1 in 4 women experience a miscarriage in their lives. Why don't we talk about it?
WebMD defines a miscarriage as the loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. It can occur over a few hours, or it may occur over days or weeks. Research shows that a miscarriage generally occurs for reasons outside of the mother’s control and not much can be done to prevent it. Most often take place due to a chromosomal abnormality that is spontaneous, not inherited. Other related causes that might lead to a miscarriage include:
Types of Miscarriages
Other types of pregnancies that result in a miscarriage include:
According to the March of Dimes, as many as 50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, with 80% of miscarriages occurring within the first three months of pregnancy. Miscarriages that occur after the 20th week of gestation are termed late miscarriages. Most women who have had a miscarriage will go on to have a healthy pregnancy in the future.
Victoria Bonyo, is one of these women, she shared her experience in a recent blogpost, which she allowed us to republish. It reads:
We had lost two babies in a span of two and half years through miscarriages. They took a toll on us and we decided not to try. We took matters into our hands, or rather, he decided to take matters into his hands and he was adamant to ensure that no miscarriage was going to wreak havoc into our lives again.
We stayed on this path for a year and a half after my last miscarriage. We both had demanding careers and this kept us busy but not without the occasional nag from my mother who wanted grandchildren; she was getting old and wanted to see her grandchild from her last born baby before her time ran out. Mother, I still want to see you many years from now, you are not going anywhere by God’s Grace.
January 2017 came, and the pressures of work combined with school took its toll on us. Hubstar and I had enrolled for our Master’s degree programmes. I guess that in the midst of this whirlwind of events, we forgot to take caution. My husband knocked me up. I wasn’t ready.
My menses delayed by 5 days, they are never late, always on time like clockwork. I informed hubstar, he brushed it off as pressure related. “They will come, with that mulikamwizi smack in the middle of your forehead ( mulikamwizi was my rather too obvious zit that almost looked like a third eye on my face.)
Day 6 and 7 pass on, still no sign of aunt flow. On my way home from work I go into a pharmacy and pick 4 different brands of pregnancy test kits. I didn't want to have any doubts. I came home and placed them in my bathroom cabinet.
At this point, I am so very afraid to hope. I also don’t want to face another disappointment although we were not trying to begin with. We have dinner, watch CNN news, and retire to bed. Tomorrow is another long day. But I couldn’t sleep. The testing kits in the bathroom kept calling out my name.
It’s 3am, I crawl out of bed, literally on all fours and creep into the bathroom. I pee on the first stick, second stick onto the fourth. I place all of them on clean tissue paper and wait…Stick one shows two lines, must be a mistake.
I watch in disbelief as each stick starts showing the same results. I try to hold onto the excitement as I pick up all sticks and walk into our bedroom.
Something tells me to lay them all by Hubstar’s bedside and quietly sneak back into bed so that he can have the surprise of his life in the morning when he wakes up. But the devil is a liar and won’t let me keep calm…I shake him out of his stupor, he wakes up dazed, reached for his rungu (otugo diep as he calls it loosely translated to has ‘brought on diarrhea’). The English would call it a mace.
I still don’t understand why someone would have a rungu in the house. But in his defense, my husband comes from the Sakwa clan of the Kenyan, Luo community. They are hunters traditionally and therefore the need to have a rungu while going to hunt. He has brought this culture of rungu carrying to the city.
Back to my revelation story. I had to turn on the lights for him to realise it was me and not a thug out to get us while we slept…. He first reached for his phone to find out what ungoldly hour was this that I was waking him up, then sat up to wait for the all too familiar dreaded words, ‘we need to talk’…
I started crying, puzzling him even more. Then I point to the pee sticks and nod my head vigorously when he gives me his even more puzzled look. Almost immediately, it hits him. His facial reaction is something that I can’t describe to date, pure mixed reactions.
My husband broke into prayer while holding a sobbing me.
