Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the car accident that nearly cost me my life. As I was driving back roads to avoid traffic my sea foam green 1991 Mercury Sable was hit by a fully loaded cement truck heading to a job site. My car was hit on the passenger side and then spun head on into a telephone pole, cutting it in half. Amazingly my only injury was a 3 inch long incision in the back of my head so deep that it needed a double set of stitches. Considering the severity of the crash, it's incredible I did not suffer any long lasting effects or injuries (with the exception of possible damage to my already horrible sense of balance).
Thinking about the accident today caused me to reflect on a more recent trauma I suffered and why we're so ready to openly share our experiences with some forms of trauma but do everything we can to keep others hidden. Why is this?
I have always been an extremely open person. I've even written about my battle with depression and suicidal thoughts on this blog and so I've decided to write about another extremely personal experience in hopes that it will help me cope and connect with other women who have gone through a similar experience.
Late in the evening on July 17th 2014, at 7 weeks along, I suffered a miscarriage.
I was in the ER at Fort Carson's Evans Hospital with my husband. I hadn't wanted to go to the ER, out of fear that they would consider me over dramatic. Women had been going through this since the dawn of time without a hospital so I would be fine. Well, when my husband rushed home from work (after receiving a frantic phone call from me) to find me laying on our bathroom floor screaming for him to make the pain stop, he insisted we were going whether I wanted to or not.
The ER was a complete disaster in the beginning. It took 30-45 minutes to admit me even though Fernando says I was clearly the worst looking patient there, although he is slightly biased. I was on the verge of passing out both from blood loss and excruciating pain. It also took 6 tries to get an IV in me, both to take blood to test my HGC and CBC levels, and get fluids into my body since they suspected dehydration. I don't even remember most of this. I was in so much pain physically and emotionally, by this point I knew I was having a miscarriage and I think my brain sort of checked out. After I was admitted and saw the on duty ER doctor my brain seemed to be much clearer and the pain was beginning to subside.
I'll spare everyone the gory details here but I will say that I am extremely glad I miscarried in the hospital instead of at home. Especially because I had a severe panic attack about 20 minutes post miscarriage. So severe in fact that it caused the doctor to order an MRI to make sure I didn't have a blood clot in my lungs.
Every woman who miscarries goes through a completely different grieving process. Talking to the multiple women in my life who have also suffered miscarriages, I've realized that some of my feelings match there's and others don't. The biggest lesson I've learned from all of this is that while grieving all feelings should be recognized an excepted. Everything I've felt and continue to feel is valid. My grief is valid. I'm allowed to be angry, mad, sad, depressed, ect ect ect. All within the same 5 minutes if its what my body needs.
At first I felt really really angry. Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT an angry person. It takes a lot to make my angry, but this experience was a lot. It tested me. It broke me to my core.
It all felt so unfair at first, and still does, although I'm in a place now where that unfairness doesn't make me angry. I did everything the way I was supposed to; I went to college then got married then bought a house then got pregnant. I did everything the "right" way. So why did this happen to me? I had already experienced so many bad things in my life, why did the universe have to add yet another to the list? All I've ever wanted to be is a mother, I read books on parenting so that I can be a better nanny, so why was this being taken from me of all people?
So unfair.
After a few days when the anger subsided the depression started to set in. I've always struggled with depression so this was no surprise. The first week was especially hard, I had panic attacks in both Whole Foods and REI before realizing I just wasn't ready to be in public. Seeing everyone happily going about their day only seemed to magnify my suffering. This is also the reason I had to delete my Twitter and Facebook, the constant pictures of updates of peoples happy lives made mine seem even more miserable at the time.
But then I got a manicure and a pedicure with a good friend who came down to hang out with me. I shopped online. I read a lot. Cried a lot. And started to heal. The second week was easier, and I honestly feel like a new person in my third week post miscarriage: like I've been living in a dark cave for the past two weeks and I've finally wandered out into the sun this past week.
In tough times some people cope with alcohol or drugs, and I can understand why. I however cope with exercise and caffeine. I've recently started running again (something I haven't done in years), hiking more often and attending yoga classes once a week. All of this has been instrumental in my recovery process (I also regularly attend therapy sessions, something I did before the miscarriage).
Although many women focus on getting pregnant again as quickly as possible after a miscarriage, I am not. I need time to grieve, time to recover, time to heal. And I plan to give myself as much time as necessary to accomplish all of this.
Part of my recovery is sharing my experience with others. After going through this I wondered: why are we so willing to share almost every aspect of our daily lives (social media) but so uncomfortable sharing our tragedies and traumas? Shouldn't we be using these platforms to help ourselves feel less alone? To help cope and connect and recover? Miscarriages especially are still something we, as women, don't openly discuss with the world. Even though science has proven it is almost never the woman's fault and that miscarriages happen in 20-33% of pregnancies we still blame ourselves, as women have done since the dawn of time. But I have learned that by sharing our grief we can overcome it, that sharing it somehow lessens the burden. There is so much grief that comes with a miscarriage, anything to help alleviate that pain should be welcomed.
I'd also like to give my most heartfelt thanks to wonderful people in my life who helped my through this. My incredible husband, Fernando, who took care of me both physically and emotionally for weeks. For my boss, Darcy, who is the most comforting person I've ever met in my life, and who helped me realize that all my feelings are valid. For Lauren who drove 3 hours to cheer me up. For Ashley who let me complain via text and sent me flowers. For Nicole who checked in on and comforted me everyday from a thousand miles away. And for my mother who constantly reminded me that I was not alone in this. I love you all.
- Taylor
