Ashley, thank you for writing this —I’m so sorry for your loss.

You are so right! Why don’t we talk about this more? Like you, until I had a miscarriage this summer, I had no idea how common they are. In the days after, everything felt like a metaphor for what I thought was my failure, down to the tiny, dead moth I found at the bottom of a glass. Now when I look around me — I feel sometimes like I have X-ray vision and I can sense the layers of loss and love and hurt carried by the women around me who carry it silently — but in a way that fills me with strength and connection. It’s hard to explain this love we hold — for a “someone” who in many ways was still made more of hope and excitement than material.

If anyone reading this is looking for a thoughtful community to talk about trying to conceive after a pregnancy loss, there is a reddit community (TTC After Loss) I’ve joined that has been a source of support for me.