Let me start by saying that I did not have a miscarriage, but for 12 hours, I thought I did.
I was watching TV with my roommate when I added ginger to my smoothie, and while drinking it, I decided to look up if ginger is safe to drink during pregnancy. I got a lot of mixed results. Some say it’s okay, and some experts say more than 1500 mg can cause miscarriages. I added more than 1500 mg. The first thing that popped through my mind was a concern for my fetus, then I thought jokingly, “Well if I miscarried, I could try for a summer baby as opposed to a dead-of-winter baby.” Even in my head, that was a terrible joke. To make up for being a terrible mother, I started researching what I should be doing throughout my pregnancy. I added dates to my calendar, looked up different strollers and carriers, and even made an excel spreadsheet linked to a google document with all my research. You will shed a tear at the pure organization if you're an A-type personality.
Later that evening, as I surfed through Amazon, adding items to my registry, I felt a liquid blob travel to my underwear. It was a familiar feeling, but it filled me with instant panic. My heart dropped as I pulled my panties to reveal a red sticky mess. I didn’t start to cry. Instead, I yelled out for my husband, who quickly came to see what was wrong. He saw me standing half-naked in our bathroom, staring at my underwear on the ground next to the toilet. I told him there was blood, and as he leaned in to hug me, I felt tears travel down my face. I was inconsolably crying into his chest, fearing the worst.
The following 12 hours were the worst passage of time I had ever experienced. I thought back to that smoothie I drank with 8000 mg of ginger. I thought about how I jinxed my pregnancy by looking at baby toys and strollers too early. I thought of the fetus inside me probably no longer beating its tiny heart. I felt sickened with myself. I was no longer carrying life, I had something dead or dying inside of me, and there was nothing I could do at that moment to feel better. My husband used his best medical talk to tell me it was not my fault; there was still a chance that the baby was fine despite all the blood we saw. His best efforts did nothing to unburden my guilt. Even worse, I felt apologetic toward him. I’m not sure if it was because of predisposed societal brainwashing or my grief talking, but I said “I’m sorry” to him. He was equally confused about my apology and told me to stop saying sorry, but now that I think about it, I was apologetic because this happened in my body. I grew up thinking that whatever happens to my body is directly related to my choices. If I overeat, I gain weight; if I don’t exercise, I become lethargic, or if I sit at a desk for too long, my back will hurt. My body because of my choices. So in some twisted way, I thought the blood, the baby, everything that went wrong was because of me.
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