1981, Boston.

I found the least fashionable piece of clothing in my closet: baggy blue sweatpants. I pulled the warm comfy pants over my legs and my tender belly and cinched the drawstring gently about my waist. I was 27, and married for two years. My body had just spontaneously expelled the beginning of a nonviable pregnancy: an early miscarriage.

In pain I’d never experienced before, there was blood, much more than any usual menstrual flow. It hurts. It hurts a lot. As the bleeding continued, I grabbed towels, pads and the blue sweatpants for comfort. Lying on towels, I cried, gulping air, heaving tears and clutching a pillow to my belly. Was the worst over?

The pain slowly began to subside. The blood flow did not. I shut my wet eyes, leaned back on my pillow and dozed. My husband and visiting sister-in-law stayed by my side.

“What do we do for her now?” they whispered together. We had no guidebook for this. Surely the bleeding would stop. Surely this was normal. Unable to wait any longer, my husband called my primary care office. Since the bleeding hadn’t slowed down, the care team directed me to the nearest emergency room. My husband and my sister-in-law supported me out to the car. I felt like I would pass out.

Medical staff greeted us at the ER doors with a wheelchair. I have no memories of being questioned or examined. I do recall the doctor’s words, “You are having a miscarriage. We are taking you to surgery to clear your uterus and stop the bleeding. We’re taking care of you.”

Then… nothing, until a nurse hovered over me as I tried to regain focus.

“You were pregnant, my dear. You miscarried and were hemorrhaging. You had a procedure called a D&C, dilation and curettage, to stop the bleeding. You’re young. You’ll get pregnant again.” The statement was meant to inform and comfort. Somehow, it didn’t. I closed my eyes once more.

First of all, I had been pregnant. My body worked! Secondly, I did not appreciate the tone with which the end of my pregnancy was delivered to my addled brain. It was over almost as soon as it had begun. Still, it was a loss. A few hours later, my husband drove me home, and helped me back to bed. No longer in great pain. No longer fearing I might bleed to death.

Instinctively, I knew to take care of myself. I took the week off from work at Head Start in Boston. I traveled; slept on the couch, hydrated. I kept by my side the paperback book “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” I read and reread the pregnancy and miscarriage chapters as I processed what had happened.

I learned that miscarriages happen in about 25% of first pregnancies and that a D&C can be used for an endometrial diagnosis; to stop uterine bleeding in about 50% of cases of miscarriage, like mine; and in some cases, for abortion.

Feeling less alone in this, I walked around the block. I saw babies in strollers, babies in carriages, babies in arms. I had started one and I lost it. And then, I realized what a miracle it was that I had had even the beginning of a pregnancy. The nurse and “Our Bodies, Ourselves” assured me that miscarriages were common. Many women who have experienced miscarriage go on to conceive a child. There was hope for me to have a viable pregnancy in the future. I also accepted that miscarriage was my body’s way of taking care of a pregnancy that was not sustainable, not meant to be.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, decided on Jan. 22, 1973, the constitutional right of all women to reproductive rights nationwide was protected, striking down Texas’ abortion ban, which at the time allowed abortions to save a woman’s life and reinforced the fundamental right to privacy. Protected by Roe v. Wade and thanks to a skilled obstetric surgeon who had the freedom to make prompt health care decisions with me, I did not die. My reproductive organs had been saved from possible damage.

As I absorbed all this, and started to feel stronger, I realized something else. The nurse who had cared for me after the procedure had meant well, meant to give me information and hope, but she had delivered only the facts, and had skipped over empathy for my lost pregnancy. This was not only about my loss, but the breezy tone, “You’re young. You can have another pregnancy” felt dismissive of mine and all pregnancy losses. If this approach was allowed to continue, many more women, much further along than I had been, would not have their losses acknowledged with empathy and care in order to begin healing.

I felt angry for all of us who had been made to feel that pregnancy loss was insignificant. I decided to write a letter to the hospital administration, imploring them to train their medical staff to be more empathetic about the pregnancy loss prior to offering hope for the future. I mailed it off, feeling stronger, physically and emotionally. Soon after, I received a letter from one of the hospital administrators, saying the hospital heard my recommendation; and that they would take it into consideration in training medical staff caring for women experiencing miscarriage, to first acknowledge loss before launching into information and hope. I felt I had made a difference, and hoped it would continue.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Care decision, stripping women in many states across the nation of fundamental rights to reproductive care and placing thousands of women at risk for dying or losing the use of their reproductive organs.

Wed Jan. 20, 2023, the White House issued “A Proclamation on the 50th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Decision.” It described Roe as protecting the right of “women in this country (to) control their own destinies – making deeply personal decisions free from political interference. Seven months ago, a conservative majority overturned Roe. Never before has the Court taken away a right so fundamental to Americans. In doing so, it put the health and lives of women across this nation at risk.”

My two now-grown children, their spouses, and my grandsons, ages 5 and 2, march in Los Angeles in support of reproductive rights for all women across this nation. My heart breaks for the women who arrive at emergency rooms and are told to wait in parking lots or their homes while bleeding heavily; are told to carry a child of incest or rape; are told to carry a fetus that cannot live outside her body, or worse, who has died in utero.

Across this nation, in some states, doctors’ freedom to promptly treat women at risk of dying or losing their reproductive ability has been severely curtailed.

The women of the generations who have come after my reproductive years should have the same right I had to safely make decisions about my body. They, too, have the right to make choices about their reproductive health, privately, with their health care providers. They have the right to live.

Vote! Vote as if women’s lives depend upon it – they do.

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