I have some things to say about miscarriage, people.

1) I have had three. I am still angry about it. All three were in the first trimester. The last one, we got an early sonogram and heard the heartbeat one week, and we were so relieved-- then it stopped.

#Miscarriageawareness

2) Miscarriage isn't talked about, and I'm gonna say right now that this is mostly because we're still deep in the patriarchal shame of blaming the woman for anything that goes wrong with pregnancy-- so deep, we blame ourselves.

We want to believe there's a way to control this.

3) Another fun feature of the patriarchy is that women's reproductive health is not normalized. Grown-ass married men with children don't know basic facts about how periods work, let alone how pregnancy works. And if you wanna talk fibroids or endometriosis, HOO BOY.

4) Because of this kind of ignorance, we have elected officials who don't know what the fuck they're talking about and make laws about birth control because they believe it's the same thing as abortion, or that it's just used for women to be slutty without consequence.

5) These men have never been in a situation where a partner sabotaged their birth control, or where they had to make the heart-breaking decision that they literally could not afford another mouth to feed, or where they found out a much-wanted baby would not be able to survive.

6) These men CERTAINLY don't know how fucking common miscarriage is, and I am pretty sure they don't want to know. The unspoken myth that all pregnancies are viable is CENTRAL to the myths about birth control and abortion.

7) ICE doctors performing hysterectomies without consent enrages me not only because it stinks to high heaven of racism and eugenics, but because they claim it's because the women complained of painful periods. BULLSHIT.

8) Debilitating period pain-- often endometriosis-- is regularly brushed off and ignored by (mostly male) doctors who figure this is normal uterus behavior, leaving patients to burn through their sick leave in misery every month until they can find a doctor who believes them.

9) The number of bullshit things that have happened to my uterus or those of my friends/family is FUCKING ASTONISHING. The number of weird pregnancy complications-- even with an average, normal, healthy pregnancy-- is just as astonishing. We don't hear about these things.

10) My rambling point here is this: miscarriage is heartbreakingly normal, not because of anything we do, but because human biology is just as prone to random errors in reproductive health as in EVERY OTHER PART OF THE BODY. Letting society pretend otherwise is cruel.

11) Let Chrissy Teigen and John Legend mourn any way they need to. Don't shame them for sharing their pain just because we want to ignore how often this happens. Let this be a teachable moment about how to speak of this without shame or embarrassment, but with love and support.