“This is what happens to the bodies of the women you know”

My friend Courtney Skott wrote an intense piece about the three miscarriages she’s had, including one just a couple of weeks ago. (Note: you may find the images disturbing, but that might also be a good thing.)

It wasn’t until after that miscarriage that I learned how common they are. But even if you know the statistics — that perhaps 20% of confirmed pregnancies miscarry — they are easy to dismiss. After all, it’s much more likely that you will be in the other 80%, isn’t it? But 1 in 5 is still pretty high, and once you start telling your friends that you had a miscarriage, all the miscarriages around you come out of the woodwork. “My sister had one. My best friend had one. I had two.”

Why didn’t I know that before?

Waaaay more people should know this — I didn’t until, well, you know. Like Courtney says, you don’t realize until you start talking to other people about it and…”out of the woodwork” is right.

• Courtney Skott
• medicine