The ferocity of traumas

The ferocity of traumas

Five days ago I lost a baby at 12 weeks of gestation.

Miscarriage: one of the million things you always think will happen to someone else, but not to you. Until they actually happen to you.

It’s no-brainer, really: miscarriages happen to one every 4 women (they say), and if you’re over 40 you have one in 3 chances of having a miscarriage.

Statistically speaking, this is something that I should have known was (somehow) likely to happen.

But when you stare at that positive pregnancy test, when you start having morning sickness, sore nipples, the sense of smell of a truffle dog and that small bump that’s already showing after only a few weeks, you forget about statistics.

You start believing that your pregnancy is here to stay, that a baby you were really looking forward to having is finally coming.

And then, darkness comes.

It’s a shock first, then a deep sadness that shatters your heart into a million pieces, a sense of loss that makes you doubt every little thing you might have done to cause this tragedy.

You stay there apathetic, victim of the ferocity of a trauma that hits you hard, in the core of your soul.

It doesn’t matter if it happens to one, a thousand or a billion other women: this trauma is hitting you, right now, and you have no idea how you’ll survive.

And yet, knowing how many women experience miscarriage does matter indeed.

Knowing that I’m not alone matters.

We need to face these kinds of traumas together and become as ferocious as the trauma itself, if not more.

Too many women experience miscarriages one after the other and don’t know why. And when they finally figure out why, it might be too late.

Too many women experience infertility and get misjudged as being too selfish to care for kids.

Too many women lose a child to a rare syndrome, to a virus, to cancer.

Too many women are victims of violence.

Too many of us fight against their trauma alone, and never talk about it.

We are too broken, we are overwhelmed by way too many emotions, and many times we are scared: scared of receiving unwanted advice, scared of being judged, scared of becoming that stereotypical friend who doesn’t talk about anything else than their trauma.

And that’s how the trauma wins: it makes you doubt yourself, it isolates you, it constantly reminds you of your weaknesses and hides your strengths under its ferocious blanket of inevitability.

But not today.

Today I’m reaching out, I’m calling my own trauma a liar and I’m going to do it in front of the entire world.

Because this miscarriage was not my fault. This miscarriage was part of the lottery of life, where sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

This miscarriage was not just mine, but it was my husband’s loss too.

This miscarriage is only one drop in the big ocean of traumas that women around me have experienced and survived.

This miscarriage is a reminder of how blessed and lucky I am to have a beautiful, precious daughter who fights every single day of her life against her own lottery ticket, a rare syndrome.

I will reach out to other women and listen to their stories: we are stronger together and I trust that they will give me perspectives that will help me heal.

I will talk about this miscarriage telling my truth, hoping that this can inspire other women to do the same.

I will work on myself until I see the light again, whether it will take me a week or a year.

I will beat this trauma and I won’t do it alone.

I am a woman with a trauma.

And if the trauma is ferocious, so am I.