IPL Story - Founding member of The IPL Collaborative, Jenai Grigg, PhD

I gave birth to my daughter, Faye, when I was thirty-five. Despite my age, we conceived in our first month of trying. I had no major complications during pregnancy and gave birth naturally.

About a year after Faye was born, I woke to the return of my menstrual cycle, light spotting and mild cramps.  The second day it intensified.  I recall thinking it was much worse than any pre-pregnancy menstration I had ever experienced.   That afternoon I phoned my mom to tell her they felt more like contractions than what I remembered of cramps.  I called her a second time to tell her I had passed a large amount of very thin, watery blood.  I was confused and oblivious. Looking back, I cannot believe I didn’t piece together what was happening to me.  My mom knew.  She told me to call my midwife.  When I did, the nurse on the phone told me I was having a miscarriage.  

At this point, I was passing a lot of blood.  The nurse told me I could go to the hospital or, if I felt comfortable, I could just remain in the bathroom and pass whatever was left.  I had no idea that a miscarriage could feel so much like a “normal” birth. I literally labored.  Nothing as intensely painful as the birth of my daughter, but labor all the same.  Contractions. Water breaking.  At one point, I passed a fully intact placenta about the size of a hockey puck.  

My husband was with me in the bathroom when I passed the placenta.  We both stood there and looked at it in my hand.  He asked if I wanted to bury it.  What were the rules?  No one had ever told me what to do with the tissue you pass during a miscarriage.  We decided to flush it with the rest of my pregnancy.   

About a year later, we decided to try and have another baby. I wasn’t thinking about the miscarriage, but assumed that I would get pregnant as easily as the first time.  Sure enough, we conceived in the first month of trying.  I was so excited, I told everyone.  

At eight weeks, I told my Dean I was pregnant.  At nine weeks, I was proctoring an examination in my Introductory Sociology course.  I didn’t feel well.  I slept at my mother’s the night before and I recall feeling something was not right.  My students were about twenty minutes into the exam when I started cramping.  I stepped out to use the restroom and realized I was bleeding.

No surprise this time, I knew immediately what was happening. I tried to contain my grief and return to the classroom.  I texted and called a number of my colleagues to find someone to take over proctoring for me.  If it were any other class, I would have simply let them go early, but I could not ask them to stop testing. I left a message for my Dean.  I left a message at our University Testing Center.  Finally, the Dean returned my call and immediately sent her secretary over to relieve me.  

As I was leaving the building, I saw two of my coworkers.  I lost whatever composure I had been holding on to.  They held me.

I decided to drive to the hospital a few blocks away.  I thought there might still be hope that they could save my baby.  At the hospital they immediately sent me for an ultrasound.  My baby was gone, no heartbeat.  By the time I returned to the room from the test, my husband had arrived.  We sat in silence for a while.  

I thought about how very different this experience was from my first miscarriage. It was nowhere near as painful, but it was equally tragic.  No labor, but much more public than the first. My friends and family knew I was pregnant and they knew I had a miscarriage.  Even my students knew. It was hard telling people I lost the baby, but having my loved ones surround me with support and sympathy was an easy trade off in my eyes.   So often our culture tells us we should not share our happy news when we find out we are pregnant, but this only serves to isolate us when we find out we are no longer pregnant.  

Later that week, I followed up with a midwife at my birth center. I thought she was going to tell me I needed to wait six months before I could try again.  I was thirty-seven at the time and was already feeling like this was “biological time crunch.”  Her advice was quite the opposite.  She suggested that I try again as soon as I felt ready.  She said that my body was primed for making a baby.   The following month we conceived again and ten months later, I gave birth to my son, Gus.

I tell my story and as I do I know that with both of my miscarriages I was fortunate.  With my first, I didn’t know I was pregnant.  I did not fantasize about his or her future.  With my second, I knew I was pregnant, but my time of grieving was quickly curtailed by the conception of my son.  

I also feel fortunate that I work at a University and have access to databases full of academic literature on miscarriage and pregnancy loss.  This was, in part, the impetus for our blog.  The purpose of this blog, in addition to sharing women’s stories, is to synthesize and disseminate relevant empirical research to the public.  It is our hope to help remove the shroud of secrecy surrounding miscarriage and other involuntary pregnancy loss.  

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.  Please share our blog with others you think can benefit from reading it.