Suffering in Silence

“So what happened last week?” the vendor asked, wondering why I’d disappeared for several days in the middle of a critical deadline. “Did you have the flu?”

“It was…” I trailed off, trying to decide how much I wanted to share with someone who was really more of a professional contact than a friend. “It was…lady stuff.”

Just like that, I slapped a vague label on the most excruciating loss of my life.

Mere days before this conversation took place, I was chipper and dreamy and carrying a baby. Then, in the course of one horrid day, it all unraveled. Now, I found myself sitting back in my office chair, stunned, grieving, and facing an urgent mountain of work.

I pawed my pile listlessly, wondering how the world could go on when mine had surely ended. All around me, keyboards chattered and telephones rang. Coworkers eyed me suspiciously, clearly not buying my excuse that I was ambiguously under the weather.

I’d just lost a baby. And it had dropped me into a hell of despair so deep that it hurt just to breathe.

So, why was I keeping it a secret?

Miscarriage is death. It brings with it all the agonizing grief that comes with losing a loved one. But miscarriage is also a taboo topic. It’s the very reason that we hide our pregnancies during those first dicey months, fretfully waiting for the danger to abate before making any announcements.