A Little Death and A Lot of Grief
“A short list of what died that day: my daughter, me, my dreams, her future, all my gods, my laughter, the cabbage I covered my engorged breasts with, and this part of my stomach where I keep her sadness.” -Sarah Agaton Howes in “Lessons from Dying” I thought I knew what it was. I didn’t know what miscarriage was. Wasn’t it just a heavy period in the privacy of your home, maybe before you got too attached to the little one growing inside you? I knew the stats, memorized them when I got pregnant with Teddy. 20% chance of the pregnancy ending within the first 6 weeks. 10% between 6 and 12 weeks. 5% after the first trimester. I learned new stats this time around. 1-3% of pregnancies end in the second trimester. 1-2% result in stillbirths (after 24 weeks). These stats are, of course, raw data, without accounting for race, socioeconomic status, or previous health conditions. Among Black and Indigenous individuals, these rates are much higher, as well as among those experiencing pove