Meghan McCain, the daughter of late senator John McCain, said she knew she was expecting before she “formally” knew she was pregnant.
In an op-ed for The New York Times, “The View” host opened up about the moment she knew she was pregnant, and subsequently the moment she knew she was having a miscarriage:
I knew I was pregnant before I formally knew I was pregnant. My body told me in all the ways women are familiar with. It told me in the same ways that I was miscarrying. The confirmation from my doctor came the day of that photo shoot, at the worst possible time.
She added:
I look back at those pictures now, and I see a woman hiding her shock and sorrow. I am posed for the camera, looking stern and strong, representing my fellow conservative women across the country. But inside, I am dying. Inside, my baby is dying.
As McCain continued, she said she never wanted the news of her miscarriage to be public.
However, after speculation grew as to why McCain was absent while “The View” continued filming episodes, the 34-year-old opened up about her loss.
McCain wrote that was “months ago” that she learned she and her husband, Ben, were expecting their first child together.
McCain said she decided to go public with her grief because she wants to destigmatize the stigma around losing a child, which occurs nearly three million times each year:
I am not hiding anymore. My miscarriage was a horrendous experience and I would not wish it upon anyone. Yet for all its horrors, it is distressingly common. […]
Miscarriage is a pain too often unacknowledged. Yet it is real, and what we have lost is real. We feel sorrow and we weep because our babies were real.
McCain wrote for The New York Times that women who experienced miscarriage “deserve the opportunity to speak openly of them, to share what they were and to mourn.”
Finding out she and Ben were expecting a child was a surprise, but a joyous surprise. McCain said thousands of questions flew threw her mind at the thought of becoming a parent and “then it all ended — as our child ended”:
Since then, I have asked the same question every mother asks who loves and loses a child: Why? Why was this light and joy held before us, and then the world where this child drew breath cast into shadow? Why was an innocent life created in the image of God and then abruptly snuffed out?
McCain said she blamed herself.
But soon McCain realized that the miscarriage she experienced wasn’t her fault and she wasn’t alone. She concluded:
“I had a miscarriage. I loved my baby, and I always will. To the end of my days I will remember this child — and whatever children come will not obscure that. I have love for my child. I have love for all the women who, like me, were briefly in the sisterhood of motherhood, hoping, praying and nursing joy within us, until the day the joy was over.”
In the days following the publication of her op-ed, McCain took to Instagram to thank those who have sent her well wishes.
She wrote, in part:
“Ben and I are the luckiest, most incredibly blessed people in the world surrounded by love and support. My hope is by continuing to share grief and loss, and addressing these taboo subjects head on it will help people who have experienced the same to feel less alone. None of us are alone in this.”
source:https://dearly.com/