"Pregnancy loss is about grief, obviously. You are shocked and depressed and angry, but not always in that order. Sometimes it's a roaring rush of all these emotions at once, a cacophony that paradoxically blends into a dull white noise. The persistent emptiness of what-might-have-been. Meanwhile, you're also navigating a body that was visibly pregnant moments before, with all the attendant hormones."
"It's a sad story. And not at all "on brand" for me. At the time, I was a television writer and producer, working for comedies like Parks and Recreation and The Good Place. Warm-hearted, silly, witty. That was my wheelhouse. In 10 years, the most tragic thing I'd written was in Parks when Donna sacrifices her Mercedes-Benz for Leslie's city council campaign. I'd taken some time away from TV to write a novel about grief complicated by a love triangle, but even in telling that story, I'd found"
I returned home from the hospital in August 2020 after a night in Labor and Delivery, having gained 40 pounds and with engorged, leaking breasts. A triplet pregnancy ended when my water broke at 19 weeks; the fetuses were never alive, though I held them and said goodbye in the same hour. Grief arrived as shock, depression, anger and a persistent emptiness, layered on hormonal and bodily changes after pregnancy. At the time, I worked in television comedy and had been writing a novel about grief. A nut-butter brownie later became a small, concrete route back toward joy.
Read at Bon Appetit
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