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Hey, Twitter pals. I’ve been knitting this blanket for the last seven weeks or so (I am neither a particular good nor speedy knitter), and I’m ready to tell you why.
October was pregnancy loss awareness month. My body chose to observe in the traditional way.
CW: pregnancy loss.
October was pregnancy loss awareness month. My body chose to observe in the traditional way.
CW: pregnancy loss.
Part of why I want to talk about it is that I feel like I’m a pretty informed about health and reproduction and all that stuff and I had no idea what a long and drawn-out process miscarriage can be.
From the time I realized something wasn’t right until my first hormone tests took a week. It was a week and a bunch more tests before I had a diagnosis of “impending miscarriage.” I was in that limbo state for over a week before the miscarriage began; it took a week to complete.
To be clear: no one did anything wrong. I had excellent, attentive care the whole time. This is just the clock for a pregnancy loss sometimes. I felt wildly unprepared for how brutally drawn-out it would be, for how sick I would feel, for how long.
Of course, it’s the context of Covid, so you go to all the tests and all the appointments alone. You have all the conversations twice. I don’t begrudge any of that — it was the right thing to do — but it was hard. It would have been hard anyway, I know.
But the thing is, like, life keeps happening? The whole time. You’re trapped in this multi-week experience and everyone else is just being normal. You can only think about one thing and everyone else is... not.
My work was amazing and I was so privileged to have time to rest. But I guess part of why I want to underline the timeline is that it was just another reminder of how we never know what other people are going through.
If you saw me speak (OpenEd, Etug) or joined me for a workshop or met me for a consultation — I was having a miscarriage. If I cancelled on you or missed a deadline or seemed to not be on the ball — I was having a miscarriage. Sometimes I did both those things on the same day.
I advocate a lot for us to be allowed to be our whole selves in academia — so this thread feels hard but necessary.
Anyway, the rainbow blanket: some folks call children after loss rainbow babies. I hope one day I get to bring a little one home in this blanket.
In the meantime, I know a Groot whose favourite colour is rainbow, and he says he’ll be taking it to school for nap. I’m lucky.
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In the meantime, I know a Groot whose favourite colour is rainbow, and he says he’ll be taking it to school for nap. I’m lucky.
