You know how people often ask young couples ‘so, when are you guys having a baby?’ without stopping to think that maybe they don’t want a baby or maybe they can’t have a baby? Well, I used to do that.
(Am I proud of it? No, I am not. I have since learned that it’s a pretty bad idea. More on that below.)
In my friend group, we’d all regularly ask each other, especially friends in long-term relationships, when they were going to have a baby.
And then one day, deep into a party when the truth starts pouring out of people as the wine pours out of the bottles, one of my closest friends told me that she’d been trying to get pregnant for years and had had miscarriage upon miscarriage.
4 of them, in fact.
And she hadn’t told anybody because she was ashamed of feeling sad over what was supposed to be ‘not a big deal’.
I remember being very surprised and telling myself I should really stop asking people when they were finally going to have a baby because you could never know what was going on behind the scenes.
But honestly at the time, I didn’t think anything else of it. Because it seemed normal to me.
Was miscarriage a big deal? It hadn’t felt like that for me when i’d had one.
It was before I had my first child.
After the fact, the doctor had told me: ‘it’s just a minor setback. Just get back to it. There will be others.’ I was really good at not feeling anything, back then. I was the master queen of emotional numbness.
And so I did. I didn’t think or feel anything more about this miscarriage. I got ’back on the horse’, per my doctor’s recommendation and went on to have 4 children.
Fast forward 30 years.
Menopause hit, and my brain woke up screaming one day. ‘Wait, wait, wait!!’ It screeched. ‘Is that it? Will there be no more others?!’
And the cruel reality that I was never going to get that first baby back hit me like a ton of bricks.
Sure, there had been others, welcomed and loved, but nothing had really filled the hole that first lost baby left. Apparently, I’d been unconsciously waiting for that baby for 30 years.
Dealing with this made me think back to this friend and her 4 silent miscarriages and to others who don’t feel like they have the space to talk about their grief because it’s such a taboo subject. Those who are served clichés instead of comfort or field well-meaning yet painful questions from friends and family.
I also thought a lot about the dichotomy that exists in our lives after such a loss. You need or you want to get back to normal life, maybe you have a job, maybe you have other children, maybe you have to pretend to be fine for friends and family. But every day you’re pulled back to the grief by tiny little things.
I imagined a baby’s room, one that’s been prepared for their arrival but that remains empty. I imagined there might be a dresser in the room, and on it a children’s book, or maybe a stuffed animal or two. Maybe a Winnie the Pooh character somewhere that’s smiling.
Because of course he is. He’s always smiling.
Make a pot of coffee
Sit in the room where they should be
Everything is so clean
On the dresser, he’s waiting
On the dresser, he’s waiting
Winnie smiles looking at me
Everything was ready
Everything was ready
Winnie smiles looking at me
It was too early
It was too early
Put a lid on the box
How can anything see sun again
Forgetting knocks
Round and white in the palm of my hand
Round and white in the palm of my hand
Winnie smiles looking at me
Everything was ready
Everything was ready
Winnie smiles looking at me
It was too early
It was too early
Close the door on what could have been
Get back to your day
Focus on the one that lives
There’ll be others, they say
Close the door on what could have been
Get back to your day
Focus on the one that lives
There’ll be others, they say
Close the door on what could have been
Get back to your day
Focus on the one that lives
There’ll be others, they say
Been too many
There’s been too many
There’s been too many
There’s been too many
Been too many
There’s been too many
Too many, too many, too many
Winnie smiles looking at me
Everything was ready
Everything was ready
Winnie smiles looking at me
It was too early
It was too early
Winnie smiles looking at me
There’s been too many
There’s been too many
Been too many
There’s been too many
Too many, too many, too many
The song is called ‘Winnie’. You can stream it here or watch the music video below.