In the spring of 2011, I found joy throughout a rough work situation via solace and outward glow of a new life growing within. I survived my workdays by patting my stomach and thinking of the little one that would join our family. Taylor had her own glow as she ran to me, smiled, and hugged me more often than usual. She could not wait to be a big sister.
I had tried desperately for a year and a half to fix the growing problems and associated relationships at work. I thought I was advocating for kids. And I was. Yet somehow I had become both a threat and a target. And I could not undo the web of nastiness that was set in motion to spin around me. By March, the awareness of life growing within and the joy it brought to my daughter, were the only two things that made me smile and kept me sane.
Until the world crumbled.
I silently begged that the signs of miscarriage would magically disappear. I told myself it was nothing. All would be fine….because I….could not handle….this loss. But the spotting did not go away and, by day three, I knew I could not ignore it any longer. I went to the doctor and eventually the ER. Ultrasound could not confirm life or death. I was told everything looked fine and to follow up with my OB soon.
The next day, the inevitable happened. I pleaded and begged for it to stop. I did not want for this to happen. But I was powerless. I was supposed to protect. But I could not. All I could do was sit and rock and cry, and plead, and apologize to my unborn baby. Apologize profusely. And without ceasing.
At home, I was powerless to save my unborn child; at work I had to leave much of my job undone and, within weeks, my co-workers had made some horrible accusations which, in part due to my miscarriage, were believable enough to warrant my resignation and completely shattered my sense of professional self.
My life was in shambles – shattered in pieces beyond my own repair.
And this had to happen. To make room for the better that my life has become.
Without these experiences, I would not be an independent contractor, a proud business owner, a wife who values herself enough to set boundaries with confidence, or a mother who recognizes the immense value of each moment with my children and understands the fragility of their young growing little lives.
Without miscarriage, I would not have had the courage or the fortitude to let my own family be – to stop pouring myself into people I would never be able to fix, and to instead focus my energy on creating a better life for myself and my children.
—Sarah Blanchard