common secrets

[rm]

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/09/24/miscarriage-is-a-workplace-event/

I'm obsessed with common secrets, the things that happen all the time but no one talks about or if they do talk about they usually do it with lots of judgment because that's the only way the discussion is allowed.

This is on that.
It's about miscarriage and abortion.
But it's also about statistics.
And the less bad of bad options.
And the way we judge women.
And what we say on Twitter.
And being uncomfortable.
And controlling our lives by telling our stories.

Comments

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

As well as I can recall, everyone I've ever known, who I know has had a miscarriage, has had it while at work.:(

[saomigray.livejournal.com]

I am surprised she has been attacked for daring to state how she feels about an event that happened within her own body. Who the hell do these people think they are?

[saomigray.livejournal.com]

The word I was looking for was appalled. On reflection, even for a moment, I am not surprised.

:(

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

...and then I made the mistake of reading the comments. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but the number of people telling her how she should feel, in all different ways.

I especially dislike the whole "I'm pro-choice but you should still feel sad and ashamed about wanting an abortion." :/

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Too bad comments don't nest below a certain level; it would have been fun replying to Mr. "Thank God my mother doesn't believe in abortion or I wouldn't be here writing".

*My* mom *does* believe in keeping abortion legal. That's how I know my brother and I were wanted babies. (Technically, it's only proven for my brother, as I was born in 1967, pre-Roe.)

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Same here. My mum is one of the most staunchly pro-choice people that I know, and consequently I have never had to doubt that I was a wanted child.

[dulcinbradbury.livejournal.com]

Here too.

[valancy17.livejournal.com]

go ahead and claim it! pre-Roe != pre-abortion, after all.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Good point, but I know my mom and cant imagine her, esp. since she was married at the time, having a back-alley abortion. (Of course, since I know my mom I *do* know I was very much a wanted chid, I just don't have objective proof. But since "objective proof" would require something that would convince strangers who would be inclined to take only facts but not personalities in account, we are back in a circle and your logic is correct.)

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

My mother was pro-choice in the way that only a woman who had five children and a stillbirth could be.

[jgcr.livejournal.com]

I was pleased -- though startled -- to see her original twitter when it went by. Miscarriage is one of those things that only seems to be talked about among people who've already had to deal with it, and I wish that weren't the case.

More broadly, I think of writers like Penelope Trunk as a sort of advance guard on storytelling -- you need artists and writers to, very publicly, go WAY beyond the current cultural comfort zones to provide cover for everyone else to less publicly make the smaller, necessary, steps.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

:) Had you read her before?

She has other stuff I think you'd really like, I have the worst crush on (the idea of) her.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Random and semi-related: since the advent of early home pregnancy tests, a lot more women are aware of having miscarriages. Before, when you lost a pregnancy in the first few weeks you just figured you had a late period.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

Dear god, that really makes me wonder if I "dodged a bullet"--several times--but then again, my periods have always been incredibly irregular, so who knows? ::shudders::

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

I think some of it (not having bothered to read the comments on the understanding they're full of the usual fail) has to do with a huge shift in what private means.

When privacy is violated, it engenders some of the most intense responses in people and since we don't talk about what private is often, the discomfort also gets channeled into whatever the content is. Even when the actual person involved choses to not be private, there's still a clash in expectations.

I think, of all the changes the internet has wrought - and they are myriad - the changing sense of privacy (and the opposite, which I think is purience) may be the greatest historical change.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

You make some excellent points there.

It's a lonely feeling when you want to talk about something you're feeling or experiencing that others think is supposed to be private, and you end up saying something and receiving awkward stares and silence, or you end up feeling like you have been silenced without having ever spoken.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

The comments on this make me want to scream.

The callousness and self-absorption being demonstrated is enraging.

[kireishojo.livejournal.com]

I was struck by the comment that castigated her for not running to a hospital because it was, and i quote, a medical emergency.

No... most miscarriages are not medical emergencies... worth seeing a doctor about when they start but they aren't quick and dirty. They last over time especially if you are further along because the system has more to jettison. If they were a true medical emergency we as a species would have died out long ago.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I had my miscarriage the last day of SalonCon. So, yeah, they happen everywhere, at work, at cons, on the bus, at parties, at dinner....

I figured that if I had the miscarriage, the embryo (it was an early miscarriage) wasn't viable and it was for the best. It took me four months to get pregnant. Miscarriage in month three, baby stuck in month four. I knew trying for a baby I'd likely have one, because I knew the statistics on it.

I was just thankful it happened early on, rather than after quickening.

People need to get over themselves.

N.

[sethg]

If she had tweeted about feeling grouchy towards her coworkers and about how she attributed the feeling to PMS, that would have been entirely socially acceptable, right?

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

Last year (almost exactly last year) I found myself in a tanking marriage, unexpectedly pregnant after being so unbelievably responsible and torn between about what I was going to do.

When I had my resulting miscarriage the relief was amazing. It was the best possible outcome.

Some people are asshats. A lot of them posted comments. I am thankful that everyone in my life was kind to me.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Reading the comments on that entry made me want to throw up. I hate people so much sometimes.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I read that, if only to feel validated by her own feelings that miscarriages can be welcome things. I've never had one, but I've had a violent fear of pregnancy for several years, and I know that if I ever became pregnant, I would probably go back to church and pray for a miscarriage, even though I don't believe in God. I've even contemplated purposely injuring myself or shocking my body somehow to force a miscarriage, were I to become pregnant.

On the other hand, though, I made a mistake with one of my friends over a year ago. She was talking about desperately wanting to bear a child and how she was getting older and felt she was running out of time, and I replied, mentioning that the chances of becoming pregnant are much slimmer the older a woman gets. What I didn't realize was that she had PCOS and that it was highly unlikely that she could ever get pregnant or carry a fetus to term, which was a source of great emotional pain for her. I felt terrible. Plus, even without her condition, it was very insensitive of me to make comments about another woman's fertility. What I often have to remind myself of now, when having conversations about these subjects with my female friends, is just to keep my mouth shut about certain things like pregnancy and fertility unless they ask me how I feel about it. I can be there for them if they need me to, and I can try to help, but I feel it's no longer my place to try to feel what they feel if, for example, they have a miscarriage, or they find out they can't have children. I feel two-faced when I express condolences or sympathy, because I simultaneously wish what was happening to them would happen to me if I were in their shoes. It's strange, and it makes me feel like an asshole for even having those thoughts.

Women and private information are such hard waters to navigate. All I've learned so far is to express my personal feelings only when it's in my personal space, and people who hear/read it are specifically choosing to do so...and otherwise, not to talk about it at all unless other people want to. First, do no harm, right?

[delle.livejournal.com]

as women become more and more prevelant in the workplace - not just serving the coffee but running the meetings - our concerns and our life issues are going to be brought to the conversation. I'm so sorry for the mens (and the occasional woman) who is made uncomfortable by the discussion of 'female troubles' but GUESS WHAT - we LIVE with them. Men just need to grow a pair and start to realize there is more to this world than what is in their lives, in their heads.

Trufax: at my first post-college job (years and years ago), one of my coworkers became pregnant. Our boss (the company owner) wanted her to take a processing job in the basement so she wouldn't be visible to the customers as her belly grew.

Coming from that, I personally think it's a great improvement when a woman can publically talk about her personal issues. Was this over the line, too personal, perhaps even too 'cold' as it was done thru Tweeting? Perhaps. But I've lived on the other side, and I'll take this any day.

[rm.livejournal.com]

When I was in middle school (so, around 1982?) the head of the middle school became pregnant. She immediately started wearing huge billowing maternity dresses (she hadn't been showing, we had no idea) and I remember her explaining it to us in the cafeteria at lunch, how the big dresses were to hide the evidence of private acts between her and her husband. A pregnant woman used to be obscene, because it meant she had sex -- and the really frightening part is how not long ago that was.