The Weekend Where I Had A Miscarriage While Making Thanksgiving Dinner And Then Wrote About It

You know when you’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner for your family and you’re like, going through a miscarriage at the exact moment you’re cooking up the roux (defined below) for your turkey gravy? 

And you’re like: wOw, ThIs Is AwEsOmE. But you’re dealing with this miscarriage by yourself. After all, the opening line when picking up your parents from the airport (just traveled 1,500 miles to see you) isn’t exactly:

Welcome and Happy Thanksgiving by the way I’m going through a miscarriage literally right now, so do you want butternut squash or stuffing… or both? 

[Roux- noun- when you heat up butter and flour together and cook this mixture lightly in a pan; then you add hot stock and seasonings to create a gravy that’s thick and ooey gooey]

If you’ve ever been through a miscarriage, whether it was early in your pregnancy or later, then you know it’s a confusing sensation that you can’t quite make heads or ovaries of. 

Factually, if you’ve read this far and realized this isn’t a Thanksgiving dinner tutorial, you’ve probably experienced a miscarriage, and this is all to say:

I get you. 

The HIGH of finding out you’re pregnant, followed by a swift LOW of then discovering oh I guess not was enough emotional back-and-forth to cause whip lash— as this complete cycle of information occurred within just two days. 

Ya see, I was slightly late for my period, so knowing that my boyfriend has the virility of one of those violently bucking rodeo horses you see on TV, I immediately took a pregnancy test. I was PREGNANT! 

Naturally, I was dee-lighted. The kind of delighted like when I found out the wretched neighbor across the street who smokes pot and yells at her dogs was moving FINALLY. 

Reasons why I was pumped like a jock jams song: 

• I’m in a committed relationship with a Greek God (but in this case he’s Sri Lankan)

• I already have 2 wondrous kids so I know the magic of being a mom

• My pregnancies were smooth and unstressful 

• And I like making bullet pointed lists like this, so this is the last one. 

Getting pregnant for me feels a lot like hitting the lottery. At least I imagine… I’ve never played the lottery but should probably start? Not even sure how... I’d feel weird trotting into a gas station with the naivety of a midwesterner in a Vegas casino… like do I need to put pennies in slots? Will I get arrested if I look suspicious? Is there a rulebook? Is there an underground jail underneath this establishment that they’ll make a movie about in 20 years?  

Anyways— 

After the positive pregnancy test, I waited to tell my boyfriend in person (aka, I had to wait 4 whole hours for him to come home from his workday). I gave him the juicy news after our 13-month-old went to bed. 

We were sitting on the couch while our 2-year old was romping around the living room, as one does when you’re a whole age of two.

Thankfully, he was SO excited too (the boyfriend, that is; the toddler wasn’t listening). Henceforth, we started making plans right away— albeit the fact that being pregnant again = a liitttle stressful (note the comment above that we have a 13-month-old AND a 2-year-old already, plus zero family nearby to help).

I remained in the can’t-believe-I’m-pregnant delirium for 24 hours— thrilled, but also scared. 

How was I going to handle 3 under 3?

I know women have twins and triplets and quintuplets, but those are warrior women, a different breed that I imagine are only visible grazing on National Geographic and certainly not at Target or the grocery store where you’ll find my kind.

I instantaneously started mentally tasking out— in my mental CRM with reminders and lists and follow-up phone calls— what sort of arrangements I’d need to make for my older toddler to ensure he’d be in some sort of school situation by the time I was full-time breastfeeding again.  I felt a massive amount of guilt associated with having another baby whilst I still had two very-much-still babies. 

How much would I be short-changing my second son, who wouldn’t even be 2 yet when I’d be on the clock 24/7 with a newborn, churning out milk and diaper changes by the hour? 

I really didn’t feel like I could do the whole have-a-baby evolution again ethically, with true ability to give my current sons the attention they still need at this juncture, and provide the astute attention a newborn needs.

In other words:

I would run out of attentive attention. 

Real attention. 

I realized that there is no way to handle 3 under 3 without seriously short-changing someone.

Plus, my boyfriend’s and my relationship would all but disappear for awhile with three very little kids. 

I became stressed about the impending failure to be there for all members of my family in a way that was doable. 

And frankly, sleep deprivation scares me a little bit. You don’t think straight when you’re severely underslept. You even think nutty thoughts like:

• Hey, maybe I should reach out to that cousin who I haven’t talked to in 30 years and start a friendship?! 

• Let’s take the whole family to Brazil tomorrow and ride donkeys up mountains, why not.

• It’s time to get a puppy who poops in the house every 45 minutes! GREAT IDEA.

• Maybe it’s time to learn a language I can really use, like Swedish. They have wooden stuff, and wood is good. 

It was just 48 hours after finding out I was pregnant, I found out:

Maaaaaybe not.

I started spotting bright red blood which the internet told me was “totally normal to spot early in pregnancy, no worries!”

The internet is ALWAYS the perfect place to field your worries, especially medical ones! Ha. 

The bleeding continued, and continued, right through my gravy-making escapade from paragraph one above. And if you’re wondering about the gravy at this point, and you’re still reading this article in hopes of some recipe or holiday help:

I didn’t cook the roux enough, so it was considered a blond roux and not a darker, more roasty toasty one, so the gravy did turn out ooey gooey but not a deep enough flavor. I blame the miscarriage and not my impatience in letting it cook more. It’s the embryo’s fault! Not mine. 

Blaming others for your failures is a surefire way to win in life, after all! 

Especially if it’s an embryo; they can’t talk yet so it’s your word vehemently trumping theirs! 

By the day after Thanksgiving, I had pretty much had a period kick-start at that point, and had called the doctor’s office to bug them on Black Friday and ask about my situation. The RN peppered me with questions, taking notes. No answers, just questions. She was SO GOOD at asking questions, I wondered if she’d received special inquisition training from my mom. 

Two days later, I bled enough “stuff” to conclude that I indeed did have a miscarriage and not some wild bleeding extravaganza just for fun. After all, bleeding is always fun, isn’t ittttttttttttttttttt.

So, boom. It was done. 

Frankly, I was sort of relieved that I was not pregnant right now due to the ages of my children, but at the same time, I felt sad.

I couldn’t help but feel disappointed about not being pregnant when I was just told by a plastic stick from Walgreens I was a couple days ago. It was such a strange feeling, which is why I thought I’d write about it as I know at least 50% of women go through such a thing. 

You don’t get much answers after a miscarriage; only a loss. 

A lonely loss, echoing inside a cavern. 

Whether you’re relieved for it, devastated by it, confused by it, a miscarriage comes with mystery. 

Mystery is the enemy of certainty and stability.

I soaked through a handful of pads over the next few days and voiced my feelings a bit with my boyfriend who tried to support and understand the best he could. The doctor’s office thankfully followed up with me the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend to check in and offer a lot of support, including a wellness appointment to examine me and see if there is anything “wrong.” And I appreciated that because I know a lot of women get zero support. 

I denied the appointment offer… then called the next day to schedule it. I left a message because no one answered, which is such an irony of doctor’s office not staffing the phone line, which exists solely to help patients. 

But the point was:

I’m being offered help, and I should take it, period. 

As women, we deny help too often because we are tough. 

But the better habit is to simply accept help the moment it’s offered instead of reacting with some I’ll-Show-You-I’m-Tough response that’s just silly, frankly.

It’s worth stating again that I was relieved about not being pregnant right now because the truth was, I was not ready. Probably the reason I miscarried was because I showered myself with so much stress about an upcoming baby that I didn’t see how I could handle, that my body was like NAY NAY BYEEEE. At least, that’s how I personally feel about my experience. 

Yet still:

A confusing strange time and thing to happen to you. 

So if you’ve been through it, I understand now. I know I’m writing this on the side of already being a mother, but this whole miscarriage thing is such a uniquely woman thing to go through; thus, the point of all this is:

You’re not alone. And the confusion and pain will pass.