Hormone Trauma

This is a touchy subject, but one I can address more easily in general rather than with someone specific in an email or post. Hopefully some of you out there googling miscarriage and emotional recovery will hit upon this.

Those wonderful female hormones that govern our cycle and turn us into emotional swingers right before a period, in early pregnancy, and in post partum have an extra special role right after a miscarriage–they often get completely out of whack and make our lives hell.

Often when someone writes me in the first two weeks after a loss, upset and angry, wanting to leave her husband, afraid she’s not doing well with the children, and sure that every one of her friends is trying to make her feel worse, I know her body has made life less easy to cope with.

We already are saddled with a lot after a loss: grief, frustration, fear, despair. It’s a terrible kick in the gut that in addition, our confused reproductive system often sends out so many mixed hormone signals that we can’t manage our emotions. In this state, a casual “How are you doing?” becomes a cold-hearted slam. A husband asking, “What’s for dinner?” is grounds for divorce. Can’t they see life is horrible, our baby lost, nothing will ever be the same, and can’t he make his own freaking dinner just once?

What is happening is partly the people around us–most don’t really know what to do or say to a greiving mother–and part of it our inability to process outside stimulus. These hormones literally become a jumbled filter and so much of what we would ordinarily handle perfectly well–a mess on the floor, an abrupt end to a phone call, a comment about our appearance–will become huge issues.

It’s not really our fault. And hopefully everyone will give us the space and understanding we need. We will get better, not because we’ve forgotten the baby or the sadness of our loss, but because our bodies have filtered out these conflicting hormones and now we can think more clearly and organize our feelings into those that bear getting upset over and those we can wave away.

If you’re here, and everything seems upside down and everyone in your life is upsetting you, just take a deep breath, get as much time to yourself as possible, and when the going gets rough, break some small piece of inconsequential dinnerware. You’ll get better. I promise.

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