A Female Triathlete's Guide to Overcoming Loss: Miscarriage, Surviving a Loss and the Pursuit to Succeed

All that I wish for is that I can say for the first time, out loud, despite having a voice full of shame and regret, that I have had a miscarriage? I can’t bear connecting the words together as I break eye contact with those that I’m speaking to. I don’t want to see their reaction because I already feel it. Irresponsible. Completely and utterly irresponsible. For a very few fleeting moments one spends in the throes of a lustful climax, I paid a terrible price. Unexpectant pregnancies are things that you read about or come to expect to hear about teenage girls with few resources. We’ve all heard the lectures before and spent hours talking with our girlfriends about what the right type of birth control is and why our boyfriends are such pussies for not wanting to wear condoms. But then I became that girl, sitting in the waiting room, at age 34, in a room full of future teen moms.

My experience of having a miscarriage after an unexpected pregnancy is a story of terrible pain. I’m not alone and I’m fully aware that many many individuals have lived through miscarriages or abortions, and many have lived through both as well. The pain seems to deepen the older that we get when we realize that we’re not so young anymore, and perhaps had a dream of having a large family playing at a park on the weekends may never happen. What do you do then? What I went through was an incredibly isolating experience that I’m perplexed on why I, at this day in age, for a woman like myself with every resource possible available to her at her fingertips, was relegated to hysterically crying in the shower only wishing that her mother was there to take care of her and tell her everything would be alright. It’s a terrible experience but what I have survived makes me want to reach out to others so that no one has to endure the isolation that I felt. My hope is that someone reading this, at whatever stage in life they are in, can come to provide a more supportive environment for their fellow sisters, to be less critical of one another since you never know what someone else is going through, and to promote a loving and support environment for women.