My Story

A woman stands on a beach at sunset. She is a white woman with blue eyes and big teeth.She is smiling and her hair is wet. She is wearing a black dress and has sunglasses on top of her head.

I’m Emma (she/her), a fat, queer, cis woman living in New York City. I was raised in an environment where women spoke frankly about their reproductive journeys and decisions. As an adult, I’ve long been involved with reproductive justice organizations, including participating in the Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington Developing Leaders Program. Despite this, my miscarriage and subsequent abortion were nothing like I imagined.

I was pregnant for the first time after several cycles of IUI in my quest to become a single parent by choice. Though I knew that roughly 1 in 3 pregnant people suffer such a loss, I was still shocked and devastated when I learned it was happening to me. I didn’t start spontaneously bleeding, which is how I imagined pregnancy loss would present, based on the depictions I had seen in popular culture. I didn’t even know anything was wrong; my body and I both thought I was still pregnant until the sonogram tech couldn’t find a heart beat. Even then, my body kept up all the little changes I had already started noticing as a result of my pregnancy. It wasn’t until after my in-clinic abortion procedure, that I really started to feel the loss in my body - a physically painful experience to match the emotional one.

I’ve always supported the right of anyone who needs an abortion to get one. I know that it was absolutely the right choice for me. But it was not as straightforward as I expected.

I didn’t expect to feel so guilty and ashamed, unable to say the word “miscarriage” aloud for weeks. I didn’t know that getting an abortion in New York City, even when prescribed by my doctor, would be an insanely frustrating process, requiring several days of phone calls to multiple offices and a subsequent months-long battle over insurance coverage. I didn’t know that medicalized anti-fat bias would mean I received misleading information about my options from ostensible experts, which impacted my decision-making. I didn’t know that the procedure would cause me such severe bleeding and cramping I would be unable to work for almost a week, or that one of the side effects was serious constipation. I didn’t know that my doctors wouldn’t even try to figure out why I had miscarried unless it happens again, “since it’s so common.”

Since then, I’ve spent time learning and working with others who have had abortions and folks who have experienced pregnancy loss. I proudly participated in the inaugural cohort of DOPO’s Abortion Doula Training program, learning from wonderful leaders in this field.

When I started supporting friends through their own journeys, I didn’t realize that others might need this kind of discrete and specific care. I have come to understand that while my journey and experience is my distinctly own - and is different from anyone else’s - many folks who are either experiencing pregnancy loss or seeking abortion need a source for unbiased information about the realities of the experience as well as guidance and care in their healing process.

Pregnancy loss is less stigmatized now than it was even a few years ago, but we still have a long way to go. My goal is support to anyone who needs it. I will hold space for you, as I was lucky to have others do for me.