As Baby Loss Awareness Week begins, writer Jane Knoop urges Christian women to break the silence around miscarriage. She calls for greater honesty and compassion in sharing these hidden experiences with younger generations.
When I had a miscarriage in my early 30s, I was shocked. No one – not one of the many wonderful women in my circles – had told me what it would be like. Not really. I was mightily unprepared.
I don’t blame them, it’s a tough topic to approach. A couple of weeks ago a heavily pregnant friend asked me what my experience of birth was like. “Be candid,” she said, “I want to know. No one talks about it.” But despite the invitation I held back. Was it helpful to tell her about my two traumatic experiences? I don’t want to worry her unnecessarily. I decided. Her experience will be different from mine.
“No one talks about it,” she’d said, which I had found odd.
After our brief and shallow birth-chat, I went away wondering why I hadn’t had the courage to be more candid – sensitive, yes, but a bit more honest. “No one talks about it,” she’d said, which I had found odd. Birth seems to be a common topic of conversation in my spheres… at least these days it does. I guess there was a time when I also might have said, “no one talks about it.” Any of ‘it’. The stuff we go through as women.
READ MORE: ‘The pain of miscarriage was probably worse than full-term labour pains’
And so it is with miscarriage. People say it’s a taboo topic, and before I had a miscarriage it seemed to be. I had never heard people talk about it – not really talk. And I had never asked, or listened. Despite knowing that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, for some unknown reason, I was convinced mine wouldn’t. So I’d never really looked into it. I wasn’t looking, and because of that, none of the vital information reached me. It seemed there wasn’t much to know, or much to be said on the matter.
But once out the other side I discovered a wealth of information and a whole heap of women speaking up
But once out the other side I discovered a wealth of information and a whole heap of women speaking up. It turns out that lots of older women in my networks had experienced miscarriage, or knew about it intimately from friends or loved ones. I’d just never known (never asked, never been told). And it seems that there is an active public conversation around miscarriage I had never tapped in to. There is noise on the topic that I had somehow been deaf to.
READ MORE: I prayed that God would stop this nightmare and let my baby live
Women are increasingly feeling compelled to talk about their experiences, to break the ‘taboo’ of silence. I want to add to the noise. But, I wonder… who is our audience? And who are we trying to reach in amplifying our collective voices about miscarriage and baby loss?
Naturally, it’s for camaraderie. So we don’t feel alone. So we can support and console one another. But I wonder if we also have a responsibility towards younger women, whether we need to find kind, gentle and bold ways to bring miscarriage into our conversations with others from a young age, so that we don’t get to 32 not knowing… Not knowing how painful first trimester miscarriage can be (a far cry from a ‘heavy period’), how it can feel like contractions which every fibre of your being tense against. Not knowing how it can last a whole day or longer, or what the options are for medical management. Not knowing who to turn to, how to engage with God or how acute grief can feel for a life you’ve never held in your arms. Not knowing how subsequent periods can feel like loss, or how to cope with the anxiety of future pregnancies. And so it goes on.
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During my miscarriage and in the weeks that followed I frequently wondered, how did I not know it would be like this? Why on earth had I never asked anyone? And why had no one said more?
When I saw my friend who’d asked me about birth a few weeks later – tiny babe now in arms – she said, “you could have said more about birth, by the way.” Said more. Her word’s echoed.
Are we doing each other a disservice by not being more candid? Should we be more intentional in our churches, women’s groups and friendships to bring difficult topics into the conversation with younger women? Do we have a responsibility to lovingly look out for one another by talking about the experiences we go through as women?
Should we say more?
This week is baby loss awareness week. Whose awareness do we want to capture? Policy makers, business owners, leaders and decision makers, yes. Fellow women on our individual and collective journeys, yes. And girls and young women who have a right to grow up informed.
This week I’m going to make a point of being more candid.
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