I am stronger than I thought.

Pregnancy loss nearly four years later.

2019 was shaping up to be a Very Good Year. I quit my job to start freelancing full-time. Vagner and I went to Europe for the first time and started thinking about starting a family. Mid-April, I took a pregnancy test while waiting for my period to arrive and felt a swirl of emotions at the faint second line. I was excited and nervous, but I was afraid. 

As a kid, I imagined terrible things happening to the people I loved. What if we died in a fire? What if my family got in a car accident? What if I died in my sleep tonight? I thought I could lower the chances of something terrible happening by forcing myself to picture a worst-case scenario. Soon after discovering I was pregnant, I found a website that calculates your chance of losing a pregnancy based on how far along you are. I checked it every few days, eager to watch the odds decrease. 

I saw blood in my underwear when I was six weeks pregnant. I was terrified when I called my doctor’s office, but it was a false alarm. After that, I started to let my guard down. When I went in for an ultrasound, the chance of pregnancy loss was down to 5%. The anxiety began to fade away. I ordered baby clothes. We started planning the nursery. 

When the doctor told me there was no heartbeat weeks later, I had a 98.7% chance of not miscarrying. 

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If you aren’t familiar with my story, I’ve shared the particulars elsewhere on the Internet. I don’t intend to rehash those details in this post. Instead, I’d like to discuss the strangeness of grieving a miscarriage nearly four years later. In the days after my surgery to remove the fetal tissue, I felt delirious with grief. A pregnancy announcement was enough to send me into a tailspin. My body changed during my pregnancy, which felt profoundly unfair. I dreaded going back to work. I couldn’t imagine going an hour without thinking about my baby boy. I’d experienced desolation before, but this was the first time I felt betrayed by my body. I remember feeling furious as I was bleeding and cramping. No one warned me that my pain would be so visceral. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was reminded. 

I found out I was pregnant again six months later. My daughter turns three this summer, and people ask whether I want a second child. When I thought about future children after the miscarriage, I assumed I’d always correct anyone who didn’t mention my first one. I wonder if past me would feel outraged that it doesn’t bother me very much. 

There are no memories of my baby in my arms. I don’t know what he would have looked like. I wasn’t far enough along to feel him kick. On bad days, I judge myself for still being sad about it, for mourning an idea and spending so much time thinking about a baby that wasn’t fully-formed yet. I try to remember that the grief is particularly sharp because I should have those memories. Terrible luck got in the way. 

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My openness about pregnancy loss isn’t inherently brave or special. While sitting in the doctor’s office, I texted loved ones with some variation of, “I lost the baby. They want me to have surgery today.” But there was no elegant way to alert the thousands of people who’d seen my social media announcement. I’ve shared my life online since the days of Xanga, and it felt natural to be transparent about my grief. But I don’t want anyone to feel guilty that they don’t shout their trauma from the rooftops. Teenage Ayana would roll her eyes, but once you put something on the Internet, there’s no taking it back. I sometimes wish I’d held my story closer and waited until the pain wasn’t as raw. I only received a couple of cruel comments, but the well-intentioned insensitive ones stung just as much.

I feel a knot in my stomach whenever I meet a child the same age as my first baby, who would’ve turned four in December if things had worked out. The anniversary of the day I found out my pregnancy was non-viable will always be hard for me. I don’t think about it often otherwise, though I know there will likely be triggers in a hypothetical future pregnancy. It feels wrong for it to be a distant memory, but it’s also reassuring. Before everything went sideways and I was dutifully checking the miscarriage calculator, I remember thinking that I wouldn’t be able to take it if I lost the baby. It’s a soft comfort, but I now know we can survive more than we give ourselves credit for. I am stronger than I thought.