How to Talk to Someone Who Has Had a Miscarriage
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but the worst thing to say is nothing at all
As a psychologist with a specialty in fertility struggles, pregnancy, and infant loss, I spent years sitting across from women and their partners, listening to wrenching stories of reproductive hardship. Still, there was plenty I didn’t understand about the trauma women go through upon having a miscarriage.
Until I became one of them.
Sixteen weeks into my pregnancy (well within the supposed “safe” zone), I saw blood. I sped to my obstetrician’s office. Heartbeat: check. Placenta: perfectly situated. Fluid levels: just as they should be. Two days later, while I was at home alone, the baby emerged from my body.
My primordial scream was so fierce, I was certain other continents got wind of the horror. Coached by my doctor over the phone, I cut the umbilical cord and promptly began to hemorrhage. When I reached her office, I underwent an unmedicated D&C and took a few snapshots of the baby. Then I headed home, empty and unpregnant.
Nothing can prepare you for this kind of trauma. We go about our lives, and in the blink of an eye, reality shifts, catapulting us into another psychological galaxy altogether. It was the…
