Supporting Our Partners

And, how our partners support us

Recently, the Miscarriage Hope Desk posted an article that has always been an important topic for me: how can our partners feel supported in the wake of our losses. As pregnant individuals experiencing the loss, medically, I feel it’s safe to say we all, at times, felt a massive lack of medical, emotional, and social support. If we aren’t getting the support we need, our partners certainly are not.

My husband was no different. He spent four years and seven losses trying to find a place to put his grief, to process it and feel seen and validated. While also supporting me through my physical pain.

After the strict lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, José and I decided to leave Brooklyn. It was bittersweet – Brooklyn was our home, the place we thought we would raise our babies. But after surviving three traumatic tragedies living in Brooklyn (9/11, Hurricane Sandy, and the COVID-19 pandemic), New York City did not feel like a place equipped to handle scary events. Moreover, from November, 2019 to September, 2020, we experienced three pregnancy losses.

Our one-room Brooklyn apartment felt crunched for space. It was too small to grieve the global pandemic and our pregnancy losses. The room that was meant for the nursery taunted us, as we were forced to walk through it on every bathroom trip.