{This is Megan. I love her advice, and I think much of what she suggests has been true for me. For all the stories, click here.}
Hi everyone, my name is Megan from Megan's Digest. I had a miscarriage earlier this year at the end of February. I found out at 11 weeks but the pregnancy had actually ended at 9 weeks, I just didn't know. I ended up getting a D&C to complete the miscarriage.
I guess I should say I did know because deep down I was expecting this for the entire pregnancy. I have no idea why, but I kept expecting something bad to happen. I was very confused with these feelings since it was very opposite from how I felt when I was pregnant with my son.
When I found out I was distraught of course, but at the same time I was slightly relieved that I wasn't crazy to feel this way for the past two months (mother's intuition really is something). Dealing with this was hard but I found blogging about it to help the most. Once I wrote it all out it really helped me to get back to normal, that and a couple good cries. I also had a friend that had a miscarriage the previous year, so it was helpful being able to talk to her.
Things that really helped me:
1. Getting some alone time, which isn't always easy when you are a stay at home mom to a toddler, but I made it happen. I went and got a haircut, I had coffee dates with friends, etc.
2. Retail therapy, it works.
3. Thinking of the future and not dwelling on what happened. This was easier once I got my thoughts out in the blog posts I wrote about my miscarriage. I also tried not to think about the due date (which can sometimes be easier said than done).
4. Talking about it. Don't keep it in. Even if you feel you can't talk to someone in real life, blogging helps or the many online chat boards that are available can be helpful. If you don't have a blog, even writing it out in a journal helps. I did both- journal and blog.
Really just getting the support you need is what is best. You know what that is: a massage, a good run, a coffee date with a friend. Get support. Keeping it inside will only make it worse.
I feel awful for anyone that has experienced a loss, but I also think it is great we are more open as a society about it now then 20 years ago. You can talk about it with friends and it isn't taboo. Making the topic not abnormal to talk about will make it easier for so many people that have dealt with loss but are keeping it inside. Because keeping it inside is the worst thing to do.
Thank you for reading about my experience and I am looking forward to to reading about others' experiences this week.
