Here's a PSA about miscarriages that I wish somebody had given me, bc I knew nothing until it happened. Very much to my own surprise, I ended up having almost every kind of miscarriage there is.

Every man should read this. You REALLY need to know this.

There are many kinds of miscarriages - every one is different medically and for the woman & how it affects her, but they also range from "missed miscarriage" (very early, medically minor) to catastrophic (in every sense) late miscarriages.

"Missed miscarriage" is one of several weird archaic terms for when a pregnancy starts successfully but ends again before we would normally even know for sure it was there, but that can now be detected with OTC quick tests. My grandma, mother of 8 + 1 late miscarriage said

it was a blessing not to know about those and she was right in the emotional sense - knowing about them is a roller coaster of hell, but physically it's possible not to notice. However, medically, now that we know we're discovering that lots of these takes a big toll on the

mother's body and is also a signal that something is off that should be paid attn to. My male OBGYN, a very big name in Manhattan, blew off SEVEN of these before I had an accidental appt with a female junior doc in his office who was horrified. She put me on very simple & safe

baby aspirin & progesterone and by the next month I was pregnant with my youngest & the whole string of miscarriages was over. So - not really so minor.

The next most common kind of miscarriage typically happens around 6-12 weeks from conception & is usually caused by the body rejecting a genetically imperfect embryo (Im not a doctor!) - they're more common as women are having babies later in life. Usually there's time to confirm

pregnancy and get excited, tho this is the window when a lot of ppl don't announce the pregnancy bc the risks of miscarriage are high. You probably get to hear the heartbeat at least once, until the next appointment when...you don't. This is gutting. Beyond words.

Physically, there's enough material in there that things can go bad fast, so depending on what the doc sees & how far along it is, they either check you into the hospital for a D&C - surgery, tho usually simple and not very invasive - or give you a medication to expel it at home

or if bleeding has started they "let it happen naturally at home." That's a euphemism. What it literally means that no one talks about is that for many days, like up to two weeks, while you go to work & talk to friends & all the usual things you are in fact miscarrying.

Everyone reading this has likely been talking to someone who was actively miscarrying at some pt. But that makes it sound minor - they tell women it's like a heavy period. It's not. It's the bloody, chunky, gook of what you were expecting, likely hoping, to be your baby, slowly

dripping out of your body. It's gross, painful, horrifying, and emotionally devastating. Some times it's excruciating & you're curled up on a bed, but it's SLOW and the pain varies & usually you're forced to go ab your life like nothing's happening.

I never did the kind where they give you medication to speed along the process, but my understanding is that it makes it faster & more painful. The D&C version, if all goes well, is not physically painful but is terrifyingly medicalized and extremely invasive in the sense that

it usually means lots of teams of mostly male docs coming at you w the vaginal wand to confirm over & over: definitely no heartbeat here, no sirree. According to widely publicized reports, hospitals regularly use women under anesthesia to "give med students exp at vaginal exams"

So yeah - have a side of rape with your miscarriage, none of which you can ever talk about for fear of losing your job! Such civilized times we live in.

That's all assuming things go "normally." Sometimes they don't. One of my miscarriages was cause by a partial molar pregnancy - that's a genetic oops that was nearly twins but ended up as a gob of doubled chromosomes (not one extra, double of the whole set). This is not

compatible with life. (So, pro-lifers who equate conception with life are ignoramuses, which we knew, but they are also cruel, abusive, and murderous to mothers like me & the two healthy children I had after this.)

In the early stages, it was not yet possible to distinguish btwn the partial mole (not an embryo!) and an actual embryo. At the 6-week checkup there was no heartbeat. I was scheduled for a D&C, which is the reason I and my 2 children are alive today, bc if I'd been sent home

I would have bled out & died before anyone realized it was a partial mole. They tend to hemorrhage, but they're rare & can't be detected that early. Luckily, I hemorrhagedat a NYC hospital w a (woman) doc who actually had seen this before & therefore did everything right.

(That awesome doc later left the US out of disgust for our medical system.) After all that, this partial mole, if even a few cells remain, can grow into CANCER. So I had to be tested every month for a year, but luckily dodged that bullet.

There are many, many other ways things can go terribly & unexpectedly wrong, for any woman, any time. Every time there are tremendous consequences. Even the most "minor" miscarriages take a big toll on the body. And I was lucky that I never miscarried later than 8 weeks - that's

a whole other level of physical, medical, and emotional trauma.

Meanwhile, most of you have now idea any of this is happening. I had zero leave for any of this, did ll the things to get tenure that everybody else did, while not saying a word about the dozen miscarriages.

Let alone the two blown disks in my back, the ME/CFS, and the migraines that I couldn't even take medication for during all those pregnancies. This country, and academia especially, is BARBARIC and deeply bigoted. And I'm a privileged white woman w insurance and a full-time job!

Final note: What Chrissy Teigen and John Legend are going thru afaik is really a stillbirth bc it's so late. That means many times more medical/physical complications plus the death of a potential baby you'd begun to bond with as an individual as well as an idea/hope.

Anyone who doesn't respect their grief is a horrible excuse for a human being.

Oh also - if I had been fully caffeinated before writing this & thought about it getting shared widely I would have started with trigger warnings. I'm very sorry if anyone got too far in before realizing how specific and/or scary it could be depending on your situation!

While anything CAN happen at any time, and society should recognize this, luckily most of the time it doesn't. I think every man and woman should be told these things, but best BEFORE actually being pregnant, bc that's not when you need the stress.

Also, everything here is obviously my experience, as a cis white woman with full-time employment in a big city. Throw in any less security or social marginalization or physical complication and everything is just exponentially worse.

Important clarification that shouldn't be buried in the replies - I mixed up my terms for the early type: https://twitter.com/kateapemcgrath/status/1311718530551885824?s=20

Big thank you to everyone adding trigger warnings when they RT - please do. I was a dolt for not doing that.