A husband's perspective on pregnancy loss

I am sharing a guest post that I find powerful.

My wife and I have been dealing with infertility for almost two years now. Last October we got what we thought was wonderful news - a positive pregnancy test. Soon the happiness turned to worry, and then anguish, and then grief. I wrote this for my personal blog soon after our worst fears were realized...

Yesterday I took my wife to the hospital for a dose of methotrexate - one dose, two shots, intramuscular. Methotrexate is poison; for the next week she will have to wash her hands constantly to avoid exposing someone else to its toxic effects. Methotrexate is a chemotherapy drug, developed because it targets fast growing cancer cells. My wife does not have cancer. My wife is pregnant. Pregnant with a fetus that won't grow to term. Spotting, cramping, two weeks of bloodwork - how fast is she doubling? The doctor is worried - not fast enough. Ultrasound, inconclusive - too early. Three weeks in, a final hCG, numbers dropping. Assumed ectopic, but we'll never know - can't risk waiting, by the time you see anything it could be too late, burst tube, toxic shock, maybe worse. The hCG numbers are so low...two words: not viable. So, we go the hospital - the Female Health Ward, but all the signs still say "Maternity". Three hours, two shots, and now we wait and hope for the blood to come, because if it doesn't, if her numbers don't go down, it's back for another two shots, another week of waiting.

These have been the hardest two weeks of my life, these last two days, simply numbing. The only thing that makes it somewhat bearable is that now we have some certainty - we know my wife's health will be preserved, we know that we can move on. Inisde, though I've got a small amount of anger, or maybe just disappointment, with all the people who've gone through this but don't talk about it. This includes ourselves...This isn't something I'll be posting about on Facebook, or talking about to any but a very, very small group of close friends and family...and yet, almost everyone we've told has had a story - "I miscarried twice," or "your aunt had two ectopics," or "it wasn't intentional that you and your sister were eight years apart." "Nobody wants to dwell on it" - but nobody talks about it, period. It's just not socially acceptable - it's not appropriate, it's not the sort of thing you discuss in polite company. You can't talk about it, you shouldn't burden people...just go through it, quietly, silently, alone.