After my second pregnancy loss, I blocked all my Facebook “friends” who were pregnant or had babies. I instructed Facebook to “show me less posts like this” when I saw a photo of someone’s toddler being cute in a way that only the parents could appreciate. I couldn’t relate to the excitement of my peers. Their families, their lives, were just beginning while I kept dealing with loss.
There are pros to social media (connection, outreach, support), but there are lots of cons too. For me, social media was nice once some time had passed. But right after my losses, I couldn’t handle it. There were pregnancies and babies everywhere—digital landmines, highlight reels that made me feel left out, envious, angry, and so depressed. Even posts that had nothing to do with pregnancies or babies still upset me. I just hated seeing how the world was moving on, how everyone seemed to have something to celebrate, or if they weren’t celebrating something, their lives were simple enough that they had time to take photos of burritos and sunsets.
Pregnancy announcements were hardest of all for me. Shortly after my first loss, I was perusing Facebook when I saw an acquaintance announce her pregnancy at eight weeks. This annoyed me. I resented people who had the luxury of naiveté, the bliss of ignorance, no reason to believe anything could go wrong. I made the masochistic choice to read the long post that went along with the ultrasound image. In that post, this woman revealed that her and her husband had been drug addicts and met in rehab. She said, “This baby goes to show that if you work hard and pray, you will be rewarded.”
I almost punched a hole through my computer screen.
Was she saying I didn’t work hard enough or pray hard enough? Was she saying I was punished for a reason? I restrained myself from sending her a message with that question. I knew she’d just reply with something about “God’s plan,” and I probably would punch that hole through my computer screen.
I have a daughter now (fifth pregnancy was the charm), and posts like that still get to me. What’s different is that I don’t have the same angry response. Mostly, I lament how I never got to be that naïve, happy-go-lucky pregnant person. I grieve that opportunity.
When I was in my third trimester with my daughter, I decided to start sharing more of my story on social media. I had been wanting to, but I kept thinking talking about it would jinx my current pregnancy. So I waited and waited, until I got to a point of realizing that I would never feel “ready,” not in the sense of feeling confident I could share without bringing on more loss. I started to see that my belief in this idea of “jinxing” things was another attempt at control—if I just don’t talk about it, it won’t happen again. I had to accept that loss could always be around the corner, and I felt the need to share my story for others who had made their own turns and run smack into it.
People thanked me for sharing my story, and hearing their gratitude for my openness reminded me of social media’s pros. Social media offers the stage for so many people to share their stories and continue to break the collective silence around pregnancy loss. It offers so many much-needed reminders that we are not alone.
This post was written by Kim Hooper, with content excerpted from All the Love: Healing Your Heart and Finding Meaning After Pregnancy Loss.
