Stephanie Tong couldn’t understand the silence. So, she gave it a voice with her words.
Tong’s new book, Chasing Light, deals with the subject of miscarriage, an experience she discovered many women endure but rarely talk about.
Tong, who experienced a pair of miscarriages, said she was surprised to learn that about one in four pregnancies in Canada end in miscarriage.
But with such a high incidence, why were women electing to not discuss it?
“(Miscarriage) definitely was a shock to me and I felt the taboo about the whole situation. I wondered who I could talk to about this?” she said. “My husband and I didn’t know anybody who’d been through this. So, we didn’t talk to anybody. That was devastating because we felt so alone and isolated.”
The first time, Tong said she had no idea there was a problem with her pregnancy.
“Everything was going fine.” she said. “I was getting morning sickness, I was super tired, so I thought it was going well.
“And ignorance is bliss, I guess. Our first pregnancy a couple of years before went really well. And when we got pregnant again, I thought it would be so easy...”
But when she and her husband went for an ultrasound at the 10-week mark, the technician advised them to immediately book an appointment with their doctor.
“We were expecting the worst and when I was leaving the ultrasound, I said to my husband that I don’t think they could find a heartbeat.”
Just seven months later, she had a second miscarriage.
“I just started spotting and knew,” she said. “I was thinking, please God, don’t let it happen again.
“It started in the early evening and by the next morning, I knew something was really wrong and had to get to the hospital.”
She was at seven weeks.
That was two years ago. Today, they have two daughters, one who is four and other just eight months old.
When Tong finally decided to share what they were enduring, she was amazed to learn that many of her friends had gone through a similar experience.
“So many of them said, ‘me, too,’” she said. “That’s when it really hits you. First of all you realize you’re now a statistic, and secondly, it happens so often that, when a person knows more than three other women, you wonder why no one talks about it?”
Tong said she feels some women don’t reach out for fear of being misunderstood. She also feels society, in some sectors, doesn’t adequately provide openness.
“When you lose someone who is living, you get bereavement leave,” she said. “When you miscarry, you have to use your sick time.
“For me, it was hard to come and say what I was going through, so I didn’t tell my employer and didn’t take any time off.”
The second time, she did take some sick time and told her supervisor what had happened. “I had no emotional capacity anymore to hold it in,” she said.
That expanded to writing about the subject.
“I was already a mommy blogger, sharing ideas about the fun things we did at home,” Tong said. “But when the miscarriages happened, it was hard to keep up that fun vibe.”
She began writing about her experience in a journal, mostly to document it for herself.
And she finally shared her sad news with her blog readers and was greeted with a wave of support.
“So many comments came in. And a lot of people were saying thank you for sharing this,” Tong said. “It was then that I knew this was a story that needed to be told.”
But when she went to the library to do research about miscarriages, most of the books were medically based and didn’t feature personal stories she felt would help break down the barriers to making miscarriage a more open subject.
“When you’re going through this it doesn’t matter if there are reasons or not medically that it happened. You’re hurting and just want to know that you’re not alone,” she said.
So, she wrote form the heart about her experiences and feelings.
“People have told me it’s an honest and vulnerable piece to read,” she said. “It’s also nice to hear other people going through what I did, too.
“I didn’t want anyone to feel alone. That was a big reason why I wrote this.”
About the same time a friend approached her about a writing competition and would she be interested?
The deadline for the 2015 Word Alive Press and Women’s Journey of Faith non-fiction manuscript contest was a mere two weeks away and Tong had only written a few chapters.
“So, I wrote the rest of the story out in two weeks and sent in the draft.”
It was well received and rated among the top five in the national competition.
Released in late September to lead into pregnancy loss awareness month in October, Chasing Light is available in a variety of ways, including Amazon.ca and on Tong’s website online at Stefanie.ca. In addition, Tong is busy seeking events where she can speak to groups of women on miscarriage.
“I’m hoping to do more things around awareness, wherever I can get invited to speak to different communities,” she said.
Released in late September to lead into pregnancy loss awareness month in October, Chasing Light is available on Amazon.ca and on Tong’s website at Stefanie.ca. She’s also seeking events where she can speak to groups of women on miscarriage.
