A Heart on Guard: The Emotional Struggles of Pregnancy After Miscarriages

Photo by on

“This is your sixth pregnancy, correct?”

Holy shit, those words really hit me when the nurse asked. I had two healthy, beautiful babies at home, but I was entering my third pregnancy following two miscarriages. I had also had one miscarriage before my first child. I had just had a D&C four months ago, and now here I was again, back where I was before, setting my initial doctor appointments for my pregnancy.

I did not expect it to happen this fast. I knew I had wanted to get right back to trying once my body got regulated from my previous miscarriage, but seeing that double line on the test strip scared me. It was something I had been working toward for over two years. My dream of getting pregnant and becoming a reality was so scary for me. A pregnancy meant I now had to switch my worries from trying to get pregnant to dreading a possible miscarriage. It’s always a worry of some sort in my brain — either not getting something I wanted or losing something I finally got.

After that test showed up as positive, I felt myself put up an army of walls. Our last miscarriage really shook me to the core, and my heart was still fragile from our loss. I did not want to allow an immediate connection to be made with this pregnancy. I had learned my lesson from my three miscarriages in…