This is what I kept asking myself as I waited in the hospital, knowing that my 4.5-month pregnancy was coming to an end. Perhaps it is simply human nature to grow attached to the life growing inside you.
My entire life, I have catastrophized everything. The same happened when I found out I was pregnant. But I quickly tried to quiet that part of me and focus on doing my best.
Everything was going perfectly. I had no known risk factors, my scans had gone well, and my doctor had told me to schedule an appointment for the following month.
No one had warned me that even when everything seemed to be going well, it could all turn upside down in the blink of an eye.
I had gone to sleep when my amniotic fluid ruptured. Even half asleep, I knew what that meant. My pregnancy had ended. I was rushed to the hospital, and the duty doctor tried to console me: “We do not know yet.”
But I knew that the future I had already started imagining would no longer come to be.
I had to wait an excruciating 12 hours for my gynaecologist to examine me. She finally explained what would happen next. I would be given one dose of medication that day and more the following day to induce labour.
Miscarriage. Just one word, carrying a weight that is almost impossible to put into words. A grief so profound, yet one no one warns you about.
While I waited in the hospital for the procedures to be completed, my aunts, uncles, grandmothers, cousins, everyone, rallied around me. I was going through one of the most difficult periods of my life, but I was wrapped in a blanket of love.
The women around me told me their own stories of loss, their struggles, and how they had found a way through. Even though my own pain felt insurmountable, it was the strength I found in their stories that helped me through.
Despite medical science coming such a long way, no reason could be identified for why this was happening to me. The pregnancy was not advanced enough for there to be any hope of saving it, but it was also not early enough for my miscarriage to go unnoticed.
The medication I was given sent my body into what felt like a state of shock. I was shivering uncontrollably, and when the shivering stopped, my body would have to endure contractions. I had to feel the pain of labour, but there was no baby to hold at the end of it.
Nothing could be done to ease my pain, knowing that there was no possibility of a different ending. I was handed a death certificate for someone who never even had a birth certificate.
It is estimated that one in four to six pregnancies ends in miscarriage. But the statistics are complex. There are a multitude of factors that can play a role.
Most of the websites I have visited state that miscarriages are common. And this makes me question: Why is there so little conversation about something that affects women so deeply?
A pregnancy loss is deeply personal, and it should always be a woman’s prerogative to decide whether she wants to talk about it. But for those who do want to talk about it, do we have enough safe spaces?
There is so little mental health support for women going through a loss like this. I was genuinely grateful for the hospital staff who consoled me, who held my hand when my body was going through unbearable pain, and for the doctors who treated me with respect and dignity. But is that guaranteed for every woman who experiences a loss like this?
Too often, these losses are minimised with statements such as, “It was not meant to be.” As though a few words can make the grief disappear. We should hold space for women who are going through these losses and create more meaningful systems of support.
When even “rich” countries struggle to fund research into miscarriage and pregnancy loss, there is little hope for a country like Bangladesh.
The world can be an extremely cruel place for women. But I refuse to be anything but kind to myself.
There was a version of me that existed before the miscarriage, and there is a version of me that exists now. I do not think they are the same person.
The trivial things in life that used to bother me no longer seem to matter. Things I once thought were important have suddenly lost weight. There is something about losing something so deeply wanted that changes your understanding of what truly matters.
While I do not want my pregnancy loss to define me, I also cannot pretend that it is not a part of who I am now. I will carry this loss with me, and I will not allow it to be swept under the carpet or reduced to something that simply happened and should be forgotten.
I am still grieving the future I do not get to have. There is no linear path through a loss this profound. I was applauded for being brave, but the truth is, I was forced to be brave.
I no longer want to be courageous. I want to mourn. I want to grieve the life I never got to meet, on my own terms.
It is the strength of my parents, partner, and siblings that has kept me going. Life keeps moving forward, even though it felt like mine had stopped for a while.
The only lesson I carry forward is that I will show up with love, strength, and support for any woman who has gone through something similar. There should be more conversations about this reality, about a kind of loss that can be so profound and yet have no logical answers. Women should be allowed to grieve without being told how they should grieve.
Ahona Hassan is a human rights activist passionate about speaking on issues often left unspoken.