[Submitted Question]

My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 18 weeks. I can't stop wondering if something I did caused the baby's death. My husband and I desperately long for a child but I am afraid that something could go wrong again. Should I chance it and try to conceive another time?

[WombToBloom]

Yes! Yes! Yes! If there was some definitive, discernable reason for your miscarriage, I think your doctor would have shared that with you, especially knowing that you would want to get pregnant again. I know that the trying process will be frustrating and scary and painful – and the first 18 weeks or even the whole 40 weeks of your pregnancy will be tense with unspoken fears – but more women than you ever realized have had miscarriages. And most of them (though admittedly, not all of them) go on to have one or more healthy, successful pregnancies. I’m one of them.

One thing you can talk to your doctor about is earlier and more frequent sonograms when you do get pregnant. They can go a long way in calming the nerves of a scared mom-to-be.