About What Was Lost

October 30, 2006
While "20 to 25 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage," this heartbreaking loss is rarely discussed at length in pregnancy handbooks. Editor Gross decided to break this silence by assembling an anthology of essays by women who'd experienced miscarriages and were willing to write about it. Most of her contributors are freelance writers, academics or wives of academics. Even if they hadn't planned or wanted their pregnancies, all experienced their miscarriages as the death of a loved one. Demolished with grief, they found little usable sympathy, even from those who meant well. Some had understanding spouses; most only got real support from other women who'd also miscarried. Most went on to bear another child; some, like editor Gross, decided to adopt; a rare few decided their future did not include children (or more children). One contributor, Miranda Field, mentions positive rituals for grieving mothers in Japan, but aside from that there are few voices outside of the white, middle-class. Readers in search of something broader in scope might find it in Peggy Orenstein's Waiting for Daisy
. Still, Gross's anthology fills a void and may open the door for more varied ones.