On mountains and miscarriage: a physician ’s story of loss

I feel the mountain in my bones. The methodical plodding of feet over uneven terrain, a meditation, the grace of a single forward path, with no decisions, no guilt or what-ifs, no fear. Just forward movement, forward momentum. I hear Mary Oliver’s words at my core: “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention … how to be idle and blessed.” It’s taken me years to get to blessed. Idleness is something I’m still working on. My third miscarriage came a week before a scheduled trip to Kauai. What had been a “last hoorah” between finishing residency and beginning my “real job” as a faculty physician in Minneapolis became an opportunity for reflection, meditation, deep grief, and healing. We’d made it to our 12-week nuchal translucency scan — a minor miracle in itself! — only to be told that this embryo, this ball of cells that was brought into and left the world in a whirlwind of love was, too, gone. I remember the sense of dissociation, of asking my partner over and over “Is this a bad dream? Are we dreaming?” His rare and silent tears told me otherwise. I’d spent the prior year in a spiral of dark grief after losing our first two pregnancies. It was not a place I would willingly step back into. And so, I went to Kauai. And I hiked her majestic trails. I kept going. I stayed on my path, the metronome of my steps a balm for that which ached and throbbed inside my chest. Continue reading ... Your patients are r...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician OB/GYN Source Type: blogs