In an episode of The View set to air Friday, former co-host Lisa Ling reveals that she had a miscarriage six months ago, and says the experience left her feeling like “a complete failure."
via celebritybabies.people.com
Leave it to a celebrity to shine a lens on miscarriage.
This week The View host Lisa Ling shared her miscarriage experience and unveiled her new website for women - The Secret Society of Women - where she encourages women to "be anonymous" and share their stories.
She supposed wants to share her story to remove the stigma of miscarriage. Here are my initial thoughts:
1. What she is going through are "classic" miscarriage experiences. The feelings of failure, the cavalier doctor who announces the baby has no heartbeat - many of us have been there. And we can go on and on.
2. We've been there - she should reach out. I hope she is looking out at the rest of the Web at the many courageous and awesome women who have been blogging about miscarriage for years. We can help her efforts because her celebrity status helps our efforts to finally get miscarriage off the list of "taboo topics" where everyone seems to put it. We should all reach out to Lisa as well - all of us veteran "miscarriers" who put ourselves out there in the midst of our most painfully raw moments to make sure other women didn't feel so alone.
3. I think the Secret Society of Women is a stupid name. How can you put a site out there to help women cope, to encourage them to share their deepest and darkest stories about womanhood, then call it a secret society? I'm all for allowing anonymity, but encouraging it? Couldn't she have picked a name that celebrated the vital beauty and strength of every woman, of our brilliant woman-ness and of our darkness without packaging it in "secret?" Really self-defeating. She could have created a safe space where we didn't have to go and "hide" in secret.
We're not a secret society and we haven't been for years. I started this blog as a miscarriage diary in 2003 when I was 38 and had miscarried for the first (of what would be four) times.
I know Lisa Ling was probably trying to express the way we feel miscarriage - and other female reproductive heath topics - are "off limits" and we are forced to keep them "secrets." I know she also wants women to know they don't have to reveal their identities when telling their stories.
But I think her site name choice, at least, sends a destructive message on a platform that has the power to make real and positive in change.
What do YOU think?
stock xchng image by sooperkuh
Lisa, THANK YOU for telling your story. So many women suffer loss, and almost always in isolation. And you mentioned a great point: now you're scared about the next pregnancy. My story offers you and so many other women hope. I lost four babies, including twins at twenty weeks. I was devastated. Depressed. And then I got determined. Doctors were not taking me seriously, so I pushed until they did- and I was diagnosed with two common and treatable conditions. I'm now blessed with two healthy children, and my wounds are mostly healed. Learn more about overcoming the anguish and fear of loss and having that family you dream of at my website, http://www.tofullterm.com And Bless You, Lisa, for helping so many women today!
Posted by: Darci Klein | December 10, 2010 at 09:31 AM