9-16-2025 8:21am

Infant Mortality Awareness Month

Ypsilanti PressLLC Editor

Why I Built the MaternaCare App: My Story of Miscarriage, Silence, and Hope

MaternaCare

MaternaCare

Revolutionizing Care for Mothers and Babies

Published Sep 5, 2025

September is Infant and Maternal Mortality Awareness Month. I’ve watched this month pass quietly for years—lighting a candle in private, shedding tears I never explained, scrolling past posts with a tightness in my chest. But this year, something feels different. This year, I’m ready to tell the truth. Not just the clean version. Not just the public version.

The real version. The one I’ve never fully spoken aloud until now.

This is a story about pain—about the kind of grief that lives with you forever. It’s also a story about silence, culture, and eventually, purpose. But it didn’t begin with purpose. It began with a secret.

The Loss No One Knew About

I was in college the first time I think it happened. I say “think,” because I didn’t go to a doctor. I didn’t tell a soul. I remember lying on the bathroom floor in Rosa Hall, cold tiles beneath my cheek, waves of cramps hitting me like punishment. Something in me knew what was happening. But I was too scared to name it. Too embarrassed. Too ashamed.

The next morning, I got up, brushed my teeth, and went to class as if nothing had happened. I smiled when people asked how I was doing. I turned in papers. I raised my hand in lectures. But inside, I felt like a graveyard no one could see.

Philadelphia: The Morning Everything Changed

Years later, it happened again. This time, I was 24 and living in Philadelphia. Alone. Still single. Still without a support system. And even more afraid. I still remember that morning in Philadelphia vividly. I woke up in a pool of blood. I jumped up out of the bed. There was a trail of blood from my bedroom to the bathroom. When I sat on the toilet, another sharp cramp came, and out passed a clear sac surrounded by more blood.

This time, I went to the ER after cleaning myself up. I expected answers, compassion, at the very least a proper examination. Instead, I was treated like a stereotype—another young woman in her 20s they dismissed as just another “baby momma.” No one saw me as the professional behavioral health counselor I was. No one saw me as a human being who had just lost a baby.

I shared my story, but was told, “You didn’t have a miscarriage.” Their response? A prescription for 500mg of Motrin. No exam. No explanation. Just dismissal.

I walked out of that hospital feeling invisible, ashamed, and deeply wounded—not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

Back home in my apartment on Godfrey Avenue, I stripped the blood-soaked sheets from my bed. I spent the day scrubbing the carpet and mattress, eventually flipping it over and putting fresh linen on top. Then I curled into a fetal position, crying into the night with the TV on, trying to distract myself from a grief I couldn’t escape.

That day, I didn’t just lose my baby. I lost faith in a system that should have cared for me.

The pregnancy wasn’t planned. I had no partner to grieve with as when I told him the news he stated, "The baby isn't mine" as if I was a whore. I was a minister in the church. I was never known for sleeping around. No family was nearby. And I belonged to a church culture that would have seen my situation not as tragedy—but as scandal. So I didn’t tell them either. I carried the weight of it by myself. I cried quietly during sermons. I went to the altar for prayer. I avoided my truth. I grieved in the cracks of my day at work, in the car drive home, in the moments before sleep.

You think you’ll feel better once it’s “over.” But the truth is, miscarriage doesn’t end when the bleeding stops. It lingers in your body like an echo. And when you carry that pain alone, it begins to convince you that maybe you’re the problem. Maybe your body is broken. Maybe you’re not meant to be a mother after all.

The Invisible Grief of Women Without Children

There’s a unique kind of grief reserved for women without children. It’s invisible, but heavy. People assume your womb is empty by choice. They offer cheerful pressure: “When are you going to have kids?” Or worse, they assume something must be “wrong” with you—medically, emotionally, spiritually.

No one knew I had already been a mother. That I had carried babies who never made it earthside. That I whispered prayers over them, gave them nicknames in my heart. That I had already said goodbye before anyone even knew to say hello.

Over time, even some of my friends stopped sharing their pregnancies with me. They thought they were protecting me. And maybe they were. But the silence felt like another loss. As if my pain made me less welcome. Less whole. Less trustworthy with joy.

Even within the maternal health world—where I’ve done research for years—I’ve been told I shouldn’t speak up. That my opinions don’t carry weight because I’m single and not a mother. Other women in the maternal health space, the space where we are to go for support and comfort ostrasized me. Because of this treatment, I decided not to become a certified full spectrum doula - because I hadn't “successfully” given birth. I’ve had men I attempted to date imply that I’m “damaged goods.” I’ve had doctors shut me down for advocating holistic options to improve maternal health. As if being childless disqualified me from having wisdom, or voice, or value.

But why are we so quick to treat women like me as if we are less?

Culture Is More Than Race

Part of the reason I created MaternaCare is because I care deeply about culture—and not just in the way most people define it.

Yes, culture is about race and ethnicity. But it’s also about something more subtle: the environment we create around bodies, womanhood, and grief. It’s the unspoken rules. The way certain experiences are deemed “appropriate” to share—and others are tucked away like shameful secrets.

The culture I grew up in didn’t give women like me a script. There was no ceremony for invisible loss. No language for miscarriage outside of marriage. Only silence. Only shame.

So I broke away. I studied Chinese medicine and peri-steam hydrotherapy to better understand my body—not because I wanted another certificate, but because I wanted answers no one else seemed willing to give me.

In that study, I discovered something radical: your menstrual cycle isn’t just a monthly nuisance. It’s a story. It’s your womb talking. It tells you if your body is nourished, if your hormones are balanced, if you’re able to carry life. It can whisper what Western medicine often ignores.

For the first time, I felt power instead of shame. I felt curious instead of broken. And I wanted every woman who had been dismissed, silenced, or misunderstood to feel that same awakening.

Turning Pain Into Purpose

MaternaCare wasn’t born from a business plan. It was born from heartbreak. From sitting alone on too many bathroom floors. From being ignored by doctors and dismissed by churches. From knowing there had to be a better way.

I didn’t build an app. I built a lifeline.

MaternaCare is about changing the culture—from the ground up. It’s about creating space for emotional and spiritual wellness, not just physical. It’s about educating women before they try to conceive and during their pregnancy journey. It's about recognizing that women need community, not judgment. That health isn’t just about fertility—but about dignity, support, and truth.

Every tool on the app, every guided journal prompt, every educational video—it all comes from that lonely place I once lived in. It's designed for the woman who feels invisible. For the woman asking silent questions in the middle of the night. For the woman who has been told she doesn’t belong in the motherhood conversation.

In Memory of Baby Hicks

I never held you in my arms. I never saw your face. I don’t know if you would’ve had my laugh or my stubborn streak. But you changed my life.

And this story—this truth—is for you.

For every woman who has miscarried and told no one. For every single woman shut out of baby showers and parenting panels. For every person who has ever felt silenced by culture, doctrine, or shame.

Your story matters. Your pain is valid. You are not less than. You are not alone.

💜

MaternaCare was built because of you. And for you.

Together, we can change the way we grieve, the way we heal, and the way we care for one another. If you'd like to get involved through investment or support please email sherress@slhwellnessmanagement.com.