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Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

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January 7, 2011

What Celebrity Miscarriages Teach Us

If famous folk can open up to the world about their pregnancy loss, why can't we in the church?

Elise Erikson Barrett, guest blogger

Suddenly, it seems as if miscarriage is everywhere. Famous folks from Barbara Bush to Mariah Carey have recently disclosed previous pregnancy losses. Lily Allen suffered her second miscarriage in November, and Lisa Ling shared her own grief following a miscarriage on a recent episode of The View. Kelsey Grammer and his fiancée, Kayte Walsh, released a statement in October confirming the loss of their unborn child six weeks earlier. Giuliana Rancic and husband Bill opened up about their miscarriage this fall. A topic that historically has seemed taboo has somehow become hot tabloid fodder. OMG.

Lack of privacy is a given for the celebs among us, for we live in a culture that is breathlessly absorbed by the minutiae of famous lives. And whether you’re a hard-core subscriber to US Weekly and People or someone like me, slyly dawdling in the grocery checkout line so I can catch the tabloid headlines out of the corner of my eye, you can’t miss the obsession with celebrity baby-bump-watching. As gossip mag Life & Style's editor in chief Dan Wakeford has observed, "They've always been popular with readers, stories on babies . . . It used to be celebrity weddings, but not anymore. It's all about babies." Celebrity pregnancies are confirmed on Twitter and talk shows, and reporters try to outdo one another in cutesy cleverness, using tired witticisms about “buns in the oven” and coyly talking about “baby daddies.” Celebs are inevitably “thrilled” and “so happy” to announce that they are “preggo.” And really, what else are they going to say?

What’s been interesting is to see the ways in which these bereft celebrities — and their suddenly, awkwardly serious biographers — narrate their experiences of pregnancy loss. The language in which they are expected to be fluent, the perky, provocative vocabulary of fashion and premieres and love affairs, is not weighty enough to carry their grief. So they use quiet words. They release carefully worded statements using short, plain sentences. In the event that they are able to protect their loss as a secret, many of them wait, sometimes years, sometimes until they are securely pregnant again, to mention the miscarriage. They wait, as so many do, until what Ling so accurately described as the sense of “failure” can be overshadowed by news of a more recent “triumph.”

One dubious benefit of the celebrity fishbowl: You are always assured an audience. We Christians, however, have typically failed to make space in our worshiping communities for women and men to give voice to their anguish at losing wanted pregnancies. Our liturgies offer patterning for many kinds of losses — funeral services (and their attendant traditions of providing food or wakes or visitations) lead us through the mystery of death; illnesses are lifted up during prayer-concern time or listed in the bulletin or passed along an informal but highly effective prayer line. But there are few well-worn paths to follow as we walk through the complicated pain of losing pregnancies. And mercy, but the words we often have to use to describe our loss are ugly. I was abruptly reminded of this while giving a short talk at our own church, describing the experience of my first miscarriage. I could feel the blush creeping up my neck as I said words like spotting, cramping, and clots to my audience of familiar and friendly church folk. I almost ran from the lectern like a miserable, terrified rabbit when I caught the eye of a gentleman in his 70s as I described going into a bathroom and seeing blood on my underwear.

How ironic. We claim to be saved by Christ’s blood, but are embarrassed to talk about our own blood, at least when connected to female reproductive parts. We claim, especially in this season, that God miraculously impregnated a teenaged girl, yet are ashamed to reflect on the terrifying, precarious, messy realities of pregnancy. We claim that our redemption entered history through the waters of a womb, but are unable to find words to talk about the mysterious losses that take place in those same waters. For a bunch of people who are perfectly happy to carol about wallowing in fountains of blood, we are remarkably squeamish.

body%20of%20christ.jpg

Celebs like Ling and Rancic have said that they are choosing to publicize their experiences of pregnancy loss for a purpose: to help combat the secrecy and shame surrounding miscarriage. They are not the first to do so (think Courteney Cox or Tori Amos), but they are the most recent in a movement toward open acknowledgment of both the widespread nature (as many as one in four pregnancies miscarries) and the intensity of the loss. Ling has started her own website called the Secret Society of Women, hoping to create a community online where women can find both support and an avenue for sharing painful or difficult experiences, miscarriage among them. Perhaps the courage of these women who are living through loss in the limelight can remind us Christians that we, too, can be courageous. Perhaps it can remind us that we, of all people, should be able to share loss with one another — even loss that presents as a bloody, shameful failure. Perhaps our communities of faith can remember that it is our privilege to become, not secret societies of women, but places where women and men alike become part of a Body — the Body of Christ, out of whose bloody shame was born redemption for this world.

Elise Erikson Barrett, a United Methodist pastor, is the author of What Was Lost: A Christian Journey through Miscarriage, which Her.meneutics reviewed last year. Shauna Niequist wrote about her miscarriage in an excerpted Her.meneutics post last year.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty on January 7, 2011 10:45 AM

Comments

Needed - safe communities. Places where we can come wounded, just as we are. Places free of judgement, condemnation, advice-giving. Places where there are no pat answers.

Places where the warm, grace-filled love of Jesus is what matters most. And is seen in His people.

That's the community I want to worship and fellowship in.

Posted By: Linda Stoll | January 7, 2011 11:30 AM

My heart hurts for all women who have lost children. I've never been there, I've only seen the devastation in the lives of several friends as they've picked up the pieces and carried on.

I wonder how different our culture would be if women had opened up 50 years ago about the loss a miscarriage truly was for them. Would women contemplating abortion and seeing the pain another woman was going through keep them from making that fateful decision? My heart breaks at that possibility as well.

Posted By: Leslie | January 7, 2011 2:25 PM

I've experienced a miscarriage recently and felt protected by God from all the ugliness, as you put it. I'm not convinced that we either use blunt words about cramping & bleeding OR we are experiencing shame and promoting secrecy.

Openness can exist without shock value. The delicacy that the media covers celebrities during this time in their life is respectful. It does not mean they are not facing reality. Since when is it the job of a woman in pain to make others feel it with her? God has moved in my life through this experience and it's been lovely to be supported by friends. But telling the world about the pain does not bring healing - only the spirit can do that.

Honestly, I think the topic of miscarriage should make people feel uncomfortable cause it's a difficult thing. If it ever gets to the point where a proverbial 70 year old man doesn't bat an eye when a younger woman talks about the most intimate of subjects in public, it is far worse a fate. That level of indifference would be truly ugly.

You'll forgive my not putting my full name on this post. You may call it shame, and you are welcome to judge my motives from afar if you like, but I call it discretion.

Posted By: lw | January 8, 2011 10:18 AM

Pro choice advocates see no problem with getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy. It's just a bunch of cells or a fetus. So why would they be sympathetic if you miscarried at 7 weeks?
In the video clip, it's like Joy and Whoopie really have to dig to come up with an appropriate comment. It's certainly not
"We're sorry you lost a baby".
Just my opinion.

Posted By: Kristi | January 8, 2011 9:01 PM

I've never noticed that women in the church hide or shy away from sharing pregnancy loss, and I'm over 60 now. I wouldn't want to be part of a church where people couldn't honestly share pain and loss and have to pretend that all is well all the time. Leadership sets the tone; if the leader can share honestly then others will feel free to do so also.

Posted By: Paulette | January 8, 2011 11:23 PM

The loss of a child before birth is so often a secret grief. Yet, the parents are not only grieving the loss of the baby, but the loss of the future dreams for that child and for themselves as parents.

May I recommend GriefShare www.griefshare.org and the books 'Grieving the Child I Never Knew" by Kathe Wunnenberg and "Holding on to Hope' by Nancy Guthrie. (I receive no benefit from any sales of these books.)

P.S. Am I the only one to be very surprised to find "OMG" [oh my God] in a Christian blog? I've thought that verbal phrase to be a very flippant way of taking the name of God in vain. Is the text acronym of the phrase, OMG, so accepted now that no one else is bothered?

Posted By: CW | January 10, 2011 12:36 PM

When I was in my mid-twenties I "lost" two babies within the space of a year--one at 6 1/2 months and one at 7 1/2 months. One was stillborn, one lived for a few days. We didn't openly talk about those kinds of things back in the 60s. Family, Pastor and church friends were uncomfortable or offered spiritual platitudes. My grief went underground. It wasn't until this last year that I was able to acknowledge the reality that these were my children (not "lost", we should eliminate that term) and find the grave where their ashes had been buried. I think the openness in dealing with miscarriage nowadays is much healthier emotionally, and I wish someone in a pastoral capacity had shared with me the necessity of openly and completely grieving forty years ago.

Posted By: ringrid | January 10, 2011 12:48 PM

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments. Too many to respond in depth here, but if anyone would like to have further conversation about this or other topics related to miscarriage, please feel free to get in touch with me directly via facebook or email (elise@gracetreeministries.com). I think what jumps out at me looking at the posts is the same thing I learned through the interviews I did while writing the book - every woman's experience of miscarriage is fundamentally different. And honoring those different experiences is crucial for all of us. I rejoice to see that some of you felt loved and supported by your church communities after pregnancy losses - what a tremendous gift. Thanks again for reading.
Blessings, Elise

Posted By: Elise Erikson Barrett | January 10, 2011 10:21 PM

Thank you for this post. I recently lost our baby at 5 months and have experienced the shyness of people in regards to pain. We are afraid of grief it seems. I know because I was afraid of it too. People hide their pain because they are not sure anyone else cares to see it. We are often hiding our faces from one another. And yet is't this how we treated our Saviour, "a man of sorrows and aquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him." I am no longer afraid of grief, mine or anyone elses. Christ who suffered for us did not hide his face from those He could help, and He wept with those who wept. He came to take our sins and our sorrows. Because of suffering I can sorrow with others, and I will not hide my face.

Posted By: Julie c | January 10, 2011 10:52 PM

"OMG" can also stand for "Oh my gosh!"

Posted By: Robyn | January 11, 2011 11:33 AM

I am with you CW. I find it offensive when a believer uses the phrase OMG. It does stand for "Oh My God!" and is a use of the Lord's name that without purpose or in vain use. (Such as I tried to do something but it was in vain, it was of no use). Robyn, check out the dictionary for the origins of the word "gosh" to discover its true meaning. First known use in 1757 it was euphemism for the word "God". People did not approve of the meaningless use of God's name as a curse or slang exclamation. It was a serious offense to take the Lord's name in vain. They began to substitute the word "God" with the words gosh, gadd, goodness etc. In the past when this topic has come up, people have excused away this modern popular and thoughtless use of God's name. But maybe more of us should take a stand against it.

Posted By: Jan | January 11, 2011 1:49 PM

CW, you're not the only one. I know some people use it for "oh my gosh" or "oh my goodness," but that's not what *most* people associate it with. If anything, I think "OMG" heightens the level of flipness and disregard for God's name, precisely because it's tossed around so casually.

In the case of its use in this article, it initially distracted me from the point the author was making -- a shame, because on the whole, it's a thoughtful piece, and one which (somewhat ironically) makes interesting points about the vocabulary we use when discussing issues as poignant and serious as pregnancy and miscarriage. Perhaps that's *why* the author used it as she did, but in any case, I agree that it was not only superfluous to the story, but unnecessary in and inappropriate for a Christian blog.

Posted By: Anne | January 13, 2011 1:09 PM

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