Defying Gravity: What My Miscarriages Taught Me

By Jessica Hoffman

Jessica, Geshem City Editor and Blogger, is a native Jewish Seattleite. She has contributed her writing to Kveller, Real Time, BBC World News, JOFA Journal, Jewneric, Bangitout, NW Beauty Magazine, and more. Jessica and her husband Ari run Seattle NCSY and raise their 3 children in the Seward Park community. Balancing her writing career with Jewish outreach and being a SAHM is a continuing challenge she faces with eternal optimism.

 I covered it up on the outside so I could cover it up forever. I tried to allow my natural pragmatic nature to smoothly slide me past this phase in my life so I could go on to have more healthy pregnancies.

Defying Gravity: What My Miscarriages Taught Me 

“Just remember, your body knows what it can handle.” My father said this to me when I told him I was pregnant with my first child. I don’t know how he knew. Perhaps some premonition…but he knew. I internalized this wisdom and, at my first ultrasound, stared shocked at the screen when the letters “A” and “B” popped up.

“Um, twins?” I asked the ultrasound technician. My father is a prophet! I thought. And my husband had said over and over again that he would love for us to have twins. She smiled at me warmly and said, “Not exactly.” We looked at the screen together. She pointed at the “A” so I could see the life growing inside the sac. Then she pointed at the black emptiness next to the “B” and explained, “It was twins, but not anymore. Don’t worry. The remaining baby will most likely absorb the sac. It’s actually great nutrition.”

We both looked over at my husband, whose skin had turned grey, something I recognized as a problem because I myself am a bit of a fainter. He sat down and put his head between his knees. I couldn’t believe it. I’m the fainter and he’s the one trying not to hit the floor? Maybe I should have helped him internalize my father’s advice, too.

It’s this pragmatism, this unemotional response, which is probably the reason I was so emotional when I had a miscarriage with my second pregnancy. When the doctor told me my HCG levels were doubling too quickly, she said it was either twins or my body was about to have a miscarriage. I assumed it was twins again. Nowhere inside my head or my heart did I ever consider that it might be the latter. And when the ultrasound confirmed the miscarriage, and it was all over a week later, I didn’t talk about it…to anyone. I didn’t talk to my husband. I didn’t talk to my parents or my sisters. They all assumed I was over it. And why wouldn’t they? When my best friend saw me bent over with cramps, I told her I had the stomach flu. I covered it up on the outside so I could cover it up forever. I tried to allow my natural pragmatic nature to smoothly slide me past this phase in my life so I could go on to have more healthy pregnancies. “My body knows what it can handle,” I said to myself. “And my body knew this pregnancy would have been bad for me, or the baby would have been unhealthy.” I tried to rationalize my way past it.

It wasn’t until a few days after my post-miscarriage mikvah appointment that “Defying Gravity” from Wicked queued up on my playlist. When the music intensified and Idina Menzel as Elphaba burst into; “So if they care to find me, look to the Western sky. As someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly,” I burst into tears. (While singing along, of course.) It was so therapeutic that I played it again. I put that song on repeat and it played in my car for days. My toddler son knew all the words, which is when I realized it was time to play something else.

After my second son was born, my husband overheard me telling my Wicked therapy story to a friend who had a miscarriage. He looked surprised and sad. “You cried alone in your car?” he asked me. “For days,” I answered. If only I had remembered that my father’s sage wisdom wasn’t about being practical or emotionless. It was about beetachon…having faith. You can give yourself permission to feel sad, to accept pity when you deserve it, and to be comforted. Trusting your body’s decisions is about acceptance and faith, not about trying to sidle past things emotion-free. My father was giving me a guide toward acceptance, not a shortcut past it.

The third occasion was a combination of both situations. I was pregnant, and before my first ultrasound, I experienced what I was sure was a miscarriage. I was bleeding profusely, and desperate for an answer. The nurse told me over the phone that I was most likely having a miscarriage and I could take a hot bath when the bleeding stopped. In the meantime, she wanted me to come in so they could do a blood draw and confirm that my HCG levels were going down at a normal and predictable rate. I went in, got blood drawn, and went home for a bath. Three days later they called me. It was a new nurse this time. “Congratulations, your HCG levels are multiplying nicely,” she said with a sweet and congratulatory voice.

“There must be some misunderstanding,” I said. “I just had a miscarriage three days ago.” It was Friday, three hours until Shabbos, and she had me come in for an ultrasound. Lo and behold, there on the screen was a perfectly healthy new baby! They told me I’d lost a twin. Again. This time I had a healthy combination of relief, sadness, and joy. And I made a decision, then and there, to talk about it. I look at my three beautiful and healthy children, two boys and a girl, and I wonder what the other three children would have been. I do it out loud, so my husband knows it’s on my mind. I talk about it with friends so they know they can talk to me if it happens to them. We all need to have beetachon—but know that we’re human, too.

The Gift of Loss: Talking About My Miscarriage On Mother's Day

By Mimi Hecht 

I've had sonograms before and know what you're supposed to see. And it is not the 

black, empty space that me and my husband suddenly found ourselves peering into.

The Gift of Loss

Talking About My Miscarriage on Mother's Day

Even though statistics show that many women reading this right now have experienced the loss of a pregnancy, most of these women have not and likely never will publicly address or even mention in private the fact of their miscarriage.

Being that this kind of death is a fact of many women's lives, and that silence and shame only exaggerate the pain, I am opening up about my own miscarriage, which occurred a little over two months ago. 

I was almost three months pregnant and excitedly looking forward to telling more loved ones the news when I saw a trace of spotting. While it isn't entirely uncommon in early pregnancy, thinking you're growing a healthy baby and then seeing blood is very alarming. With my husband at my side, I called my midwives. They asked me questions, said it sounded usual and gave me two things to look out for that would signal something more serious: More blood. Cramping.

A day later, there was more blood. Then cramping. We knew what was happening. I became sad and worried and very anxious about what my body was about to go through. Getting pregnant and miscarrying is not something I ever prepared myself for. Even though experts estimate that one in every four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, I still thought it was something that only happened to, well, other people.

Although I was now showing all the signs of miscarrying, I wasn't cramping or bleeding enough to be rushed in to the emergency room. I was advised to schedule a sonogram.

A day before my scheduled sonogram, I had a very busy and demanding day representing an organization I direct at the anual Chabad Kinnus HaShluchos. I was supposed to be on my feet for hours, dealing with people and, of course, smiling. (When I asked my midwife if this would be okay, she responded, "As long as you feel okay and there's no cramping." I wish she would have forbade it, because I truly felt like I just wanted to rest and protect my pregnancy. But she made sure to add, "Mimi, if this is a miscarriage, it's already happened. You need to know that nothing you do or don't do now is going to hurt your baby." This was exactly what I needed to hear: that there is no reason to have guilt—now or later.)

Now let me tell you, greetings friends and customers and focusing on work is quite a feat when you're bleeding and emotionally coming to terms with what you might see—or rather, not see—on a sonogram the next day. This made me think a lot about all the demands on women these days: how we fulfill so many roles and rise to every occasion regardless of the myriad of female-specific issues we may be going through. And how the demands of life within and without the home are not as flexible and understanding as often our minds and bodies need them to be.

Twenty hours hours later, I was in a gown being jellied up—me and my husband readied ourselves for the sonogram results. I took huge sighs, thinking "Is this really happening to me?" I cried for the first time since the spotting five days earlier. Before she placed the sensor on my belly, I silently begged G-d that we see a healthy baby, with a vibrant, beating heart—that the bleeding and cramping be some unexplainable fluke. But alas, I've had sonograms before and know what you're supposed to see.

And it is not the black, empty space that me and my husband suddenly found ourselves peering into.

The woman taking the sonogram was not my doctor and was not allowed to tell me anything conclusive. Even though I was pretty confident with the image we saw, I was holding on to the possibility that I just wasn't reading it right. I pleaded with her to tell me, but she just replied, "I'm just here to measure and take images." I then endured an internal sonogram as well, feeling this cold stranger poke around and photograph what I thought was sacred inside me, but more than likely something dead. I cried more, my legs shaking, taking comfort in my husbands equally pained face. It was like we knew, but couldn't really know.

What seemed like hours later, my doctor gently told me the results of the sonogram. She was sensitive and explained what they saw—a six or seven week fetus (when it was "meant" to be 12). It was officially what's called a "Missed Miscarriage," meaning that the fetus stopped living a while ago, but the pregnancy went on. Thankfully, my husband and I had prepared for this news, so the emotional reaction was not so traumatic, but more of a relief at finally knowing.  On the ride home, we decided to stop somewhere, so we could sit face to face and process our feelings about what we just went through and were going to go through.

My most ever present reaction was feeling like a fool. I had told my parents and sister about my pregnancy when there was nothing alive inside me! Of course, I had no way of knowing...but it still stung. Something so within me had...tricked me. Even that very day, I was still having pregnancy symptoms. My body had misled me. I went from experiencing the maternal instincts inherent in pregnancy to feeling robbed, empty and out of touch. Adding to this feeling of shattered maternal instincts was the knowledge that something had died within me. My womb, what had been a safe, nurturing haven for my two beautiful, healthy boys (thank God!) had told me I was growing a life and  then completely rejected it. It had just started beating it's tiny little heart (or did it?) when it became not a thing of life and growth but death and loss.

Consciously aware that it was futile, irrelevant and even wrong, I couldn't help but blame myself for losing the pregnancy. I should have been more strict about taking my prenatal vitamins! I shouldn't have had coffee! Maybe had I not felt so overwhelmed about this pregnancy in the first place, G-d wouldn't have taken it away! The latter tormented me the most.

I was told to expect my body to expel whatever was left of the pregnancy (placental matter, tissue, significant loss of blood). And if it didn't, I'd have to schedule a D&C to have it done manually. I am grateful that a few days after the sonogram, I was at home and experienced intense labor-like cramps that was the beginning of the end of my miscarriage. (I will spare the details here, but anyone who is curious or going through the same thing and wants to know, don't hesitate to e-mail me.) This episode lasted a few hours. It was painful and intense and semi-traumatic and I would not have gone through it unscathed had it not been for my mother, sister and amazing midwife Jesse.

When I updated Jesse (who had delivered my second child and whom my husband and I adore), she let me know that my body was doing the right thing, and what to expect. She spent time patiently with me on the phone and said the most compassionate and remarkable words: "You know, this is your body and the universe's kindness. I know it doesn't feel like it, but it's a good thing." Obviously, one doesn't naturally view miscarriage as any sort of kindness—especially for those women who experience them repeatedly and/or have yet to have healthy children. But what I took from what she was saying was something I needed to hear: The fetus was unhealthy. And instead of G-d willing it into the world to experience pain or even death and inflict me with an even greater physical and emotional agony, he retracted its existence—effectually gifting me with its loss.

When Jesse said this, I remember feeling the "power of women." It sounds like a cliche, but really we are an invincible, powerful species. Just think how the same midwife that encouraged me through a labor and birth was now comforting me through a loss—with the same sensitivity, strength and faith that, only a year before guided my contractions to birth a healthy child.

Though I wish I never had a miscarriage, I am thankful to G-d for the way it happened, for my good health and for surrounding me with a sound medical system, a loving family and a supportive husband. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes quite a few sensitive yet strong and totally massive hearts to support a woman who is losing a pregnancy.

I chose to write about my miscarriage because I believe strongly that there should be no shame or guilt about the choices our bodies and G-d make for us. There is nothing wrong with you or your "womanliness" if you have a miscarriage. Perhaps if we spoke about these realities more, so many women wouldn't feel insecure, silenced, afraid and broken.

I live in a community where most women seem to always be either pregnant or with a newborn. Those suffering from infertility or who have experienced a miscarriage get lost in the shuffle, forced to deal with their pain in a silent way—whether they want to or not.

Should we not be able to band together in reasonable and healthy ways not only in our joys and triumphs, but in the reality of our pains and losses? We all have them. A woman who experiences a loss should feel allowed to discuss her miscarriage with equal freedom as her friend with a burgeoning belly.

She shouldn't fear being viewed as weak. We cannot allow her to fear being pitied.

Strong, healthy and fertile women all over the world have miscarriages. Some happily choose to keep their experiences to themselves. There is virtue in that, too. But a woman who feels she would find healing in discussing her experience openly should never feel the burden of potential shame that may come with "exposing" herself. Especially if the good that candor brings and the conversation it creates can only enlighten other women to be more sensitive, prepared and empowered.

This Mother's Day, may we all find the strength to love 

ourselves and each other wholeheartedly, without 

reservation, simply for being G-d's beautiful 

female creatures, endowed with the gift not 

only to birth but to give and grow in all 

the powerful ways only we know how. 

Dressing Your Post-Baby Body (10 Tips from a Fashion Maven!)

By Devorah Ramey 

[AKA the "Frum Fashion Maven." Visit her at www.frumfashionmaven.com]

fashion post partum shabbat/simcha by frumfashionmaven featuring a circular skirt

10 Tips for Dressing Your Post Baby Body

After 9 plus months of pregnancy we eagerly await two events: the birth of the baby and then being able to wear non-maternity clothes again.

Thanks to the media’s obsession with fast shrinking celebrities, even observant women are under incredible pressure to return to normal in the blink of an eye. Sadly this pressure is often self-imposed.

I’m sure even Heidi Klum did not fit in her regular clothes straight out of the delivery room. So keep the “body image blues” at bay by dressing for post-partum comfort.

Having unrealistic expectations post partum can result in negative self image, insecurity and even depression. As a stylist I have seen two style camps : some women cope by shelving style for a few months and walking around in shapeless robes and the like while others walking around in obvious denial sporting “muffin tops," too tight items and other fashion faux pas.

The middle path involves awareness with a healthy dose of positive self talk and kindness.

Here are some tips to keep you looking and feeling great so you can focus on enjoying this special time in your life.

1) Be realistic. After delivery your belly will look about 5 months pregnant and won’t start to look normal until about 6 weeks (…. it takes time for your uterus to shrink to its pre pregnancy size)! Some people love bandaging the belly PP, a practice done in many cultures, I have done it with success B”H four times now and love a product called the belly bandit.

2) Dress comfortable. Start your postpartum wardrobe by creating a “home from the hospital” collection of loose fitting dresses. Try choosing dresses that are feminine, flowing and highly forgiving. Select beautiful colors that will brighten your mood. You want to look and feel presentable when visitors stop by to see the new baby, but also be comfortable for the first few weeks. For breast feeding and baby duty, I buy several deep v-necks to be layered over other tees, shells or blouses as a cheap alternative to nursing tops. Those elastic waist slinky skirts in different lengths add versatility and comfort. Clothing with details like ruching (pleating at the sides), empire waists and creative layering are all sure ways to hide the “baby fat”. Maxi dresses in dark “stain hiding” colors slim you and feel like a comfortable night gown. A loose draping cardigan works awesome and it gives you instant nursing coverage, I wear mine to run errands to avoid buying a nursing cover.

MimList: 10 Things I Recently Did That I Excused With "I'm Pregnant!'

By Mimi Hecht

10 Things I Recently Did That I Excused with "I'm Pregnant!"

I hate to be a complain freak, or irrational, or mindless or stubborn. But, alas, I'm pregnant. Now isn't that an excuse for everything? Here are my latest excuses - true happenings from a second-time-expecting, constantly-excusing and totally pregnant-brained LadyMama. 

1. I took my heels off and walked around without shoes at my brothers fancy engagement party. Ouch! I'm pregnant! 

2. I finished most of the Belgium waffle I was meant to share with four other people. I'm pregnant! And embarrassed. 

3. I went to bed at 9:30. I'm pregnant! Or aging. Okay, both. 

4. I tried on a diamond ring at a Jeweler and was walking out wearing it until someone reminded me. I'm so sorry, I'm pregnant! 

5. I didn't wear a coat when I went out in freezing weather. Don't look at me like that! I'm pregnant and overheating! 

6. I refused to carry my own child. I was with my mother and brother, who happily obliged. I'm pregnant! I'm carrying enough! 

7. I left a family party early without spending time to say goodbye to everyone. I'm pregnant, give me a break! Just get me home! 

8.  I dropped something and made someone else pick it up. Okay, change that sentence to the more active, "I drop things and make people pick it up." Like, all the time. Since entering the seventh month. I'm pregnant, can't you see?! 

9. I tried on something out of the dressing room. And I don't mean a pair of sunglasses. I mean a dress. I'm pregnant and not going in there! Hello! Claustrophobia! 

10. I wore a ridiculous amount of makeup to meet a friend for coffee. Do you even know what it takes to look good and refreshed these days? I'm pregnant! 

If you listen to the above circumstances, the word "pregnant" can be interchanged with "Uncomfortable," "Fat," "Tired," "Scatterbrained" and even, well, "Ugly." Don't you so want to be pregnant now? Ha! But the truth is, the wonderful world of pregnancy truly does entirely consume all facets of our emotional, mental and spiritual being. The least we deserve is to be able to use it as an excuse for all sorts of completely abnormal and utterly inexcusable behavior. 

THE M COAT

www.themcoat.com

Have you heard of "The M Coat?"

It's a 3-in-1 winter jacket for 1)Maternity 2)Mama and 3)Myself

You can wear it (1) while pregnant, then (2) bundled with your baby inside it, and also (3) as a normal coat!

What do the LadyMamas out there think? Is this stylish? Practical? Or...just plain nerdy?

Drinking Red Wine while Pregnant

"Another study has shown that drinking red wine during pregnancy can also help in the development of the child. It has been observed that such children score better in vocabulary tests and also are able to identify shapes, letters, colors, numbers, etc. better than the other children, when they are 18 months old."

Read more:

Drinking Red Wine while Pregnant