20 miscarriage quotes to help in your healing journey
If you’ve experienced pregnancy loss, finding the right miscarriage quotes—words that really resonate—can be a powerful healing tool. Miscarriage quotes may help you articulate your own complex feelings; even the feelings you haven’t been able to identify clearly yourself.
There’s something poignant about reading a passage and thinking, Yes, that’s exactly it; that’s what I was struggling to understand. I see myself and my heart reflected in these words.
Miscarriage quotes can also introduce you to new perspectives that may be helpful for processing your grief.
Perhaps most importantly, miscarriage quotes can simply remind you that you are not alone; and that even when it feels like it, even when you are in your darkest moments, there is a community out there that understands you, supports you and holds space for all the nuance of your grief.
Related: 15 beautiful miscarriage tattoo ideas to honor your pregnancy loss
The power of miscarriage quotes
There’s a healing, therapeutic principle of mental health treatment that feels especially powerful when applied to the motherhood journey: Two conflicting things can be true at the very same time. For example, it’s possible to feel very alone even when you’re not.
Up to 1 in 4 pregnancies will result in loss, often in the first trimester of pregnancy. And yet miscarriage at any stage can feel shocking, confusing and isolating. But if you are among the 1 in 4, know that you are not alone—and consider looking to miscarriage quotes for help in processing your pregnancy loss.
As the founder of Motherspeak, a platform that curates poetry and prose about the vast and varied experiences of motherhood, and a co-founder of Two Truths, a newsletter that explores the dualities of motherhood, I dedicate much of my time to seeking out, and sharing, the type of words and wisdom that will help mothers feel seen and understood.
As you scroll through the miscarriage quotes below, take note of what speaks to you or brings you comfort. Save them somewhere safe and return to those words when you need a reminder or a sense of solidarity.
Miscarriage quotes about the grieving process
“Sometimes when we try to make sense of why bad things happen to good people, we find ourselves searching for meaning where there is none, getting caught in a manufactured duality. We can hold both. There is room and necessity for nuance, complexity, and gradation.
We can be hurt and healing simultaneously. We can be grateful for what we have and angry about what we don’t at the exact same time. We can dive deep into the pit of our pain and not forget the beauty our life maintains. We can hold both.
We can grieve and laugh at precisely the same moment. We can make love and mourn in the same week. Be crestfallen and hopeful. We can hold both. And so it goes.”
—Jessica Zucker of @ihadamiscarriage in I Had a Miscarriage: A Memoir, a Movement
“Grief, in other experiences, is often about grieving the past. Miscarriage is about grieving the future.”
— Dvora Entin in “How To Grieve a Miscarriage”
“Pregnancy loss is often grieving the loss of your baby at the same time as grieving the loss of trust in your body.”
—Arden Cartrette of @themiscarriagedoula
“A pregnancy loss is a death we experience in our own bodies: There is no death we experience more intimately than one that literally passes through us.”
—Elizabeth Bechard in “Why Rituals Matter After Pregnancy Loss”
Miscarriage quotes about personal losses
“On the morning of the last day [of a trip to the lake], I sat on the steps of the farmhouse holding a coffee and looking at the trees moving in the wind. My bleeding was ending. When I last checked, it was light and pink. The baby was gone. Its exact parting was unmarked and quiet, but I hoped that at that moment, it was halfway to the bottom of the lake [where I had been swimming], resting for a day or two on a plant, soaking in the summer light that turned green and sparkly when it hit the water.”
—Rachel Deutsch in “Losing Something So Small”
“[Doctors] always ask about how many pregnancies you have, including miscarriages. It can be startling, to repeat the number — that I’m on my third pregnancy, but my second baby. There will always be that hovering ghost. That will always be a part of my weather, and our family’s. And that’s okay. At the risk of sounding entirely sentimental, that layer of sadness puts everything else into such stark relief.
When I’m walking down the street with my son, and he’s laughing and telling me a story about how he’s a truck, no, actually, a dinosaur, no, actually, a little boy named Jack from one of his favorite books, no, actually, he’s River, it’s that baseline of sadness that tells me just how high my heart can, and will, soar.”
—Emma Straub in “‘I Had a Miscarriage’: Three Women Share Their Stories”
“Having put myself back together after our first miscarriage, I was terrified of falling because after the fall, there’s the crash — and after the crash, there are a million little pieces to be put back together. I had only just put myself back together and I didn’t have the strength to fall… But fall I would. And into a million little pieces, I would break. And in the darkness, I would find my greatest strength.”
—Elisa Henry Morton in “Our Fertility Journey”
“Every time I told anyone, it felt freeing. And not one person gave me a long hug. People were really cool about it actually. Some offered to do chores for me, some sent me Indian take-out, some provided me with facts (“one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage!”) and many shared their own experiences having miscarriages. This thing that felt like a loss was making me feel more whole. It was connecting me to people.”
—Shaina Feinberg in “I Had a Miscarriage”
Celebrity miscarriage quotes and lyrics
“I felt lost and alone and I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about it. We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken… I think it’s the worst thing we do to each other as women — not share the truth about our bodies and how they work, and how they don’t work.”
—Michelle Obama on Good Morning America
“I guess love wasn’t enough for us to survive. I swear, I swear, I swear I tried. You took the life right out of me. I’m so unlucky. I can’t breathe. You took the life right out of me. I’m longing for your heartbeat, heartbeat.”
—Beyoncé Knowles in “Heartbeat” (Editor’s note: Beyoncé confirmed these lyrics were written about her pregnancy loss)
“Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
You were bigger than the whole sky
You were more than just a short time
And I’ve got a lot to pine about
I’ve got a lot to live without
I’m never gonna meet
What could’ve been, would’ve been
What should’ve been you
What could’ve been, would’ve been you”
—Taylor Swift in “Bigger Than The Whole Sky” (Editor’s note: While Taylor Swift has not confirmed the meaning or story behind this song, it was widely interpreted to be about miscarriage and embraced by the pregnancy loss community.)
“We, as females, don’t have a forum to discuss the profundity of this loss. I lost nine children by miscarriage. It is no small thing, physically nor emotionally, yet we are made to feel it is something to bear alone and secretly with some kind of sense of failure. Instead of receiving the much needed compassion and empathy and healing which we so need.”
—Sharon Stone in a comment to People
“[My husband, Jon] hated [taking photos in the hospital during the pregnancy loss]. I could tell. It didn’t make sense to him at the time. But I knew I needed to know of this moment forever, the same way I needed to remember us kissing at the end of the aisle, the same way I needed to remember our tears of joy after [our children] Luna and Miles. And I absolutely knew I needed to share this story.”
—Chrissy Teigen in an essay for Medium
Poems about miscarriage
“We see the one in her stroller
We see the one in her arms
But the one in her heart is
invisible
Unseen by the world
but as real and loved as a child can be”
—Bunmi Laditan in Dear Mother: Poems On the Hot Mess of Motherhood
“The light
in my
body
broke
and the
darkness
changed
me
into
someone
that
could
heal it.”
—Jessica Lakritz in collaboration with Jessica Zucker
“I was pregnant.
I am a mother.
I didn’t carry my baby very long.
I am a mother.
I love a baby that didn’t make it here to be held.
I am a mother.
I grieve for my baby that I didn’t carry to term.
I am a mother
I am a mother.
I am a mother.”
—Unknown, adapted from Mommies With Angel Babies
A note from Motherly on pregnancy loss resources
If you find yourself in need of additional help and community, Postpartum Support International offers individualized support groups for various stages of loss (including early pregnancy loss, stillbirth and infant loss, Black moms in loss, and more). If you are in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling 998 immediately.
