My husband Mason and I have known each other since we were kids, and started dating after college. We always wanted children. In 2013 I founded Y7 Studio in New York City, and work was my first priority for a long time. I love what I do more than anything. But as time went on, my mind started to shift toward starting a family.
Right before I turned 31, in September 2017, I went off birth control. I’d been on it for 15 years, and assumed it would take a while to get pregnant. But come December, I had a positive pregnancy test. It was the day before my 31st birthday. We were so excited. I was still too early for my first sonogram, but had already started thinking about what life would be like with a baby.
Soon after, I went to Los Angeles for the opening of our second Y7 location there. We had a bunch of fun events and vendors set up, including a tarot card reader, so I decided to have my cards read. The woman doing my reading asked if I was pregnant, and I told her yes. But then things got really weird. She said to me, “I never say stuff like this, but I think you should know. You’re going to miscarry. This one’s not going to work out.” I was totally taken aback.
At 10 weeks I had my first sonogram, and I couldn’t believe it when my doctor told me my baby wasn’t moving and that I had miscarried. My husband was with me, and I was just dumbstruck. I hadn’t been bleeding and there had been no indication that I might have miscarried. I just wanted to get out of the office as fast as possible. I wasn’t emotional until I got home, and then I lost it. I still felt pregnant, but I wasn’t.
I had a dilation and curettage (D&C) in January 2018 (a procedure to remove the baby from my uterus), which felt like a whole other trauma. I didn’t know anyone who’d had a miscarriage. At the time, I thought it was my fault, like there was something wrong with me, and it didn’t help that a few people I’d confided in asked if I thought it was something I did.
Eventually, we ended up having genetic testing done on the embryo (which we learned was a boy), and found out it had Trisomy 16, a chromosomal disorder, which meant the baby likely wouldn’t have lived long after birth. So it actually wasn’t my fault at all.
The miscarriage was really hard on my marriage.
My moods were all over the place. I had been on birth control for 15 years, then off it for two months, then pregnant, and then I wasn’t. I was not emotionally available.
I am not great at sharing my emotions and could barely verbalize how I was feeling and what I was going through. And I don’t think Mason knew what to say or what to do.
At the time, my headspace was just in the mode of “I’m fine, I don’t want to talk about it.” But I wasn’t. So we started couples therapy in February 2018. It was really instrumental in helping us heal and to get to the root of our communication issues. We still go once a month for maintenance, and it has proven to be insanely valuable.
For the rest of 2018, I just buried my head into work with Y7. (And thank god for my team; going to work and being surrounded by such incredible women was something Ididn’t know Ineeded at the time.)
I was not ready to try and get pregnant again. I wanted to be in a good place physically and emotionally first. I started doing individual therapy, which helped a lot, and I also did a lot of yoga and journaling, which helped me to name the hurt I was feeling.
We finally felt ready to try again around Thanksgiving 2018, and I got pregnant in January 2019. Because of my history, they ended doing my first sonogram at six weeks, as opposed to 10 weeks like my first pregnancy. The technician looked at the screen for a while, and I was immediately worried. She said it looked like implantation had not taken place, but that it was still really early and that it may not be visible yet. I could tell she was trying to be nice.
I had another sonogram scheduled at eight weeks, and sure enough, there was nothing there. Again, I had no bleeding. I was scheduled for another D&C surgery the next day. I just remember thinking, “I don’t want to do this again.” I had my second D&C in February 2019.
I wanted answers as to why this happened again.
We had DNA testing done again, but they couldn’t find any abnormalities. We also learned this baby would have been a healthy girl. My doctors said sometimes it just doesn’t work out. I felt more prepared for it this time, but it was still hard to accept that “things happen.”
Mason and I both did full genetic workups, but our results came back with no abnormalities. My doctor was really encouraging, and told us there was no reason not to try again.
This time, I decided to be more open with people about my miscarriage. I was falling apart inside and didn’t have any fake niceties in me; I was sad and angry. I didn’t talk publicly about my first miscarriage at all and I didn’t want those intense and confusing feelings just sitting inside me again.
I decided to post about my experience on Instagram a few days after my D&C, and it still brings me to tears remembering the incredibly kind responses I got. It shocked me how many other women had gone through this. I wanted them to know that they weren’t alone, and that I was still really sad.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuPpFZTn70K/
I didn’t get my period back until the beginning of April 2019, and we decided to start trying again. By June, when it hadn’t happened, I was getting really frustrated. I was 32 and was learning more about fertility every day. While I was personally not in huge rush, I knew that the longer I waited the higher risk I would become.
In September, I made an appointment with Kindbody to discuss freezing my eggs. The initial appointment consisted of some blood work, a urine test, and procedure where they counted my eggs—I had a solid 20, a good sign. When I came back three weeks later so they could take some measurements of my uterus and uterine wall, the doctor turned to me and said, “You’re pregnant.” I was like, “What?!?!” I must have looked stunned.
It was still really early, and I was nervous about another miscarriage happening. At 11 weeks we had genetic testing done, and everything came back normal. And now my news is out there: I am just about four months along, and we found out we’re having a boy.
It has been a hard two years, and even after all the heartbreak and tears I know that I am extremely fortunate. The road ahead is a lot longer for some who have been in my shoes.
I want other women to know that it’s okay to be sad or angry for as long as you want.
Just because I’m pregnant now doesn’t mean I’m not still sad and angry that I had to go through two miscarriages to get to this place. I still get angry sometimes. It’s a weird thing to say, but it’s part of my journey. I am so thankful I am pregnant now, but I want other women to know that you don’t have to be on anyone else’s timeline when it comes to healing.
This time of year is weird for me, because I’ve been pregnant the last two Decembers. It brings all those hard emotions back up. But now, I try to sit with those feelings instead of ignoring them.
I grew from a place of not wanting to talk about my miscarriages to wanting to vocalize my experience. Talking about it gave me the space to grow and know that by sharing my story it will hopefully reach someone, give them hope and let them know they are not alone.
As told to Emily Shiffer.
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