TW: Miscarriage/pregnancy loss

Pause for a poem with me today, a poem I never imagined I would need to write. The poem below has been a work developed over the last few months since what I can now consider the worst day of my life, March 31st, 2025. The time in question occurred in the doctor’s office at my first ultrasound appointment. I was 10 weeks pregnant with my very first, and my husband, John, and I were elated to get to see our little one for the first time.

The ultrasound tech spent quite a while pushing and nudging that linear probe across my lower abdomen. But there they were on the screen, a blurry little shrimp-shape centered on the black screen in fuzzy gray.

But the tech did not say anything about them. Instead, she steered the conversation elsewhere: So what do you do for work?

This question, though not completely out of the realm of topics at a doctor’s appointment, rang oddly to my ear. Were we not going to talk about the little staticky smudge on the screen? But she printed a picture of the screen and handed it to us quickly before ushering us back to the waiting room.

The little shrimp in the photo was smaller than I imagined they would be. I just didn’t know how important that actually was.

The follow-up conversation in the examining room with the doctor still holds an unwelcome space in my mind’s palace, a cold and dim room I have to walk past every now and then but wish more than anything I could board up and forget forever. But I can’t. As is the tragic reality of miscarriages and pregnancy loss. You can’t prepare for that moment when the doctor takes a pause before addressing you and your spouse, their face flushing with nerves and their eyes solemn as they face you with quiet professionalism.

Your fetus’s size is not as big as it should be, nor could we find a heartbeat. It looks like it quit developing around week nine. I’m so sorry.

So our greatest joy became our worst, living nightmare. We lost the little one before we could even know if they were a boy or a girl.

We call them “Grace,” regardless. Every article I read, the religiously-centered ones anyway, kept telling me, “Hold onto the Lord’s grace, and you will see this through.”

The only thing I wanted to hold was that little one, so therefore, they became Grace.

And the poem below is my specific prayer to them. I hope they would have loved it, and I hope you can find a connection to it, whether you’ve experienced such a loss or know someone who has. For those who find this post and are struggling with their loss and grief, please seek out professional sources such as the following: https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/information/leaflets/