The instant you realize you are pregnant, you are flooded with advice and information about the things you should now do to look after yourself and the baby. It is basically an avalanche of shit big and small. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, relax, exercise (but not too hard), see your doctor regularly, gain weight (but too much weight), don’t take certain meds, don’t sleep in certain positions, eat better than you ever have in your life, avoid certain foods, limit caffeine intake, don’t wear bras with underwire, etc etc etc.

When it comes from books, this advice is usually presented in a “risk reducing” way. For example, there is no way to verify how much alcohol intake is safe for the baby, and this the best advice given is to just avoid it all together. Caffeine has been linked to some things like low birth weight, and while abstaining or even reducing it doesn’t mean you will definitely have a healthy baby, abstaining or limiting your intake should reduce the risks thereof. Bagged, pre-prepared salads are probably fine most of the time, but there is a slightly higher risk of listeria than in non-bagged salads so it’s best to avoid it to reduce your risk of listeriosis.

And then, when something like pregnancy loss happens, you are told it’s not your fault and you had no control. Nothing you did could have caused it and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it.

How am I supposed to readily accept that message when it feels like it’s a direct contradiction to all the fucking information I got when I was still pregnant? Do all these things so that bad things don’t happen, but when bad things happen, it’s not your fault? How couldn’t it be my fault?

I think this is why I keep coming back to that guilt. I think it’s why lots of women in my position struggle with accepting that it’s not our fault. Pregnant women are overloaded with an almost ceaseless list of do’s and don’ts. Some of the things on the list even contradict each other - how are you supposed to “stay calm and relax” when you have this huge fucking list of things that you also have to do? It’s not hard to see how the need to follow all that advice conflates with a sense of control.

I have to remind myself constantly that all of that previous advice was not assurance that all would be well. All pregnancies by nature carry an inherent level of risk that is based on many factors outside my scope of control. The advice given to pregnant women are just ways to prevent that pre-existing risk from increasing significantly, not all of which are rooted in solid evidence, either. They do very little, if anything, to actively reduce any pre-existing, inherent risk.

So no, that time I banged my kneecap into a coffee table corner and wailed like a banshee about it did not cause the miscarriage. That day I had one coffee at work did not cause the miscarriage. I have to just listen when I am told that I did everything right while I was pregnant - even as I type that a tiny voice in my brain is all like BUT DID YOU? - and nothing I did caused this to happen.

It isn’t my fault. I am not to blame. That I keep thinking that it’s my fault is a result of our natural human impulse to seek a reason or cause for why something has happened. I will have to bear in mind that we don’t always get our questions answered, and I will just have to get comfortable in this uncomfortable space.