Watching Your Baby Go Down the Drain

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Pregnancy Loss

Four months had passed since my fourth miscarriage, and I was no longer haunted by my fear of infertility and being a childless mother. I no longer awoke at 3am, chest tight and breath constricted, as anxious thoughts spiraled. Forcing me to get out of bed at 5am simply to start my day 90 minutes before my alarm went off. I felt that tiny slice of hope return; that minuscule whisper saying, “Maybe I do go back to my reproductive endocrinologist.”

When my previous three periods started after the miscarriage, my immediate wish was that I would enter early menopause. What’s the point of having a period if I can’t have a baby? Now, with my fourth period, that thought was absent. I wasn’t dreading my period, outside of the usual worries of finding the Motrin to alleviate cramps.

And then, I took a shower.

As I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, blood ran down my leg. It wasn’t a heavy flow, no more than usual. But in my mind, I was back five months ago, still pregnant, and seeing the flow that signified the start of my pregnancy loss. It brought back the haunting memories of the obsessive thoughts and behaviors: checking the toilet paper or toilet bowl after every use, looking for any tiny speck of blood or unusual discharge; the thought of certainty that I would miscarry once again. Blood rushed down my leg and onto the white porcelain tub floor before slowly drifting down the drain.

Once it hit the drain, I snapped back into the present moment. Erin, you aren’t pregnant. You haven’t been pregnant in four months. I had a flashback, a moment when I was reliving a traumatic experience. A symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).