Gosh, I'm glad to have found this thread - after reading everyone's stories, I feel absolutely heartbroken, although in good company with fellow academics who understand.
I had an early miscarriage on September 2nd, just days before the term started. I'm co-teaching an upper-level class, and my fellow instructor has, in the past six weeks, started to show. Is that cruel irony or what? I am, to be honest, a little dumbfounded...in any other term, I'd be fine teaching with a colleague who is pregnant, but NOT this term.
Sigh. Keeping it together each week is difficult, but only a few weeks left....
- DH
Oh, DH, I'm so sorry. I had two good friends in grad school get pregnant during my 3 miscarriages. It was so hard to be happy for them, to see them. Even now, esp. with one of their children, who is the age mine was supposed to be, I have bitterness in my mouth. Of course, I don't show it--but I learned on this thread this isn't atypical. It helped me, after my first miscarriage, to know the high probability of miscarriages--something like at least 20%, or 1 out of 5 pregnancies--meant that many of the women around me, esp. older women, had likely had them. I felt compassion for them and for myself, and I felt less alone. It's a silent loss not usually talked about. I've become much more open about mine, and am surprised at how many people, including men, acknowledge it and tell me they/their partners have experienced at least one.
Good luck, and I'm so sorry for your loss. Take it one day at a time.
