Dear Reader,
I hope you’re well. I haven’t been writing much these days, but something struck last week and I followed it to completion.
As you’ll learn below, my husband and I experienced a miscarriage this summer. I’ve been riding the waves of grief on this non-linear journey and what I’ve written below is one way I’ve been processing. It isn’t the only way (and I may share more about that soon), but it’s what I have for tonight. Please take care of yourself and skip this piece if this kind of content is not what you need right now.
Wishing you all a merry holiday season and happy new year. Thanks, always and truly, for reading.
Peace and love,
Kelsey
I swear I am not a total glutton for punishment, but this week, Drew and I decided to watch the opening scene of Up. I knew it was notoriously sad, but not remembering the details, I didn’t expect it to pummel me flat, which is just what it did.
I knew that it portrayed (wordlessly, but to the perfect score of “Married Life” by Michael Giacchino) Carl and Ellie’s love story from its childhood beginnings all the way to when death does them part. I knew it was a Pixar opening scene whose heartbreak is only rivaled by the first few minutes of Finding Nemo. But what I didn’t remember is that the scene includes Carl and Ellie’s dreaming of and planning for their unborn child only to lose the pregnancy.
—
At the end of July, Drew and I found out that I was pregnant with our first baby. We were everything you might expect: overjoyed, completely terrified, and just generally sort of buzzy with the realization that our lives were rapidly shifting. A month later, we lost the pregnancy at 7 weeks, 5 days gestation. Two days shy of the much-anticipated appointment where we’d finally get to hear the baby’s heartbeat, we instead found ourselves seeking emergency care when, over about nine hours, my spotting turned to bleeding which turned to heavy bleeding. For most of that day, we remained hopeful and relatively positive. There were many possible and legitimate explanations for why this was happening. But eventually, there came a point when I could no longer deny that this was not going to end well. I passed the tiny gestational sac at the hospital and we went home, broken and empty. I cried every day for six weeks.
—
After we returned home from the hospital, we settled into what I hope for every person who experiences a pregnancy loss. Our families and friends offered us such dignity and care in the aftermath. We had moved into a new home just ten days before the miscarriage and all week, friends came by with offerings of food, bread, flowers, Doordash gift cards, and handwritten cards expressing their own grief. At times I wondered what our new neighbors must be thinking, as friends and florists filed in and out, leaving gifts as though the front door was an altar. “They must think someone has died,” I said. “They are right,” Drew replied.
My employer encouraged me to take two full weeks or more off of work, which I did. I went on a lot of walks by myself in the woods. I listened to “Boundless Love” by Jill Andrews on repeat. At night, friends would come by with a meal for us and sometimes, we’d talk and laugh about all kinds of things, very welcome distractions, and sometimes, I would shake with sobs. It all belonged.
I submitted my sick time when I got back to work, but I was told that it would be covered by bereavement leave instead. Everything made me cry at that time, but this made me cry even more, because it was understood that I wasn’t just healing physically, but grieving a death.
I am often quick to downplay the effects that something has on me. Years ago, just after it happened, I actually described our carjacking experience as gentle— “they didn’t even touch us!” I would say. But I have not been able to pretend that our miscarriage has been anything but awful. I consider myself someone who feels pretty deeply, but until this, I didn’t know how grieved I could feel.
—
Which brings me back to Up. The part that makes me cry the most is not where Carl and Ellie are sitting in the doctor’s office while the doctor delivers the bad news. It is afterwards, when Carl is looking out the window at Ellie as she sits by herself in their yard, eyes closed, hair slightly blowing in the breeze.
Immediately, in these animated characters, I saw myself and I saw Drew. A husband with his own grief, trying to bridge the gap between himself and his heartbroken wife. And a wife, heart shattered, trying to breathe through and not ignore the pain while knowing there are some places only she can go, even if she is desperate to bring her husband along with her. I knew that my sadness was making Drew even sadder than he already was, and I also knew that there was nothing for it. I missed the baby and I missed the dream of their life. I feared the future without them.
I felt like I’d walked into a room, but couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d needed to get. Something was here, I know there was. I know that something was here. But when I reach out in front of me, nothing.
—
I read that some of Up’s film editors thought that including the miscarriage scene was too much. But when they removed it, the team found that not only did the opening scene lack emotion, but that they didn’t care as much about the characters throughout the rest of the movie either. They put the scene back in where it lives on in its final heartbreaking form.
While at times it has felt like too much, our pregnancy loss is now a primary scene that cannot be edited out. Our best hope is to integrate it, just as it deserves, into the story of our married life.
You and your words are a beauty and a bounty, as always. Thank you for this. And for you. 🖤
Have missed your writing! Beautiful words for an unspeakable heartbreak. ❤️