A few weeks ago, I was part of the photo shoot for The New York Times Magazine’s cover story about ABC’s “The View.” It should have been a moment of triumph — a vindication of the show’s significance as a place at the center of political debate, a ratings boom, a must for the top tier of presidential candidates. I should have been proud. I knew my father would have been proud.
I look back at those pictures now, and I see a woman hiding her shock and sorrow. I am posed for the camera, looking stern and strong, representing my fellow conservative women across the country. But inside, I am dying. Inside, my baby is dying.
I knew I was pregnant before I formally knew I was pregnant. My body told me in all the ways women are familiar with. It told me in the same ways that I was miscarrying. The confirmation from my doctor came the day of that photo shoot, at the worst possible time.
I missed a few days of work. It wasn’t many, but given the job I have, it was enough to spark gossip about why I would be away from “The View.” This was not supposed to be public knowledge. I have had my share of public grief and public joy. I wish this grief — the grief of a little life begun and then lost — could remain private.
I am not hiding anymore. My miscarriage was a horrendous experience and I would not wish it upon anyone.
Yet for all its horrors, it is distressingly common. Estimates range from one in 10 to one in four pregnancies end in miscarriages. That’s about three million lost children in America each year. That is all the more reason women need to be able to speak about this publicly, without the stigma and the lack of knowledge that pervades the issue.
[Read NYT Parenting’s guide on how to recognize miscarriage symptoms and cope with the aftermath and subscribe to its newsletter.]
Because even to this day, the subject of a miscarriage carries so much cultural taboo. Miscarriage is a pain too often unacknowledged. Yet it is real, and what we have lost is real. We feel sorrow and we weep because our babies were real.
They were conceived, and they lived, fully human and fully ours — and then they died. We deserve the opportunity to speak openly of them, to share what they were and to mourn. More important, they deserve to be spoken of, shared and mourned. These children, shockingly small, shockingly helpless, entirely the work of our love and our humanity, are children.
We who mourn are their mothers.
The surprise of learning I was pregnant, many months ago now, swiftly turned to joy. With that joy came all the questions, plans and aspirations that every mother knows.
Even as the child is growing within you, vanishingly small and vulnerable, you are already wondering about the thousand things it will take to be a good parent. What sort of birth will I have? How will we decorate his room? His — goodness, what if it is a her? How will we arrange for school, for education? How will we childproof the home? What will we name him or her? Where will we live as this new little one grows up? How do we create a faith life that teaches and enriches our newest, most precious addition? How do we deserve this son, this daughter, this life we have made?
And on a less elevated note, but one every mother in media has considered: How am I going to be pregnant with everyone watching?
The expectation of a child drags you out of yourself and into a life not yours — yet for which you are responsible. For a brief moment, I had the privilege of seeing myself in the sisterhood of motherhood.
Knowing all the extraordinary mothers that I do — from my own, to my friends, to so many examples of women who have raised children in love and faith, in good times and bad — I knew I was prepared in at least one way.
I was prepared in the circle of women to whom I could turn for advice, for support, for love.
Then it all ended — as our child ended.
Since then, I have asked the same question every mother asks who loves and loses a child: Why? Why was this light and joy held before us, and then the world where this child drew breath cast into shadow? Why was an innocent life created in the image of God and then abruptly snuffed out?
I blamed myself. Perhaps it was wrong of me to choose to be a professional woman, working in a high-pressure, high-visibility, high-stress field, still bearing the burden of the recent loss of my father and facing on top of that the arrows that come with public life. This is not a complaint. This is reality. I blamed my age, I blamed my personality. I blamed everything and anything a person could think of, and what followed was a deep opening of shame.
This, I told myself, is the reason my body is a rock-strewn wasteland in which no child may live. This is my fault.
Yet it is not my fault. Fault and blame are not at work here. When Job demanded answers of God, God reminded him: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.” I do not understand. Life and death are beyond our power. This miscarriage has reminded me of that truth. And it has reminded me of one other truth: Love is within our power.
I had a miscarriage. I loved my baby, and I always will. To the end of my days I will remember this child — and whatever children come will not obscure that. I have love for my child. I have love for all the women who, like me, were briefly in the sisterhood of motherhood, hoping, praying and nursing joy within us, until the day the joy was over.
You are not alone.
When my father passed, I took refuge in the hope that someday we would be united in the hereafter. I still imagine that moment, even as I trust that a loving God will see it happen. Now I imagine it a bit differently. There is my father — and he is holding his granddaughter in his hands.
Meghan McCain (@meghanmccain) is a co-host of “The View.”
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