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One of the hardest parts about having pregnancy loss is....the label.

A miscarriage is usually defined as a loss prior to 20 weeks gestation.
A stillbirth is usually defined as a loss at 20 weeks and beyond.

But where do we draw the line?

One of my friends recently lost her baby at 12 weeks. She was induced into labor in the hospital, in the labor and delivery ward and vaginally delivered her son. Most women in the second trimester go through the labor process. You hear about cramps during a miscarriage, did you know that's technically the uterus contracting to get the baby out? Did you know that many women who are considered full term start the labor process in the same L&D my friend went to (where I also delivered my son) using the same drugs that were used to induce her labor?

What about the babies that are born too soon and not able to survive outside the womb? Did you know many of them are born breathing? That their families receive birth and death certificates for them? Or the babies that die in utero...they don't receive any sort of life or death certificate in most states. They are still born. They don't just disappear into thin air. Their families go to funeral homes to pick out caskets or urns. They have to pay to get their baby buried or cremated. I used to hate the word stillborn. But you know what? It makes since. My son wasn't just stillborn....he was still born. I went through labor as have many other women who have stillborns.

But yet you hear the word miscarriage and it just doesn't make sense past a certain point. You read the tabloids and see that celebrities have "a miscarriage at six months". Do you realize how far along 6 months is? That's almost the third trimester of pregnancy. This wasn't just something that was like a heavy period. That was birth. That was pushing knowing your baby won't take a breath once he/she gets out. That's a stillbirth.

Losses can be so different from woman to woman. Even my two losses were a night and day difference. I went into labor with Xander, we held him, Rob cut his cord and we took pictures with him. With my miscarriage I had a D&C, a surgery. I was completely under. I went into the operation room pregnant and asleep and came out asleep and not pregnant. There are mothers who go into a routine OB checkup, find out their baby has passed and have to be medically induced into labor. Some even have to endure a cesarean section. How can we sum that up into two words? Stillbirth? Or a miscarriage? I like to define losses by how far along a woman was. So instead of saying Xander was stillborn I say, Xander was stillborn at nearly 22 weeks. Instead of saying I had a miscarriage I say, I had a miscarriage at 7 weeks.

But even then....the world's knowledge of pregnancy becomes known when you say things like that. Like people think because I was only nearly 22 weeks pregnant, that I didn't hold him. Or that he wasn't 10 and a quarter inches long and weighed 15.6 ounces. It's like the think the baby somehow goes from sperm meets egg to 20 inches, 8 pound baby over night. It's amazing how uneducated people, especially WOMEN who have had babies, are when it comes to pregnancy.

So, please, read up on fetal development. We don't just magically wake up not pregnant one day (well, I guess unless you've had a D&C like I did). We still have to birth our babies. Even before 20 weeks.