Rosa Koppelmann knows what a miscarriage feels like. She had to experience it twice. With her book "Confidence After Miscarriage", she would like to help women to go through difficult times independently.
Miscarriage – that's that small, powerful word that most people prefer not to bother with. Unless they have to. According to the professional association of gynecologists, more than every third pregnancy ends in a miscarriage before the 12th week. Even so, little is said about what a sudden exit does to a woman.
In the event of a miscarriage, many people suddenly find themselves helpless, overwhelmed and overwhelmed by the feelings and decisions they are suddenly confronted with. Rosa Koppelmann would like to help here. She knows how to feel when a pregnancy suddenly ends. She has already suffered a miscarriage twice. She has turned her painful experiences into something positive: into a guide for a self-determined time, which should help women to trust themselves and their bodies again.
© Palomaa Publishing / PR
Here we publish an excerpt from her book "Confidence After Miscarriage", in which Rosa Koppelmann reports on her first miscarriage.
Diary of my first miscarriage
June 29, 2017
Yesterday I found out that the little baby in my womb was dead. I was twelve + 1 weeks gestation when I was told that she (yes, I think it was a she) was only the size of a six week old fetus.
I was shocked.
Not so much because my baby is dead, but because I felt so safe that I was pregnant! I had absolutely no doubt that everything would be fine and that the little miracle in my womb would become our second wonderful daughter.
When I found out it wasn't, my world collapsed.
My husband and I ran home from the gynecologist's office, both with watering eyes, and on the way we met a woman who works in our favorite café and who we therefore know loosely. Since they saw that everything was not okay, we told her what happened. And immediately she told us that exactly the same thing had just happened to a friend of hers and that she knew so many women who had miscarried too.
When I got home I did some research on the internet and found that in fact at least one in five pregnancies ends in a miscarriage! Either before the twelfth week or even before the fifth week (so that you practically don't even notice that you were pregnant at all and your period just starts a little later).
And even though so many women experience a miscarriage, hardly anyone talks about it!
So I decided to talk about it. I lost my little daughter. I loved her and I believed in her even if I only carried her in my stomach for 13 weeks.
Today I had to decide whether I would like to undergo a scraping or whether I would like to have a "silent birth" – that's what they call it when you naturally give birth to the approximately one centimeter small, dead baby at home.
The baby in my womb has probably been dead for about five weeks, maybe only three, maybe six. Nobody really knows. So far my body has not responded to it. I've still felt pregnant for the past month as well, and even had the usual pregnancy symptoms. I think it was because I had absolutely firm faith in my little daughter's life. So much so that I didn't even allow her to leave my body. Yesterday, when I found out that she was not alive, I mainly hoped that she would leave my body naturally. That I can let her go I don't want any doctor scratching my uterus (which can be dangerous as it can easily damage the uterus). And so I talked to my little dead baby and to myself and actually started bleeding less than 24 hours after the gynecologist appointment! Little so far, but I hope there will be more.
Yesterday morning I still felt 100 percent pregnant and there was no sign of a miscarriage. Then the gynecologist told me that my baby was dead and immediately my body started to react and it looks like it is now ready to let go of the fetus.
I am absolutely impressed by how strong my faith is and how my faith actually gives me complete control over whether or not this fetus will stay in my womb.
Lets see how it goes on.
2nd July 2017
Then suddenly it happened very quickly!
It was 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon when I found out my baby was no longer alive. I cried, called my husband and he came to pick me up, we walked home and talked for hours about everything that had happened. We decided that we wanted to let our dead baby go the natural way, no hospital, no surgery, just us and the baby.
So this baby was dead in my body for about five weeks and there was no sign of it wanting out for five weeks. Then I found out it was dead and I decided to let it go of course – and exactly 24 hours later I started bleeding!
Less than 48 hours later there was no more fetus in my uterus!
The night between Thursday and Friday was probably one of the most intense nights of my life. On Thursday evening I had abdominal pain and went to bed early. I found it difficult to fall asleep as the pain kept getting worse. They felt like labor. At some point I fell asleep, but woke up an hour later: this time with heavy labor. I went to the bathroom to see how much blood I was losing.
On the way back to bed, the pain was so severe that I briefly passed out. For a brief moment I found myself at a train station where people were walking in all directions. An old man stood next to me and asked me where I was going now. But before I could answer, I was conscious again and looked at my husband in confusion. Since I already know that from myself that I pass out quickly, I wasn't really worried about it. During puberty, I passed out every time I got my period. That then went away later, and it was as if it would come back briefly at that moment.
My husband carried me back to bed. That was at 2 a.m. From 2:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. I was in severe labor and bleeding a lot. At 5 a.m. I was finally able to go back to sleep and slept until 7 a.m. When I woke up, I was fine. The contractions were gone and I had only slight abdominal pain, like when I was on my period.
Throughout the night and in the morning too, I could only think one thing: that I am so infinitely grateful for how perfectly my body works!
And even now I'm sad about my loss, of course, I am. My husband and I, we cry every day. But the overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude. Gratitude for my perfect body. I know that may sound strange to a lot of people, but that's how I feel right now.
In a few days I'll meet my midwife and talk to her again about everything that happened and I'm really looking forward to it. Talking to others about it and not keeping it a secret has helped us so much over the past few days! The more we talk about it, the more normal it becomes because it just becomes part of our life story.
Miscarriage is not something to be ashamed of or guilty about. It's something that happens in at least 20 percent of all pregnancies.
While that doesn't make it any less sad, it makes it so much easier to deal with!
28th July 2017
It's been a month now. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday. Sometimes it feels like ages have passed since I lost my beloved baby.
Since my miscarriage, I have spoken to many women who have experienced the same thing as me. I discovered that I was the only one who was allowed to give birth to her dead baby in the peace and quiet of my home. Many of the women I spoke to reported that they weren't treated with empathy in the hospital and that they just cried throughout their stay. Not just because they lost their baby, but also because of the way they were treated. Not like women, but like objects. One woman told me that she was not even told that she has the option to have her dead baby naturally and that all the time (and still) she feels that her baby has been taken away from her.
When I listen to these stories, I feel even more grateful. Grateful that I was able to physically feel my emotional pain in my contractions. Grateful that I don't have the feeling that someone has stolen something from me, but rather the feeling that my body has noticed that “this doesn't work” and has reacted to it. Grateful for letting me say goodbye to my baby while bleeding it out of my body. Grateful that I can trust my body.
On the other hand, I am really very sad. Sad about how women are often treated by doctors. They are not told that they can trust their wonderful bodies and that everything is fine as it is. Instead, they are sent to the hospital as if they were sick – as if the baby was something dangerous that needs to be removed as quickly as possible.
I would therefore like to emphasize once again how important it is that we women trust our bodies. You know best what is good for us! Let's take good care of our bodies – then they'll do all the great work on their own.
Life is so much more beautiful when you can believe in yourself and that everything has a higher meaning. It's so much nicer to be grateful, even if it's difficult sometimes. "
Book excerpt: Rosa Koppelmann: Confidence after a miscarriage – Self-determined and powerful through a challenging time, Palomaa Publishing 2020, 25 euros
Miscarriage: scraping or giving birth silently? You can find out everything you need to know about it here.