I Had a Miscarriage Read online

  Advance praise for I Had a Miscarriage: A Memoir, a Movement

  “Jessica Zucker’s work—in her clinical practice, her online community, and now this powerful book—gives people permission to acknowledge their loss and process their grief. This totally absorbing memoir will reduce the isolation that so many who experience pregnancy loss feel. It’s about time.”

  —GABRIELLE BIRKNER, coauthor of Modern Loss: Candid Conversation about Grief. Beginners Welcome.

  “Millions of women experience miscarriages every year. Why, then, is a miscarriage still a loss that our culture views as less extreme and less irretrievable than any other kind of gutting loss? I Had a Miscarriage by Jessica Zucker knocks down this ridiculous ladder of loss. Rooted in her knowledge as a specialist in reproductive and maternal mental health, this book creates a space for women to speak, to grieve, and to live alongside their loss instead of being expected to ‘just get over it.’ This book is a gift.”

  —EMILY RAPP BLACK, author of The Still Point of the Turning World

  “This gripping book should rest in the hands of every woman around the world, most especially those who have experienced pregnancy loss. It serves as an immeasurably helpful guide in a time when vital support is needed—and often can’t be found. Providing a sense of connection, this story reiterates that there is always community behind us.”

  —CHRISTY TURLINGTON BURNS, founder of Every Mother Counts

  “As a husband who held his wife while she experienced a second-trimester miscarriage, I appreciated the depths Jessica Zucker was willing to explore in order to share her remarkable story and to generate awareness about this type of devastating loss. I Had a Miscarriage is a poignant book that both men and women can benefit from in order to process the grief of a miscarriage.”

  —DAN CRANE, journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker

  “Miscarriage is a common occurrence in our society, but we rarely discuss it. Instead, we pretend that people around the world aren’t miscarrying every day and that our cultural silence around their loss isn’t keeping them silent about their pain. Jessica Zucker’s powerful book brings their stories out of the shadows, exploring how we’ve created a society that doesn’t understand how to address the pain of miscarriage and therefore ignores it. I Had a Miscarriage is an honest, vulnerable, and important account of a societal issue that will never go away, and encourages us to figure out how to address a pain that should weigh on all of us.”

  —EVETTE DIONNE, editor in chief of Bitch Media

  “I Had a Miscarriage masterfully dismantles the shame and stigma heaped upon reproductive health issues, mental health treatment, and speaking out about taboo topics. We all know people who have had miscarriages; we all know the trauma and silence that shrouds this loss. This, too, is a reproductive justice issue. We must tell our stories. Thank you, Dr. Zucker.”

  —SARAH SOPHIE FLICKER, artist and activist

  “The book I wish I had with me on my topsy-turvy road to motherhood.”

  —PIERA GELARDI, cofounder of Refinery29

  “By writing so bravely and candidly about her own miscarriage, Dr. Zucker has given us a deeply humane book, inviting conversation and community into what for many has been a place of shame and silence. This is a book for everyone whose life has been touched by the loss of a pregnancy.”

  —CAROL GILLIGAN, author of In a Different Voice

  “Dr. Zucker’s book compassionately shows that there is no one way to grieve a miscarriage, and in doing so normalizes a spectrum of mourning we don’t talk about nearly enough. There are lessons on grief for all of us—whether we have experienced miscarriage or not—in her brilliant, beautiful pages. A must read.”

  —LORI GOTTLIEB, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

  “When my pregnancy suddenly and painfully ended, Dr. Zucker’s #IHadaMiscarriage campaign gave me a lifeline and a silent virtual community of witnesses and words when I had none. Documenting her experience with this riveting memoir helps us all normalize miscarriage experiences and end stigma, shame, and silence.”

  —YAMANI HERNANDEZ, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds

  “I Had a Miscarriage provides the badly needed space to share, grieve, and unpack pregnancy loss. Dr. Jessica Zucker paints a nuanced and frank portrait of the many different ways miscarriage is experienced, and in that portrait, she educates and illuminates—and comforts, too. This book is a solace and a rallying call for change. Let us speak openly and honestly about that which affects so many of us. I am grateful for this book.”

  —EDAN LEPUCKI, author of California

  “An essential book for those raw in grief or looking to support and understand a loved one’s sorrow. This is a compassionate love story about death and life, written by an expert who not only counsels but also has experienced such harrowing loss. Zucker’s warmth, insight, and honesty make every page bloom with tenderness.”

  —MIRA PTACIN, author of Poor Your Soul

  “The book you need that you wish you didn’t. Jessica Zucker is an expert in pregnancy loss who’s lived it too, and she delivers a much-needed call for new ways to acknowledge, grieve, and gather around what has been an exclusively private pain for too long.”

  —ANNA SALE, host of WNYC’s Death, Sex & Money

  “This powerful and important book is for men as much as for women. By breaking the silence on lost pregnancies, Zucker throws a lifeline to grieving parents who should know that they’re not alone and it’s not their fault.”

  —DAN SCHWERIN, former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton

  “I Had a Miscarriage is an incredible reflection on grief and resilience, lifting the veil on a topic so often mired in shame. Kudos to Jessica Zucker for this necessary and moving book.”

  —JESSICA VALENTI, author of Sex Object: A Memoir

  “For too long, those suffering from pregnancy loss have felt isolated and alone. In her moving and insightful memoir, Dr. Zucker shares her profound wisdom. Those who’ve endured pregnancy loss, or their friends and family, will find the stories shared in these compelling pages to be of great comfort. A necessary book.”

  —ZEV WILLIAMS, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Columbia University Medical Center

  “Jessica Zucker’s #IHadaMiscarriage campaign gave voice to the unspeakable reality of miscarriage; now, her book goes deeper to explore what she names the trifecta of silence, shame, and stigma women experience following a reproductive loss. Even identifying that miscarriage is a real loss, worthy of real grief, is radical in a society that denies this fact, and Zucker slyly laces her relatable personal story with this bold feminist argument. Her story is as wrenching as it is healing, and the narrative is made even richer by her expertise as a maternal mental health professional. Thus, we get raw storytelling alongside brilliant advice for helping ourselves, and those we love, grieve. It is a book that will mean a lot to so many people, and one I won’t forget.”

  —ALLISON YARROW, author of 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality

  I HAD A MISCARRIAGE

  A Memoir, a Movement

  • • •

  JESSICA ZUCKER, PhD

  Published in 2021 by the Feminist Press

  at the City University of New York

  The Graduate Center

  365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406

  New York, NY 10016

  feministpress.org

  First Feminist Press edition 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by Jessica Zucker

  All rights reserved.

  This book was made possible thanks to a grant from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cu
omo and the New York State Legislature.

  This book is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First printing March 2021

  Cover design by Samantha Hahn

  Text design by Drew Stevens

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Zucker, Jessica, author.

  Title: I had a miscarriage : a memoir, a movement / Jessica Zucker.

  Description: First Feminist Press edition. | New York, NY : The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2021.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020029350 (print) | LCCN 2020029351 (ebook) | ISBN 9781558612884 (paperback) | ISBN 9781558612891 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Zucker, Jessica. | Miscarriage--Psychological aspects. | Pregnant women--United States--Biography. | Clinical psychologists--United States--Biography. | Parental grief.

  Classification: LCC RG648 .Z83 2021 (print) | LCC RG648 (ebook) | DDC 618.3/920651--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029350

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029351

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Contents

  Cover

  Advance Priase for I Had A Miscarriage: A Memoir, a Movement

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Contents

  Dedication

  Preface

  1. “I thought I was out of the woods.”

  2. “I failed to give myself the space to fall apart.”

  3. “The strident trifecta: silence, stigma, and shame.”

  4. “I was understanding grief from a corporeal—not simply a theoretical—perspective.”

  5. “If only it could have continued on this way.”

  6. “I don’t know what I expected her to say, but it wasn’t that.”

  7. “The body and failure become conflated. It’s a complicated coupling.”

  8. “Why did it feel as though this loss had only happened to me?”

  9. “Can pleasure and grief coexist?”

  10. “We are not going down on this note.”

  11. “The discordant refrain of what-if what-if what-if?”

  12. “Sometimes rainbows follow storms. Sometimes they don’t.”

  13. “Things. Things to have, and to hold, and to see, and to treasure.”

  14. “Sometimes, a witness is precisely what we need.”

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Feminist Press

  More Nonfiction from the Feminist Press

  Also Available from the Feminist Press

  For those who know this ache too well.

  And of course,

  for Olive.

  Preface

  This, like nearly all stories about pregnancy and pregnancy loss, is really a story about motherhood. How we define it. How we arrive at it. If we do. And how we’re impacted by it all.

  There is no singular path to motherhood. We don’t always become mothers through pregnancy. Maybe we do, through our own eggs, donor eggs, donor sperm, intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), or other methods. Or maybe we’ve fostered, adopted, or gone the surrogacy route. Some mothers have children teeming underfoot; others hold them in memory without tangible proof. There’s childlessness, too. In conversations about pregnancy and loss, including in this book, it behooves us to look at the entire spectrum of pregnancies, births, and the myriad ways we become mothers.

  There is no universal pregnancy experience, outcome, or emotional reaction. As each one of us navigates the unpredictable outcomes of the reproductive spectrum, we are often faced with the need to acknowledge or come to terms with our own emotional and/or physical edge that shapes the very aspects that are within our control. How long to try, how far to go, how much to endure—on a multitude of levels. Maybe we stop trying to get pregnant altogether. Maybe we never try at all. Either way, it’s incumbent upon us to honor and respect the diversity of these situations, whether they are by choice or by circumstance. There are countless potential stumbling blocks: infertility, secondary infertility, not conceiving again after loss, health problems, medical complications, relational concerns, financial constraints related to insurance, reproductive technologies and family building, and so on.

  The pregnancy/motherhood/loss community should aim to be inclusive of all experiences and all perspectives: miscarriage, early loss, later loss, recurrent loss, stillbirth, twin loss, termination for medical reasons, neonatal and infant loss, not getting pregnant in the first place, and others. All are profoundly important and all are a part of this story. And in here, all are welcome. As loss moms, we understand too well that pregnancy and the loss of it affects us and our families in complex ways. It can change us for good. I know it changed me.

  And just as the variety of reproductive outcomes and their possible physical, mental, and emotional implications are honored here, so are the array of people who experience them. Throughout these pages, I will use “woman” or “women” to describe people who’ve experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, or infertility. This isn’t because these losses only happen to cisgender women. One’s gender does not dictate what reproductive outcomes one does or does not experience. Rather, as someone who identifies as a cis woman, and as a psychologist who predominately treats cis women, my use of “woman” is simply a way to remain true to my experience and those of my patients. It does not, in any way, erase the experience of trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, and two-spirit people, who—in addition to shouldering what can be a profound, long-lasting grief associated with pregnancy and infant loss—often have to endure discrimination within the medical community and elsewhere, the erasure of their gender identity, and exclusion from loss communities.

  Miscarriage, pregnancy, and infant loss is not just a “woman’s experience.” It does not discriminate.

  There is also no “one way” to feel about these specific losses, so while this book does primarily center around the grief and mourning that can and does reside in the wake of a miscarriage, I want to acknowledge and make space for the people who feel indifferent toward their pregnancy losses, or even relieved. Far too often, those who do not experience sadness or anger following a miscarriage, be it privately or publicly, are made to feel defective by a society that has long since demanded female bodies not only procreate but express a deep, innate desire to do so. But there is nothing broken about those who feel thankful for no longer being pregnant, just like there was nothing broken about those who wanted to carry a pregnancy to term, but couldn’t. In these pages, all are welcome.

  And I also want to acknowledge that my experience represents just that—my experience. Unlike far too many Black and brown women in this country, I do not face a higher rate of maternal mortality. In the throes of my loss, I did not face the fear of being unable to access the care I needed. I have, based on the color of my skin, benefited from white privilege. And while this privilege does not shield any of us from tragedy, including the loss of a pregnancy, it does protect us from the compounding tragedies incurred by systemic racism. It certainly protected me.

  It is my desire to cultivate a space where we can all share our stories if and when we want and need to; a space where they can be honored in whatever way we see fit; a space of understanding, support, and continued healing. So as we wade through this transformational time in our lives, I encourage us to remember that we are all deserving of support. Free from grief hierarchies or timelines, we must be gentle with ourselves during this nascent period and resist compari
ng and contrasting our stories. Your ache, relief, despair, or indifference is uniquely yours. It is yours to navigate in any way you choose, through whatever feelings arise—be they sadness, anger, hopefulness, neutrality, helplessness, fear, or a mix of them all. Throughout, I earnestly urge you to remember that you did absolutely nothing wrong—nothing to deserve this procreative event. Certain areas of our lives are beyond our control, and reproduction is one of them. It can be difficult to wrap our heads around this reality; to come to terms with the fact that we have no answers or that the concrete answers we do get might confound us all the more. And so sometimes we blame ourselves in the absence of clarity, as we search for something to pinpoint; an anchor to keep us grounded as we weather the barrage of emotional responses. We look for reasons when, more often than not, there are none.

  Resist hurling blame—it won’t undo what is done. Pregnancy loss is not a disease that can be cured; it’s not going anywhere—it is, in fact, a normative outcome of pregnancy. And it is therefore a topic we would benefit from engaging in candidly and integrating into everyday conversations, devoid of silence, stigma, and shame. To help ourselves and to help future generations. To normalize the experience, its aftermath, and the grief that flows from it. To allow those of us who have gone through it to be simultaneously vulnerable about our circumstances and lovingly embraced for it.

  Wherever you are in your journey, you deserve abounding support. And I hope you will find it in these pages. I am honored to share my story (and those of others) with you in the hope of underscoring and illuminating that you are not alone. Millions of people know this complexity, this pain. We have one another. Support is available for you. I hope you find it here.

  1

  “I thought I was out of the woods.”

  I was thirty-nine years old, living in Laurel Canyon, tucked in the hills of Hollywood, adjusting to life with a three-and-a-half-year-old, and had only recently coalesced with the idea of having a second child when I found out I was pregnant again.