I remember uncomfortably lying there, silently praying for a miracle.
They were probing around looking for the heartbeat. I looked on the monitor waiting to see some sign of life, anything. I had been to the emergency room a few days prior for spotting, but now it was worse, the spotting turned into cramping and heavy bleeding, which usually is a detrimental warning sign in early pregnancy. These were signs that they told me to look out for on my initial discharge papers. I stopped looking at the monitor because I couldn't take it anymore. When deep down I knew I had lost the baby. The silence and continuous search for a sign of life went on for what seemed like forever…
Finally, the doctor took off the monitor, washed his hands, his face grew solemn as he looked at us and then confirmed that we had lost the baby. At the time, I didn't realize it but he said some of the things that I needed to hear. He sat on the bed and told us that it wasn't our fault. He stated the medical jargon about the statistics but went on to say that it didn't happen because I fell, it didn't happen because we were stressed about money, and it didn't happen if I went out with friends and had drinks prior to finding out that I was pregnant. He just held my hand, passed me tissues, and said that he is sorry and repeated it's not your fault.
I didn't realize how common miscarriages were until I started to experience them. It's a topic that people usually don't speak publically about, but now they are starting to be somewhat normalized (as they should be) with celebrities like Gabrielle Union and more recently Ludacris' wife Eudoxie sharing their experiences going through them. Even men like Lance Gross and Omari Hardwick have come out to discuss the pain of losing a child.
It's really hard to comfort anyone when they experience a loss, but how do you comfort a friend or family member when they feel like they lost it all through a miscarriage? I quickly learned that those ideal comforting words were not so comforting, they were unsettling actually. Here are 4 common words of comfort that you should think twice about saying to someone who has just experienced a miscarriage:
1. "It wasn't meant to be."
Right after our loss, the tension grew in my relationship. We lashed out at one another over the unknown. My boyfriend one day got frustrated with me and told me that God didn't want it to happen and the baby wasn't meant to be.
When those words came out of my then boyfriend's mouth, I honestly didn't know whether to slap him or leave him. It hurt so bad, I thought I was ready to end the relationship. For one, how could he even think that, much less say it? And two, though I do not consider myself to be churchy, I do believe in God and I felt at the time that there was no way that God would want this for anyone. I didn't feel that this was the work of God. My boyfriend expected me to snap out of it and just move on with my life. He wanted his girlfriend back.
You can't tell a woman that has been yearning to have children that the pregnancy wasn't meant to be and expect it to sit well.
Those that desire to be moms yearn to become pregnant and birth babies. Some of us feel that motherhood was what we were put here to do so how dare someone tell us that it wasn't meant to be.
2. "That's normal."
Save the statistics. Please don't play the probability game when someone is going through this. Yes, 1 in 4 women experience a miscarriage. I remember reading that statistic over and over again in the very limited child loss section of the What to Expect When Expecting book as my symptoms started to get worse. Yes, many women go on to have normal pregnancies and healthy babies after their first miscarriage. Hearing these words don't make things better at the moment though.
What many fail to realize is that nothing about a miscarriage feels normal. It actually feels the opposite.
The fact that one day you go into a doctor's office with a life inside of you and on another random day you leave after just finding out that the life that was supposed to be growing inside of you has perished.You leave feeling an unexplainable emptiness. The reason why this is so insensitive is that what we are going through at the time doesn't seem real- it's a nightmare. It's hard to comprehend. Furthermore, we are not just numbers. We are actually people with feelings and it takes time to even try to normalize it especially since no one really talks about what is so "normal."
3. "Try again."
When I decided to share my loss with certain people, they would instantly tell me to try again. This felt like I was being brushed off. This saying is more gratifying to the person saying it because they deem it as an instant solution to the problem. I literally just lost a baby, so trying again was the last thing on my mind. I was mourning this baby. Telling me to try again is like telling me to buy another pet fish. As if the newly conceived baby could replace the one that was lost.
When a woman has a miscarriage, she has the right to grieve that child.
Though she may worry about being able to conceive in the future, please be empathetic to the fact that she did just lose her unborn child and that child cannot be replaced with another one. I am not saying not to later encourage her to try again if that's what she expresses she wants, but be cognizant of the time period. If she just lost a baby, you need to be there for her instead of pushing her to do something that she cannot mentally or physically fathom. Also, be aware of her specific situation, some women have tried numerous times and have experienced repeated miscarriages Some women are told that their chance of conception is unlikely so your definition of trying is not only insensitive it may be unrealistic. Lastly, be mindful that the miscarried mom is grieving what could have been.
4. "The baby's in a better place."
This one baffles me and maybe it's a bit selfish, but what better place is there to be for a baby than with its mother in her loving arms? This saying is hurtful period and I admit after having my first miscarriage, I stopped saying this to people that experienced any loss cause I realized how insensitive it can be. If you want to get biblical, you can let the person know that you are praying for them and really pray for them as opposed to just saying it cause it sounds nice.
Pray for their healing, pray for their well-being, and pray that their prayers are answered.
Coming from a woman who has experienced miscarriages, I've learned the best thing that you can do is tell someone that you are sorry for them, be compassionate and listen to them, give them as much time as they need to grieve and try to be there for them. Other helpful advice that was given to me during this difficult time was to remember that the dad is hurting too and to try not to ostracize him during this difficult time.
Most importantly, for my miscarried mamas, don't let others tell you how you should feel or move forward, you do what you feel you have to do to heal.
And for everyone else, save those common phrases and speak compassionately from the heart.
Featured image by Shutterstock
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The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
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Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak