Miscarriages are awful,

they’re heart-breaking,

and they need to be talked about.

I had a miscarriage a few months ago in July 2018. I was only about 5 weeks pregnant, but I still felt so much loss. My husband and were trying for the first time to get pregnant, so when I started to feel morning sickness symptoms and a little hunch that I might be pregnant, I bought some pregnancy tests at Shoppers. Heart racing, I peed on the stick as soon as I got home, and 3 minutes later found out I was pregnant!! Just incase, I waited another hour until I had another full bladder and peed on a second stick, and again it showed I was pregnant! I was so so excited, I couldn’t believe we got pregnant on our first try! My hubby was at work so I staged a cute little announcement for when he got home. When he saw the announcement, he started crying. We both cried. We were so happy! We celebrated and talked about future baby plans all weekend.

Flash forward only a week later, I loss the baby. It was devastating. I woke up very early in the morning with painful abdominal cramping, and a when I woke up again a couple hours later, I had my period. It was extra chunky, and I knew those chunks were from my little baby. The hardest part of all, was blaming myself. I went through every little thing I had done while pregnant, wondering if that chiropractor appointment had caused the miscarriage, or the beer I had before I knew I was pregnant, or the lack of sleep I had a couple nights, or the exercises I had done? But ultimately my doctor diagnosed that it was a spontaneous miscarriage; I had done nothing that would have caused it, it just happens sometimes. It actually happens in 1 out of 3 pregnancies, but most women don’t even know they’re pregnant that early on and think it is just a normal period. My doctor when on to suggest that it’s more possible that the miscarriage was due to the fibroid surgery I had only a month and a half prior to the pregnancy, the scar tissue or unhealed areas could have caused the miscarriage.

Then came the next worst part: seeing how sad my husband was from the loss. We were both hurting, and it doubly hurt me to see his pain. I knew he felt even more helpless than I did, and other than hugging we really didn’t know how to heal from this.

It was a tough few days immediately following the miscarriage, but fortunately for us, we had a saviour enter our lives only 6 days later. We had been applying to adopt a dog  from local rescue organizations for over a month. But we were challenged to either find one that was compatible with young children or hadn’t already been adopted. Incredibly, we got a call from AARCS only 4 days after the miscarriage about a dog we had applied 3 week early to adopt (who we had a really good feeling about). She had nearly been adopted by someone else, but last minute their adoption fell through. So AARCS wanted to know if we were still interested in Stevie. Heck yes we were! And within 2 days we met and adopted Stevie and brought her home for a lifetime of cuddles. At a time of great loss, we received the best gift: a happy puppy to nurture and love. She became the baby I never had and I am so grateful each and every day for her love.

Miscarriages are so challenging, but ultimately what got me through it was how open I was about mine. I literally told anyone who asked what was wrong (because I definitely show when I’m sad) and through that transparency I received an incredible amount of support. We need to feel like we can discuss miscarriages, instead of them being something to hide/cover up. We deserve the support that is given when others know of your loss. We need to not be afraid to reveal our times of sadness and healing. We need to learn that “sucking it up” or “faking it til you make it (smiling it out)” does nothing but bottle up something deep inside you, waiting to explode at a future time, or cause an on-going depression. We need to be there for one another, and the first step is making this a common conversation. Spread love and awareness my friends.