I went on to have two more miscarriages about six months apart after that. 

And then I had my son. It was horribly nerve wracking to be pregnant with him, I don’t think I relaxed the entire time. And then after that, we weren’t even sure if we wanted a third child. After time passed we decided to give it a try and had another miscarriage. We lost her at nine weeks. They could never really give us any answers, it was really frustrating. Then I was able to get pregnant with Louisa. 

I can understand the loneliness and I found that even when people knew it was still really lonely. That is partly why I agreed to do this, I don’t get a chance to talk about this much and it makes people very uncomfortable. Even people who have gone through it before usually don’t want to talk much. And I kind of find myself being the same way sometimes. 

I’ve not had great experiences sharing. Two years ago I brought it up to a mom’s group that I was in and everybody was really sympathetic right after, for about two minutes. And then they moved on in the conversation, and I felt a little weird. Like, not what I was expecting, I guess. I expected to get a little more support, maybe? I didn’t get it, and I didn’t know how to ask for it. 

I think it’s just a hard thing and you have to get through it. You should feel as sad as you need to. Because you are going to feel sad and other people are gonna tell you not to…people say the worst things while meaning well. “It was for the best”. “It was meant to be”. You know. “Something was wrong with the baby”. But even when that is true, it doesn’t make you feel any better. 

You get through it. Even when it seems really dark, you’ll get to the other side eventually. It just may take more time than you’d like.