About What Was Lost

One in five pregnancies end in loss.

That means the chance of you knowing someone who has had a miscarriage is high. Yet most women suffer alone because miscarriage is often a silent grief. There is only room in the pregnancy picture for happy women who go on to deliver happy babies.

But that is not always reality. About What Was Lost is a collection of essays from women who have experienced a miscarriage. The essays are powerful and ugly and real. I found myself wanting to underline almost every paragraph because what the writer said so greatly resounded with me. From the descriptions of the clinical and detached manner of some obstetricians (I am sorry but I don't want to hear my experience described as an "abortion" regardless of what your textbooks call it) to the people who mean well but hurt much with their cliched comments ("at least you know you can get pregnant").

Even if you haven't experienced a loss, I think you can take something from this book. Perhaps it will help you better understand a friend's grief.