April 29, 2025 • 14 mins
This week we’re checking in with Diane, who came to us while struggling with the emotional fallout from pregnancy loss, to hear how she’s doing one year later.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
column for the Atlantic. And I'm Guy Winch. I'm the
author of Emotional First Aid and I write the Dear
Guy advice column f TED. And this is Dear Therapists.
This week we're going to check in on a guest
from season two to hear how they're doing a year later. First,
(00:26):
a quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
It does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is
not a substitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
In the sessions you'll hear, all names have been changed
for the privacy of our guests. So today we're going
to check in with Diane. Her episode was called Diane's
(00:47):
Infertility Struggle, and she was struggling with recurrent pregnancy loss
and really wanting another child. She did have one daughter,
and there was the series of losses and with those
losses also some truly traumatic experiences. And what's really difficult
for her is that people around her, including in her family,
(01:08):
are having second and third children, and it is so
painful for her when she keeps losing these pregnancies. Let's
get a reminder of how the session went. So it's
really hard because I had to go through Christmas and
everything like not telling anybody. And so we went for
the ultrasound on Nearar's Eve and they just said, I'm sorry,
(01:33):
you know, the baby stepped growing, and you know, I
was devastated and I cried and my husband he looked
like he was really upset, and I was like, oh
my gosh, he's finally showing emotion. The doctor left the
room or whatever, but he literally said to me, you
have one at home, right and I said yes, and
he goes, you'll have three kids before you know it.
(01:57):
And I was like, what, this is so invalidating and
so upsetting. And then then you know, they go and
let yourself out the back door, because nobody wants a
crying person to walk through the waiting room. You're listening
to dea. Therapists will be back after a short break,
(02:29):
and now let's hear how things are going for Diane.
A year later, a few months after recording my episode,
I was so excited to discover that I was pregnant.
It finally felt like the supplements and acupuncture had worked.
I cautiously told my husband the good news, and he
was immediately excited and insisted on talking about names right away.
(02:50):
I was scared to get too excited, but I was
still hopeful with my history of loss. I went in
a couple of days later for blood work and it
was low, but still in the normal range. Two days later,
I started cramping and my second h c G level
came back that night, indicating impending miscarriage. We were devastated.
I found out about this from checking my chart online.
(03:12):
I never once received a call from my doctor. The
very next morning, I started heavy cramping and miscarried. It
was truly horrific. I was literally miscarrying while my six
year old daughter was having a tantrum and wanted to
come in the bathroom to see me. My husband had
to hold her in the hallway to keep her from
busting in. I heard her crying and screaming while I
(03:37):
started sobbing for the fourth child I had lost. Anyone
who's experienced a miscarriage knows how incredibly painful it is. Physically.
All I wanted to do was just lay on the
couch and rest and grieve, but It also happened to
me my daughter's first ever dance recital, so I had
to put her outfit on, do her hair, put a
(03:57):
smile on, and go sit in an auditorium and watched
three hours of dance. In some ways, I was grateful
for the distraction, and it sort of resulted in me
mentally dismissing it as not that big of a deal.
Life had to go on, but it really was, and
when the numbness wore off, I got into a really
(04:18):
bad place. I lost a major friend group of other moms.
I just didn't want to hear talks of pregnancy or
sibling interactions, and it was almost too much for these
friends that their lives were triggering me in this depth
of despair. It re emphasized for me just how isolating
(04:40):
pregnancy loss is. After that experience, I also ended up
switching hospital systems and doctors after them never calling me
to ask me how I was, or even to just
give me the number. Had I not seen my chart
on that Friday night, I wouldn't have been prepared for
what started happening on Saturday. My new oh b G
(05:03):
I N, who came recommended from several friends, discovered that
I had a gene mutation that results in certain deficiencies
of like B six and B twelve, and so since
I've started taking extra vitamins to support this deficiency, at
least it provides some hope for the near future. I
(05:24):
am grateful that I was able to find an amazing
therapist who specializes in grief, and so for the past
seven months I've been seeing her. Also, both my nieces
have since been born, the one who was in town,
we see a lot, and I have definitely appreciated enjoying
the cute baby moments without having to deal with the
(05:47):
messy diapers or being up at night with her, and
so I feel like I've had some more glimpses of
the positives of only having one child. My daughter still
talks about having siblings all the time. She's even had
a few really heavy sobs about how she just wants
(06:09):
to have you know, siblings with her at our house.
She even asked me one night, how come you know
Aunt X and why can have babies in their tummies
but you can't. So sometimes I cry with her about it,
and other days I just point out the benefits of
her being the only kid in our family. But my
daughter recently had a school assignment where she had to
(06:30):
write I am lucky because and she wrote I am
lucky because I'm an only child. So that was nice
to see a little hard to see, but also kind
of nice that she, you know, found a good in
it as well. I was really nervous to really listen
to my episode, but when I did, I realized it
(06:51):
was one of the first times all of my intricate
feelings about loss and just an a acting with the
world as somebody who's experienced this, we're truly validated. Everything
that I struggled with Lorie and Guys said was normal
for someone grieving, and that was so important for me
to hear at the time, because I just kept feeling
(07:13):
like something was wrong with me, that I was experiencing
all of these things. So I was so grateful to
feel heard and validated. As a result of my conversation
with Lorie and Guy, my communication with my husband is better.
I think this is probably one of the biggest things.
(07:34):
I just didn't realize how poor it was, and I
feel like we've been more open about things and have
been able to have better conversations. Another important insight that
I gained was realizing how much my anxiety impacts my
day to day. So similar to how Guy kind of
(07:55):
pointed out that it was an underlying issue in my therapy,
has also pointed it out for different things that I
never would have really attributed to anxiety. So I'm grateful
for that to be able to find new ways to
cope with it. Just generally, I'm grateful that I was
able to talk to Laurian Guy. It helped me realize
(08:17):
that one, my feelings are very valid and there was
nothing wrong with me. Too, that an anxiety was a
big part of my life and and still is. Three
that I needed to really improve communication with my husband,
and so I'm grateful that I've been able to do that,
and for just how beneficial a counseling session is and was,
(08:38):
and realizing how much better I felt after talking to
Laurie and Guy. I realized I really did want to
continue this weekly and so I'm grateful to have a
great therapist and to be able to have regular conversations.
So thank you again so much. I'm so glad I
was able to talk to you both. So I keep
(09:04):
thinking about the experience she described of miscaring while her
daughter was right outside the room and wanted to come in,
and then how she went to that recital. And one
of the things that we talked about with her last
year was how invisible this kind of loss is and
how isolating pregnancy loss is. A lot of people don't
(09:25):
understand the depth of the grief that you have because
people don't see it. You know, you lose a child,
people say, oh, the child was here, the child's not here.
But you lose a pregnancy, and you really suffer alone
most of the time, and then when you go out
in the world, there are those constant reminders of seeing
(09:47):
relatives or just another woman in Target or the grocery
store and she's pregnant, and it ruins your whole day.
She was talking about how important the emotional validation was
for her, and I'm so glad that we were able
to help her see that, yes, what she experiencing wasn't
only normal, but it was important. It was important that
(10:07):
she was grieving these losses. I agree, Laurie. And what
really kind of pinched my heart a bit is that
when she said that her conversation with us, despite her
losses and despite talking about them with physicians and family,
and her husband. It was the first time she felt
that all her emotions were validated. What really struck me
(10:30):
was how many women are out there that don't get that,
that don't have that experience, that are truly struggling alone,
and no one is really malidating all their experiences and
their feelings and their losses. It is such a difficult
thing to deal with, and we indeed got a huge
response to this episode because it's so common, because it's
(10:51):
so isolating, and and it's so painful on so many levels.
There's the physical pain, as she said, the emotional pain
they're recovering, nature of the uncertainty, the children you see
around you, you're only child saying I want siblings, I
want siblings, The impact on the couple's marriage. It just
shows how important this topic is, and I am so
(11:12):
glad we had the opportunity to speak with her. And
when we think about the impact on the marriage, her
husband was also going through his own way of dealing
with the grief and the loss, and they hadn't really
been talking about it openly. They were both kind of
trying to protect both themselves and each other. And I
think this communication piece is so important, not only with
(11:32):
her husband, because now they can talk about not only
their options, but what this experience is like for each
of them as they go through what is truly a
roller coaster, as anybody whose experienced fertility challenges will realize.
But it's also good that she's able to talk to
her daughter differently, because I think that there wasn't space
before for her daughter to also grieve and have her sadness.
(11:56):
And she said her daughter had some really big cries
about not having a sibling, and I think it's great
that she can sit with that, even though she has
a lot of feelings herself around that, because it allowed
for her daughter to then have some positive experiences of
being an only child as well. If you can allow
for the sadness, if you can allow for the loss,
(12:17):
if you can give that space, then her daughter can
also make some space for and there are some good
parts to this too, and she can hold the both
and which is what we were asking Diane to do
as well. I agree with that. And lastly, it's so
good to hear that she's paying more attention to her
anxiety and that she's even able to catch anxious thoughts
and label them as such and see them for what
(12:40):
they are. And then I noticed that she's also doing
a lot of reframing. For example, when she hangs out
with her sister and the new baby. Yes, I'm sure
it really hurts still, but she can see that I
can enjoy nonetheless some of those cute baby moments even so,
and that's really positive to hear, and that's not easy
to do. And I think the takeaway here is that
(13:02):
when you get validation for your internal experiences and emotions,
both externally from people who matter, but also internally, when
you're doing that for yourself, it really makes it a
little bit easier to deal with the challenges and difficulties.
And we know that this is going to be an
(13:24):
ongoing struggle for her and it will still be painful,
but because she's in touch with her feelings, she'll be
able to express them and she'll be able to connect
with the people around her and not feel so isolated.
Next week, we're in session with sisters Sandra and Kim,
(13:45):
who discover a family secret that their parents held for
sixty years. I internally just felt like there's something that's
not right here. We were asked our whole lives, if
we have the same parents. If you're enjoying our podcast,
don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
(14:06):
telling your friends about it and leaving a review on
Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
email us at Lorie and Guy at I heart media
dot com. Our executive producer is Noel Brown. Were produced
and edited by Josh Fisher, additional editing support by Helena Rosen,
(14:29):
John Washington and Zachary Fisher. Are Interns are Ben Bernstein,
Emily Guccierrez and Silver Lifton. And special thanks to our
podcast fairy Godmother Katie Curic. You can't wait to see
you at our next session. Dear Therapists is a production
of I Heart Radio Fish Food
I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
column for the Atlantic. And I'm Guy Winch. I'm the
author of Emotional First Aid and I write the Dear
Guy advice column f TED. And this is Dear Therapists.
This week we're going to check in on a guest
from season two to hear how they're doing a year later. First,
(00:26):
a quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
It does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is
not a substitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
In the sessions you'll hear, all names have been changed
for the privacy of our guests. So today we're going
to check in with Diane. Her episode was called Diane's
(00:47):
Infertility Struggle, and she was struggling with recurrent pregnancy loss
and really wanting another child. She did have one daughter,
and there was the series of losses and with those
losses also some truly traumatic experiences. And what's really difficult
for her is that people around her, including in her family,
(01:08):
are having second and third children, and it is so
painful for her when she keeps losing these pregnancies. Let's
get a reminder of how the session went. So it's
really hard because I had to go through Christmas and
everything like not telling anybody. And so we went for
the ultrasound on Nearar's Eve and they just said, I'm sorry,
(01:33):
you know, the baby stepped growing, and you know, I
was devastated and I cried and my husband he looked
like he was really upset, and I was like, oh
my gosh, he's finally showing emotion. The doctor left the
room or whatever, but he literally said to me, you
have one at home, right and I said yes, and
he goes, you'll have three kids before you know it.
(01:57):
And I was like, what, this is so invalidating and
so upsetting. And then then you know, they go and
let yourself out the back door, because nobody wants a
crying person to walk through the waiting room. You're listening
to dea. Therapists will be back after a short break,
(02:29):
and now let's hear how things are going for Diane.
A year later, a few months after recording my episode,
I was so excited to discover that I was pregnant.
It finally felt like the supplements and acupuncture had worked.
I cautiously told my husband the good news, and he
was immediately excited and insisted on talking about names right away.
(02:50):
I was scared to get too excited, but I was
still hopeful with my history of loss. I went in
a couple of days later for blood work and it
was low, but still in the normal range. Two days later,
I started cramping and my second h c G level
came back that night, indicating impending miscarriage. We were devastated.
I found out about this from checking my chart online.
(03:12):
I never once received a call from my doctor. The
very next morning, I started heavy cramping and miscarried. It
was truly horrific. I was literally miscarrying while my six
year old daughter was having a tantrum and wanted to
come in the bathroom to see me. My husband had
to hold her in the hallway to keep her from
busting in. I heard her crying and screaming while I
(03:37):
started sobbing for the fourth child I had lost. Anyone
who's experienced a miscarriage knows how incredibly painful it is. Physically.
All I wanted to do was just lay on the
couch and rest and grieve, but It also happened to
me my daughter's first ever dance recital, so I had
to put her outfit on, do her hair, put a
(03:57):
smile on, and go sit in an auditorium and watched
three hours of dance. In some ways, I was grateful
for the distraction, and it sort of resulted in me
mentally dismissing it as not that big of a deal.
Life had to go on, but it really was, and
when the numbness wore off, I got into a really
(04:18):
bad place. I lost a major friend group of other moms.
I just didn't want to hear talks of pregnancy or
sibling interactions, and it was almost too much for these
friends that their lives were triggering me in this depth
of despair. It re emphasized for me just how isolating
(04:40):
pregnancy loss is. After that experience, I also ended up
switching hospital systems and doctors after them never calling me
to ask me how I was, or even to just
give me the number. Had I not seen my chart
on that Friday night, I wouldn't have been prepared for
what started happening on Saturday. My new oh b G
(05:03):
I N, who came recommended from several friends, discovered that
I had a gene mutation that results in certain deficiencies
of like B six and B twelve, and so since
I've started taking extra vitamins to support this deficiency, at
least it provides some hope for the near future. I
(05:24):
am grateful that I was able to find an amazing
therapist who specializes in grief, and so for the past
seven months I've been seeing her. Also, both my nieces
have since been born, the one who was in town,
we see a lot, and I have definitely appreciated enjoying
the cute baby moments without having to deal with the
(05:47):
messy diapers or being up at night with her, and
so I feel like I've had some more glimpses of
the positives of only having one child. My daughter still
talks about having siblings all the time. She's even had
a few really heavy sobs about how she just wants
(06:09):
to have you know, siblings with her at our house.
She even asked me one night, how come you know
Aunt X and why can have babies in their tummies
but you can't. So sometimes I cry with her about it,
and other days I just point out the benefits of
her being the only kid in our family. But my
daughter recently had a school assignment where she had to
(06:30):
write I am lucky because and she wrote I am
lucky because I'm an only child. So that was nice
to see a little hard to see, but also kind
of nice that she, you know, found a good in
it as well. I was really nervous to really listen
to my episode, but when I did, I realized it
(06:51):
was one of the first times all of my intricate
feelings about loss and just an a acting with the
world as somebody who's experienced this, we're truly validated. Everything
that I struggled with Lorie and Guys said was normal
for someone grieving, and that was so important for me
to hear at the time, because I just kept feeling
(07:13):
like something was wrong with me, that I was experiencing
all of these things. So I was so grateful to
feel heard and validated. As a result of my conversation
with Lorie and Guy, my communication with my husband is better.
I think this is probably one of the biggest things.
(07:34):
I just didn't realize how poor it was, and I
feel like we've been more open about things and have
been able to have better conversations. Another important insight that
I gained was realizing how much my anxiety impacts my
day to day. So similar to how Guy kind of
(07:55):
pointed out that it was an underlying issue in my therapy,
has also pointed it out for different things that I
never would have really attributed to anxiety. So I'm grateful
for that to be able to find new ways to
cope with it. Just generally, I'm grateful that I was
able to talk to Laurian Guy. It helped me realize
(08:17):
that one, my feelings are very valid and there was
nothing wrong with me. Too, that an anxiety was a
big part of my life and and still is. Three
that I needed to really improve communication with my husband,
and so I'm grateful that I've been able to do that,
and for just how beneficial a counseling session is and was,
(08:38):
and realizing how much better I felt after talking to
Laurie and Guy. I realized I really did want to
continue this weekly and so I'm grateful to have a
great therapist and to be able to have regular conversations.
So thank you again so much. I'm so glad I
was able to talk to you both. So I keep
(09:04):
thinking about the experience she described of miscaring while her
daughter was right outside the room and wanted to come in,
and then how she went to that recital. And one
of the things that we talked about with her last
year was how invisible this kind of loss is and
how isolating pregnancy loss is. A lot of people don't
(09:25):
understand the depth of the grief that you have because
people don't see it. You know, you lose a child,
people say, oh, the child was here, the child's not here.
But you lose a pregnancy, and you really suffer alone
most of the time, and then when you go out
in the world, there are those constant reminders of seeing
(09:47):
relatives or just another woman in Target or the grocery
store and she's pregnant, and it ruins your whole day.
She was talking about how important the emotional validation was
for her, and I'm so glad that we were able
to help her see that, yes, what she experiencing wasn't
only normal, but it was important. It was important that
(10:07):
she was grieving these losses. I agree, Laurie. And what
really kind of pinched my heart a bit is that
when she said that her conversation with us, despite her
losses and despite talking about them with physicians and family,
and her husband. It was the first time she felt
that all her emotions were validated. What really struck me
(10:30):
was how many women are out there that don't get that,
that don't have that experience, that are truly struggling alone,
and no one is really malidating all their experiences and
their feelings and their losses. It is such a difficult
thing to deal with, and we indeed got a huge
response to this episode because it's so common, because it's
(10:51):
so isolating, and and it's so painful on so many levels.
There's the physical pain, as she said, the emotional pain
they're recovering, nature of the uncertainty, the children you see
around you, you're only child saying I want siblings, I
want siblings, The impact on the couple's marriage. It just
shows how important this topic is, and I am so
(11:12):
glad we had the opportunity to speak with her. And
when we think about the impact on the marriage, her
husband was also going through his own way of dealing
with the grief and the loss, and they hadn't really
been talking about it openly. They were both kind of
trying to protect both themselves and each other. And I
think this communication piece is so important, not only with
(11:32):
her husband, because now they can talk about not only
their options, but what this experience is like for each
of them as they go through what is truly a
roller coaster, as anybody whose experienced fertility challenges will realize.
But it's also good that she's able to talk to
her daughter differently, because I think that there wasn't space
before for her daughter to also grieve and have her sadness.
(11:56):
And she said her daughter had some really big cries
about not having a sibling, and I think it's great
that she can sit with that, even though she has
a lot of feelings herself around that, because it allowed
for her daughter to then have some positive experiences of
being an only child as well. If you can allow
for the sadness, if you can allow for the loss,
(12:17):
if you can give that space, then her daughter can
also make some space for and there are some good
parts to this too, and she can hold the both
and which is what we were asking Diane to do
as well. I agree with that. And lastly, it's so
good to hear that she's paying more attention to her
anxiety and that she's even able to catch anxious thoughts
and label them as such and see them for what
(12:40):
they are. And then I noticed that she's also doing
a lot of reframing. For example, when she hangs out
with her sister and the new baby. Yes, I'm sure
it really hurts still, but she can see that I
can enjoy nonetheless some of those cute baby moments even so,
and that's really positive to hear, and that's not easy
to do. And I think the takeaway here is that
(13:02):
when you get validation for your internal experiences and emotions,
both externally from people who matter, but also internally, when
you're doing that for yourself, it really makes it a
little bit easier to deal with the challenges and difficulties.
And we know that this is going to be an
(13:24):
ongoing struggle for her and it will still be painful,
but because she's in touch with her feelings, she'll be
able to express them and she'll be able to connect
with the people around her and not feel so isolated.
Next week, we're in session with sisters Sandra and Kim,
(13:45):
who discover a family secret that their parents held for
sixty years. I internally just felt like there's something that's
not right here. We were asked our whole lives, if
we have the same parents. If you're enjoying our podcast,
don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
(14:06):
telling your friends about it and leaving a review on
Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
email us at Lorie and Guy at I heart media
dot com. Our executive producer is Noel Brown. Were produced
and edited by Josh Fisher, additional editing support by Helena Rosen,
(14:29):
John Washington and Zachary Fisher. Are Interns are Ben Bernstein,
Emily Guccierrez and Silver Lifton. And special thanks to our
podcast fairy Godmother Katie Curic. You can't wait to see
you at our next session. Dear Therapists is a production
of I Heart Radio Fish Food
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