Een miskraam is een vreselijke gebeurtenis, die helaas best veel vrouwen een keer meemaken. Ondanks het feit dat veel vrouwen er mee te maken krijgen, blijkt het vaak nog steeds moeilijk om erover te praten. Terwijl dit juist voor sommige vrouwen heel helend kan werken.
Psychologe Jessica Zucker had deze ervaring ook. Zij werkte al met vrouwen die miskramen of doodgeboorte hadden meegemaakt, maar pas nadat zij een miskraam kreeg na 16 weken begreep ze echt hoe moeilijk het is je ervaringen over deze gebeurtenissen te delen. Deze realisatie en haar eigen rouwproces hebben haar ertoe aangezet de Instagramaccount Ihadamiscarriage te starten. Dit is een plek waar vrouwen hun verhaal kunnen doen over hun ervaring met deze traumatische gebeurtenissen.
Met dit account hoopt Jessica andere moeders het gevoel te kunnen geven dat ze niet alleen zijn. De posts zijn superheftig, maar ook heel mooi, sterk en dapper!
Invisible Girl by @pieraluisa. Posted with permission. _ There is an invisible girl in this photo. Look closely. Can you see her? No? Perhaps, then, I imagined her. You’re right. I did. _ I imagined a lot. A life. A love. _ You upside down on the monkey bars Me clenching my teeth in fear while cheering you on. My fearless girl. My powerful girl. I wanted to keep you that way. _ For a while you were real. Confirmed by a heartbeat. A squirm. A black and white image. With me, a surfacing sense of possibility. A yearning so deep I wanted to hide it from myself. _ Apprehension too. For compromise, identity mutated, for what life might be and not be. I wanted you so bad, but you scared me. _ Did I scare you? _ Then one day, a rush of blood. Running panicked through an office. A hospital. A sharp inhale. _ Did you know that if you hold your breath you can stop time? I tried to create a force field so bad news couldn’t land on us. I tried that and it didn’t work. _ Desire calcified in the moment it was not. Grief cracked me wide open. Heart way too open now. If there is such a thing. My world filmed in a lace-like web of beauty and pain. Small moments unfolding, opening trap doors. _ As I reconfigure my dreams, don’t tell me that I lived too much. Shhhhhhhhhhh. Just listen. Shhhhhhhhhhh. _ ‘Cause I see it all right now. Life’s mysteries laid bare. And I don’t want advice, I just want to be. _ Now sleeping with a palm-sized rock. Grieving an invisible girl. Molten to the touch when I wake, empty, filled up. _ Wherever you are, I’ll save this space for you. And know I can always find you here. _ #IHadAMiscarriage #miscarriage #pregnancyloss #stillbirth #infantloss #motherhood #grief #loss #1in4 // Photo by @prue_stent.
Een bericht gedeeld door Jessica Zucker, Ph.D. (@ihadamiscarriage) op 26 Jul 2017 om 2:55 PDT
“After the preschool orientation, I go straight home and get into bed. I keep thinking about those pregnant women in their tiny chairs. I’m so envious of their healthy bodies, and curse my own. Then I feel guilty for my envy. Who knows what those women have been through themselves? I like all the baby photos I see on Instagram as penance for my thoughts. _ I don’t know what else to do, so I take a Unisom, an over-the-counter sleep medication that is OK for me to take. I wish I had a real drug, like Klonopin, but it’s not safe for pregnant women. I wonder if I’m still legitimately in the category of pregnant women, or if I should binge on benzos and sushi without a care, because it might not matter anymore. I keep thinking about the black hole in my stomach and start to cry. I fall into a fitful, sweaty nap. _ I wake up with a steely resolve and call the doctor. I tell him I want to be able to get a D&C as soon as possible if it is confirmed that the pregnancy is not viable. I don’t want to keep carrying around an empty sac any longer than I have to. It’s morbid and depressing. He says he can schedule the D&C, but that we might not get a definitive answer at the next ultrasound and we’ll have to wait a little longer. If the sac is still very small, a D&C could fail; there could be complications. _ There is, of course, also still a possibility that the pregnancy is a healthy one. “You don’t want to terminate a healthy, wanted pregnancy because you’re impatient,” he says. He’s right — I don’t. I just wish I had some control.” _ Profoundly on point piece by @jess_lenny for @lennyletter. Read the rest on The Lenny Letter site. _ #IHadAMiscarriage #miscarriage #motherhood #pregnancyloss #grief #loss #1in4 // Photo of @anhwisle.
Een bericht gedeeld door Jessica Zucker, Ph.D. (@ihadamiscarriage) op 11 Jul 2017 om 11:25 PDT
(Bron: Instagram , hoofdbeeld: Instagram/Fiona Osborne )
Lees ook: Als je een miskraam krijgt (en onverwacht toetreedt tot een geheim genootschap)
