*TRIGGER WARNING: PREGNANCY LOSS*
I was reluctant to speak on this, but the more it simmered inside of me, the more I felt compelled to say SOMETHING.
Earlier this week, a Nova Scotian company called off a contest that involved having couples compete to see who could get pregnant first, and whoever wins would receive a cash payment of $1000 – by now, you probably have read about it, but if you haven’t it is quite easy to find.
When the company called the contest off, they blamed “the people’s court of social media”. They said they expected it would be controversial, but tried to explain that the reason they chose a smaller cash prize was so they weren’t just attracting people who were in it for the money, but people who ACTUALLY wanted a baby.
I was left wondering, “is THAT why they think people are angry?”
A lot of the negative criticism of the contest had to do with the known statistics about fertility rates; According to Statistics Canada, roughly 16% of couples — or one in six couples — in Canada experience infertility. It goes without saying that some couples competing will have no problem getting pregnant, while some will struggle. Perhaps they will struggle for a long time – for the most part, we as the audience of the contest will not bear witness to what could be years and years of struggling for certain couples, as they watch everyone else around them seem to have no problem, and they feel their shame and pain compound. It’s a struggle that, if you have not experienced it, you cannot understand. But, again, WE as the audience wouldn’t see that, so I guess it doesn’t really matter to ‘us’ if it results in that outcome for the people participating.
The part that really concerns me is the kind of comments the contest received from the people who supported it. The word “snowflake” was tossed around a lot (as in, you are a snowflake if you found the contest concerning), and that we should just “scroll on by” if we didn’t like it. And most of the supporters also said things like “they all know what they’re getting into”.
And THAT right there is the part that worries me the most. They do NOT know what they are getting into. Because you DON’T know the trauma that can come from this experience, until you are suffocating from the weight of it.
15-25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, as per canada.ca. Most of those losses occur in the first 6 weeks – so, within 2 weeks of finding out you are pregnant.
Let’s present a very likely scenario: several couples enter the contest. We hear their stories, we laugh and play along with the obvious innuendos and locker room schtick that this particular company is known for. After 3.5 weeks of the contest starting, we have our first early positive pregnancy test! It’s exciting, because it came even before the woman’s period was due! I don’t know the stipulations of the contest, but I would assume that it would require the test to occur on the date, or after the date, of the missed period. SO, she tests again at 4 weeks – STILL PREGNANT!! THAT COUPLE WINS!! We all celebrate, they get $1000 and their names and pictures all over social media, it’s so fun and exciting, and everyone is caught up in their very public pregnancy announcement. Then, 2 – 3 weeks later, she goes in for an early ultrasound, and they discover there is only a gestational sac, but no baby.
Within a couple weeks of this couple’s VERY public pregnancy announcement, they now endure a very public pregnancy loss.
If you have never experienced a pregnancy loss before, then you might think it’s as easy as, “oh well, we can just try again”. It is not. I know because I experienced pregnancy loss at both 5 weeks, and at 17 weeks. To put it into perspective, here is a little excerpt from a never-published blog that I wrote about the grief I experienced following my 17 week loss:
“Is this grief? Is this depression? Is this just a postpartum hormonal crash that will last a few weeks and then the true pain of it will fade away from your memory, like childbirth does? I don’t know. That is what has been the hardest part of the last 11 days; I. don’t. know. what. is. wrong. with. me.
I know that I easily go into sensory overload, where I feel like I am trapped in a small space that is filling with water, with no escape, and my head starts to spin and my heart starts to race. I go from zero to rage in seconds.
I know that, even though everyone likes to say, ‘at least you have your daughter to help get you through this,’ I struggle to find joy while watching her play. I know when she is cute. I know she makes me laugh or smile. But I can’t feel the joy, REALLY feel it, in my heart. I know what I SHOULD be feeling and I can recreate that for her, like I’m in autopilot, because she deserves to have ‘me’. The reality of parenting after loss is tough, you never feel like you are giving your child as much of you as they deserve.
I know that one misstep, one word, one thought plunges me back into what I keep calling ‘the hole’. A sadness so intense that I really can’t do anything but just sit in it and cry, sometimes scream, and wish that something could make it all go away. And when someone asks, “but why are you sad? What is going through your head?” I can’t tell them because I just don’t know.
Sometimes it’s not quite as deep as ‘the hole’, and it is more like a dull ache that I can generally function with. Like having a headache, but it’s inside your heart, and soul, and bones. You can generally get through your day-to-day tasks, you just have this ache that won’t go away.
Sometimes it feels like I am in a different dimension entirely. I am sitting there, with you, in the land of the living, able to watch as the world moves on, able to listen to the things you talk about, able to walk, and breath, and talk just like you… but I’m not actually there with you. I don’t know where I am; lost somewhere inside of myself where everything hurts, and everything is numb, all at the same time. This one is the loneliest of all of the places because it feels like I am watching the world go on all around me, from behind a window, painfully aware that everyone else has moved on, while I simply…can’t.”
My pain, my grief was not unique to me; SO many women go through this, every single day. For what it is worth, I am STILL coping with that loss over a year later, even as I am 9 weeks away from giving birth to another child. I’m not sure I will ever NOT be coping with it. I’m not sure I will ever truly be the same again, to be honest.
But you know the worst part about it will be? As this poor woman is going through the shock and grief, and processing emotions that she could NOT have been prepared to have because there was just no way to understand how it might feel until she is in the middle of it, she will ALSO have an entire AUDIENCE of people who feel they have every right to comment on the situation because SHE entered this stupid contest. “She asked for it”.
SOME will offer clumsy platitudes, or well-meaning advice on what might make her ‘feel better’ (but will actually only serve to minimize the depth of her pain).
SOME will reach out with their own stories – that, at least, will offer some comfort.
SOME will be like that one commenter who had said, “they know what they are getting into“.
And Some people will even BLAME her, or suggest that “if she’d only tried xyz” it wouldn’t have happened. If she, or anyone, speaks out against them, they will say, “I have a right to my opinion, if you don’t like it just scroll on by”.
And you might THINK that people cannot possibly be so cruel, but you would be surprised to see the kind of comments some feel empowered to say when they are safely behind a computer. When I experienced a very public radio lay off (along with hundreds of other people in radio across Canada) just before Christmas in 2020, most of the listeners expressed empathy that any of us had to go through that. Regardless of whether or not they were excited about the changes to staff, they still acknowledged the suckiness of a mother being jobless only months after returning from her maternity leave, right before Christmas. I mean, ANYONE unexpectedly losing their job is a terrible thing.
BUT there were still the few people that said things like, “She’s gone? YESSSSS!! I couldn’t STAND her”.
And you better believe that I can remember those comments word for word, and will never forget them. Those comments left me sitting alone, staring at a blank wall, for hours, feeling numb and lost and confused as to what I could have possibly done to make someone so publicly celebrate my pain. Those comments made me feel worthless. Could I have just scrolled on by? Sure. But I’m a fucking human being, and I’m going to read every last one even if I know I shouldn’t.
So, NO, I don’t think the people entering the contest could possibly understand what they might be getting into.
On the surface, I can understand how it can seem like a very fun game; all these couples were going to be trying to get pregnant anyway, why not add some stakes to it, and get some fun and relatable content along the way! I can see how it is easy to say “if you don’t like it, just scroll past” when you’re the casual observer. I can even understand how this company assumes the ‘worst part’ of the contest itself is that some couples might just do it to win money, and not because they actually want a baby.
But underneath the surface lies a very grim reality for many of the couples participating. One that they might THINK they understand, but will not – CANNOT – until the tidal wave of emotions and pain completely takes them down. And there is something so eerily dystopian to me that THAT company, and the supporters of the contest, were totally willing to overlook the simple FACT that a number of people participating will endure a very public trauma in the process, just so THEY (the company and the audience) can make jokes and enjoy silly stories about couples doin’ it.
It feels six degrees of separation from the friggin’ Hunger Games.
But I guess I’m just a bit of a snowflake.