I was commenting last night to my husband how so many of my pieces over the years have come about because I’ve been finding some way to deal with, manage and grow through painful personal experiences.
It’s actually one of the things I like best about Judaism, that there are just so many tools to deal with all the hard stuff that goes on in life.
Recently I’ve been going through a lot. A whole lot. And I just felt like I’d had enough. I didn’t want to learn. I didn’t want to grow. I just felt really, really angry to be going through what I was going through.
And then, on top of all that, I had a miscarriage. My first one. Entirely new experience, one that I most certainly was aware could happen, statistically speaking, but that I was hoping to maybe not have to personally experience.
But, I did.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about it. I was surprisingly, uncharacteristically quiet and reserved about it. I wondered if it was, somehow, exploitive of my own pain to write about it.
But I thought about how much easier it was for me to move through my pain and heal because of the many brave women who have shared their painful miscarriage experiences in the public view. How sharing this kind of personal and unique pain can hopefully make it easier for someone else who may go through it.
I’ve also been thinking about how we are taught that when Moshiach comes, no women will miscarry. Perhaps this shows a lack of connection on my part, but I don’t think I’ve ever really felt so intensely the desire for Moshiach to come as when I thought about the reality that no woman would ever have to go through that painful experience again.
Anyways, I wrote a more in-depth piece about my experience over at Hevria today. I hope you get a chance to go over and check it out. And I hope that we experience infinity more simcha than pain, and that we get to live in a world where everything is revealed good.
Rivki Silver ~ thoughts & music 
I just read your article. I am so sorry to hear about the loss. Isabel
I’m really sorry that you went through that, Rivki. Thank you for sharing about it.
Thanks Sarah. :) xo
So much of what you wrote in your post resonated with me. The beginning where you just don’t want to grow anymore – and I thought that’s exactly how I felt when I had my miscarriage – and then read your next lines – that you had one too.
I feel for your loss. And don’t have anything wise to say though I was recently in your shoes – and wrote about it publicly as well. But there’s something in numbers and owning our stories. I’m with you, and feel with you.
May we only hear simchos.
Thank you, and thank you for writing about your loss too (I’m thinking about a piece I read shortly before my own miscarriage, and how I felt like it “prepped” me, so to speak, I wonder if that was your piece?).
I completely agree with the sentiment that the more people share these painful moments, the more we are honest about the complexity of it, the easier it is for everyone. That’s ultimately what helped me decide to write about it, even though it was so painful and private.