It was never ending. For six months after my miscarriage I went to a very dark place of self-blame, guilt, shame and isolated myself from most of my friends and family. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back I feel I definitely had a form of postpartum depression. Like most women, it often doesn’t get diagnosed or recognized. I got scheduled for a D&C, simply picked myself up and quickly returned to work. I didn’t want my career to suffer and I feared that I would get judged or be deemed as weak. I didn’t know how to process any of it, much less thinking about trying to conceive again.
I was 34 when I got pregnant for the first time and loved health and wellness. I thought I was doing everything right, working out, taking prenatals, eating healthy. My best friend, Ronit, got pregnant before me and I was SO excited to be having our babies together. I envisioned them being best friends, the play dates, parent & me classes and being on maternity leave together. I made it past the first trimester and my husband and I were thrilled to start telling our families that our baby was on its way! It would be the first grandchild for both of our parents, so the joy was overflowing. Even though we asked our parents to keep it a secret, there was no way that could happen with our big families. Word traveled fast and before I knew it, there were already baby presents from family members. Ronit had just delivered her beautiful baby girl and I was ecstatic for her.
Around the same time, my husband and I went to our routine visit at my OBGYN office and what should have been a quick check up, turned into one of the most devastating days of our lives. At first, it just seemed like it was hard to find the heartbeat, but as my doctor continued to struggle and I saw his face drop, I knew it couldn’t be good. He looked at me and my husband and said, “I’m so sorry but there is no heartbeat.” The wind got knocked out of me. I was in complete and utter shock. I burst into tears and felt intense sadness and anger all at the same time. I couldn’t understand how one day everything was fine, and at the very next appointment, my baby was gone.
I got lucky that despite the hardship, I had the support of my best friend Ronit who helped me pick up the pieces. When I gained my strength back, I began to share the story of my loss. While it wasn’t easy, I found it healing to share and learned that so many people around me also had miscarriages that I never knew of. The most surprising being my own mother! I realized that many people don’t share the story of loss and that is partially why I felt so alone when it happened to me.
As I began to heal, it took several months but I was finally ready to try to conceive and so fortunate to get pregnant again. I realized that in this pregnancy, I was reliving my miscarriage every single day. I was incredibly nervous and anxious. I paced outside of every doctor appointment and tried to settle my breath so my heart wouldn’t race. I would nervously shake from the waiting room until the appointment was over and the doctor reassured me that everything was ok. I worked through each challenge in my pregnancy and took it one day at a time. I had gestational diabetes, I had days where I was nervous I didn’t feel her moving and I would drink orange juice or have some chocolate just to get her to kick. The nerves were there until the very end when I got induced because they were worried she wasn’t growing enough. It wasn’t until I held her in my arms that I could finally exhale
Fast forward to 2020, my daughter was two and a half and we started trying for our second child. While it didn’t take long to conceive, it seemed surreal. I was cautiously excited. I went to my first 8 week appointment and everything was great. However, as we went to the 10 week appointment we got the devastating news that our baby had genetic abnormalities and we went to hours of genetic counseling to discuss our options. I felt gutted, scared, unable to process everything they were telling us and all the options. Shortly after, we went to the doctor only to find out that again, there was no heartbeat and I was experiencing my second miscarriage.
There were no words. It felt just as horrible as the first miscarriage except this time I had a little toddler at home that needed me so I picked up the pieces even faster. I went through the D&C alone while my husband took our daughter out for the day. I quickly pushed my pain aside to continue to work and be a toddler mom, still quietly wondering why this had happened twice and coming up with no real answers.
A week later Ronit called to tell me she also just had a miscarriage. I couldn’t believe we experienced loss one week apart. Ronit worked in the Functional Medicine space for years and when this happened, she went into deep research mode in a quest to discover the root cause. While we both asked our doctors and friends, no one had any good answers. “It just happens, it’s common. Just keep trying,” we were told. Ronit, never one to take no for an answer, began digging through piles of research trying to find ways to improve our egg quality and ensure that this didn’t happen to either of us again. However, what she ended up uncovering was shocking to both of us. Article after article about the male’s part of fertility!
Fifty percent of miscarriages are linked to sperm and NO ONE is talking about it. Society has placed the burden of fertility predominately on women. Why? When an overwhelming quantity of research shows the importance of both partners? Ronit called me immediately to share this massive AHA moment and the seed of WeNatal was planted. On top of researching what our own partners could do from their end for a healthy pregnancy, we also knew we had to change things for those after us. Conception and pregnancy absolutely needed to include both partners. We started working with the best doctors, nutritionists and experts to change the pre-pregnancy game forever. We made it our mission to create the BEST prenatal supplement for women and men and to support couples with all the latest research, access to the best experts, support for the body and mind, and so much more.
WeNatal was born to pave the way for a future where we really put the WE in “We are trying, We are pregnant, We are having a baby,” because research clearly shows, it takes both. Today, I am so grateful to be the mother of my two beautiful girls. My second daughter and Ronit’s second daughter were born 2 months apart. What started with a massive loss and dark place, ended up inspiring our mission to help create healthy little humans and to share our story.
