I'M SORRY FOR MY LOSS

Two journalists examine the meaning of pregnancy loss in American culture and their own lives.

Giving birth to stillborn babies taught authors Little and Long one very painful lesson: “America is bad at talking about pregnancy loss.” It also showed them that pregnancy loss silence concealed other interconnected issues like miscarriage, abortion, and grief that profoundly impacted maternal lives. In this book, Little and Long use their experiences—and those of the many individuals they interviewed—as launching points into a larger discussion about reproduction and reproductive care in the United States. They argue that the great wall of silence they and others encountered derives from language that does not adequately do justice to the multifaceted nature of pregnancy loss. Indeed, any words that do exist “are strictly clinical or infused with stark political baggage.” They further observe that the overwhelming sense of failure that often accompanies such loss can be attributed to a system that—even in the more liberal Roe v. Wade era—emphasized the idea that “all kept pregnancies were wanted.” Miscarriage, like abortion, was therefore and implicitly a mother’s fault, an idea that kept women from speaking out about both for fear of being stigmatized. Now, in a hyperpunitive post-Roe era, discussion of miscarriage and abortion as part of the same reproductive spectrum is especially fraught, even though one might look like the other and be treated by the same methods. The authors point out that people are still finding the courage to share their experiences and grief through social media, but post-loss mourning is still viewed as a “malady” rather than a natural process. Sobering and well researched, this book lays bare major fault lines in a maternal reproductive care system in dire need of radical transformation.

Necessary, thoughtful, and heartfelt.