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The Last Words I Wanted to Hear After My Miscarriage
“When are you due?” and other innocuous questions can cause unintended pain
I carry my angel babies with me every day; some days they talk to me more than others. Today they’re making a lot of noise.
The question came uninvited, from a woman with whom I’d never spoken, as I sat in the waiting room of a therapy clinic.
The inquiry came as a surprise and so did the emotions it stirred up.
“Hmm?” I asked, looking around. I was the only other person in the room. “Oh. I’m not pregnant,” I mumbled, straightening up in an effort to make my ample belly disappear.
The woman apologized and I turned away, running my eyes over some trash magazine article without comprehending a word. My first due date would have been last month, I realized with a pang. The second would have been in another eight weeks.
If I’m being totally honest with myself, I didn’t expect to still be sad about my miscarriages this past Mother’s Day, nearly a year after they occurred. I expected to sleep in, to have my family tend to me, to decompress at the gym, and to spend some time with the other mothers in my life.
