After my first ectopic pregnancy (I had two—lucky me!), when I saw the doctor to have my stitches removed, she was weirdly excited to show me pictures from my surgery. “That’s the ectopic, right there,” she said, pointing at this bulge in my fallopian tube, like a mouse traveling through a snake.
“You mean my baby?” I said to her.
She nodded, uncomfortably.
After we lost our son, Miles, in the second trimester, the doctor assured us they would do extensive testing to determine why he died. Some weeks later, when I hadn’t heard anything, I called the office and was told by a nurse that the “products of conception” had been lost at the lab. Products of conception—like something sold alongside the condoms in a brightly lit aisle of Walgreens.
I asked the question I’d asked my first doctor: “You mean my baby?”
I may have yelled these words. The nurse stumbled over what to say before promising the doctor would call me. When the doctor called, he said, “I’m sorry. These things happen.” That kind of phrase should really only be used when someone steps in a puddle on a rainy day or spills coffee on their shirt before a big meeting.
After losing Miles, I started seeing fertility doctors to investigate why I couldn’t seem to sustain a pregnancy. I was told that the quality and quantity of my eggs was horrible. One doctor told me my embryos were “destined to die.” Seriously. I still wonder if I should write her a letter, telling her how hurtful her words were. I’d also like to tell her that she was very wrong. I went on to have a healthy daughter.
I know doctors see pregnancy losses all the time, so these losses have very little effect on them, but I wish they would consider the emotional impact for the patient. I also wish they would stop using such dismissive clinical words and phrases. I don’t even like the term “miscarriage.” It seems to blame the mother for failing to carry the baby. Nobody failed! It just happened.
Here are a few other terms that irk me:
- Cervical insufficiency/incompetence. Any woman going through a loss does not need to hear about how any part of her is incompetent or insufficient.
- Irritable uterus. What does this even mean? No woman wants the word “irritable” attached to any part of her.
- Early pregnancy failure. Can we just say “loss”? Nobody failed.
- Terminated. I think this term is insensitive even when we’re talking about job loss. When we’re talking about pregnancy loss, it’s just unacceptable.
- Not viable. It just sounds so cold and businesslike. It’s a word I hear in work meetings—“that’s not really a viable option.”
- Expel the embryo. I heard these words while the doctor was explaining options to deal with my missed miscarriage. “Expel” is such a violent word. Why not just say, “Help your body let go of the baby”?
- Fetal demise. These words were the diagnosis on my surgery packet before my D&E (dilation and evacuation) after Miles died. The reality for me was that my baby’s heart had stopped beating. The clinical term just made it seem like a standard medical event.
- Advanced maternal age (sometimes called a “geriatric pregnancy.” Seriously). If you’re over thirty-five, you get to hear this term a lot. It felt like a preemptive explanation, like if something went wrong, my age was the reason, like maybe I was stupid to consider having a child after thirty-five.
- High risk/low risk. Being classified as “high risk” (due to age or another reason) can make the pregnancy fraught from the beginning. On the other hand, being labeled “low risk” and then experiencing a complication can be blindsiding. Can we just accept that pregnancy always carries some risk and get rid of these labels?
Maybe doctors use these weird clinical terms because they think it’s helpful? Do they think we will forget we are losing babies if they just refer to the babies as embryos and fetuses? I never thought of my pregnancies as embryos and fetuses—I thought of them as babies, for better or worse. I wish my doctors had acknowledged this attachment I felt. I wish they understood that I didn’t just lose an embryo or a fetus; I lost a dream.
I believe change in the medical field is possible, especially as more women share their stories and encourage doctors to see things from their perspective. Like with so many things in today’s world, empathy is the key to healing.
This post was written by Kim Hooper, with content excerpted from All the Love: Healing Your Heart and Finding Meaning After Pregnancy Loss.
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