Health & Wellbeing
CARIB | Apr 17, 2023

Jihan Williams: from pregnancy loss to advocacy in St. Kitts and Nevis, Caribbean

Candice Stewart

Candice Stewart / Our Today

Reading Time: 9 minutes

*This is the first part of a two-part feature on pregnancy loss.

Imagine, that for four years you tried to have children, finally see the positive results of a pregnancy test, and then experiencing the devastation of pregnancy loss due to fibroids in your sixth month of pregnancy. Add to that the experience of being faced with lack of empathy and limited support.

Many women can testify to that being their experience, but this is the case for St. Kitts and Nevis native, Jihan Williams. At 37 years of age she was expecting her first child with her partner, Miguel Knight and excitedly prepared for their bundle of joy baby boy in 2020 only to be met with a devastating loss.

Since then, she has made strides in recovering and produced a self-published book entitled, ‘Lifting the Weight of Miscarriage: Healing Insights on Pregnancy Loss for Sufferers and the People Around Us’ where she shares her experience with pregnancy loss and what she hopes will happen in her home country to support other women who have endured or will go through a similar experience.

Jihan Williams and her partner, Miguel Knight. (Contributed photo)

In an interview with Our Today, Williams said that the silence behind pregnancy loss is one of the reasons she thinks there is a lack of empathy. She shared that no one really speaks openly about the devastation and the strain that women experience out of shame and disappointment. Through her experience and her book, Williams is trying to change that narrative.

“People just don’t think its an issue. They just see pregnant women and then they see the women with their babies. Men and some women who have successful pregnancies don’t think that it’s a problem because as far as they see, women have babies all the time with no complications, and they try multiple times without any problems or complications. However, there are instances with so many women having miscarriages before anyone even knows about the pregnancy. They don’t talk about it openly and so other people don’t see an issue,” she said.

Jihan Williams at the gender reveal party in 2020. (Contributed photo)

“A little after the six month mark, I started experiencing some bad pelvic pains and after some checks, that’s when my doctor explained to me that the fibroids were degenerating. The pain continued to intensify and because of that, according to my doctor, my body thought that I was in labour. So, I began dilating and was admitted into the hospital and placed on bed rest. I went there the Friday afternoon and the miscarriage took place the Monday morning,” she explained.

“As my doctor explains it, the fibroids started to compete with the baby for blood supply to sustain them. Apparently, there was a battle happening inside of me, and because the baby was winning, the fibroids were being starved. So, they began to break down,” she continued, sharing that the medication worked for a day and a half after which, her water broke on the Monday and she delivered her son.

“The doctors said that my boy took a few breaths and passed away after that,” she solemnly shared.

I always write, and I prefer to do it as my mode of self expression. My writing then transformed into content that I thought people should know about the experience. It also evolved into things that I wanted to see happen to improve the experience for other women who go through pregnancy loss in St. Kitts and Nevis, and ultimately the Caribbean.

Jihan Williams

Williams revealed that she had been trying to get pregnant for about four years before that. So, it was, naturally, a heartbreaking to see that it took so long to get a glimmer of hope, only to be met with loss.

She said that her entire experience revealed that there was a lot of confusion, miseducation, and insensitivity that she had to deal with in addition to her grieving process. As a result, she began writing about it.

Writing about her loss

“I always write. I prefer to do it as my mode of self expression. My writing then transformed into content that I thought people should know about the experience. It also evolved into things that I wanted to see happen to improve the experience for other women who go through pregnancy loss in St. Kitts and Nevis, and ultimately the Caribbean region,” she said.

Book cover of ‘Lifting the Weight of Miscarriage’ written by Jihan Williams after the loss of her baby boy at six months pregnant. (Contributed photo)

“I just felt like more people needed to hear this and understand what its like because the issue is so quiet. People go through this loss and never say anything. It’s not going to improve if we don’t put the issue out into the open and actually have discussions about it,” she added

Williams turned her writing into a self-published book to “start a national [in St. Kitts and Nevis] and regional conversation to put out a narrative about the Caribbean experience.

“When I tried to find resources to teach me about what happened to me and why it happens to women, I kept coming across resources from the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). There was little to nothing from the Caribbean region, much less St Kitts and Nevis. So, it was important to me as a Caribbean woman to put out that narrative, albeit from my experience. This issue is not something that women from the region are immune to. Statistics suggest quite the opposite. So, it was important for me to share my Caribbean perspective on the issue. It was done for us to have the conversation about how we can encourage more compassion and healing for women who go through pregnancy loss,” she explained.

Advocacy through writing

She shared that after realising that so many women across the region were reaching out, she wanted to extend her advocacy across the Caribbean.

In addition to St. Kitts and Nevis, Williams has done book tours in Anitgua and St Lucia.

“I have done those because I just feel like the conversation needs to be had. In St Lucia, for example, I was invited to speak about pregnancy loss and infancy loss to help raise awareness there. So many women came to me and whispered, ‘Thank you for saying this, and for advocating on our behalf’,” she shared.

Some women make it look easy but that’s not everyone’s story. There’s a lot of disappointment, self-blame, and shame that we need not have if we realise that other women are suffering too. So, we need to encourage institutions to develop systems and mechanisms where they support women who have experienced pregnancy loss.

Jihan WIlliams

Williams added that “some women make it look easy but that’s not everyone’s story. There’s a lot of disappointment, self-blame, and shame that we need not have if we realise that other women are suffering too. So, we need to encourage institutions to develop systems and mechanisms where they support women who have experienced pregnancy loss. You can develop policies where if someone loses a baby, or for some reason, has some difficulty, you can offer counselling. You can fund their counselling bill or bring counsellors in. You can do so many things.”

Williams shared that she has gone as far as making legislative suggestions and recommendations for politicians and parliamentarians in her home country to consider how women who go through pregnancy loss can be supported from a national policy level. She highlighted that St Kitts and Nevis is revising the parental leave policies where the provisions are increased.

“So I’m hoping that we can see more consideration for people who go through pregnancy loss within those provisions as opposed to them staying home for a short period of time because as it stands, women have to get a doctor’s note to say they are not physically able to get to work,” she explained.

Jihan Williams (Contributed photo)

Recovery from pregnancy loss

As far as her recovery went, Williams said that she was familiar with counselling and therapy after a loss.

“In 2018, two years prior to my baby’s loss, I lost my father and I sought counseling because I wasn’t handling it well. So, about two to three months after my loss in 2020, I went back to a therapist to help me to deal with what I was feeling and how I could cope with that,” she said. 

She added, “I really credit therapy and mental health practitioners with keeping me above water because it’s very easy to sink when you’re dealing with grief in such a sudden way. It feels so unfair to have to go through that and there’s a lot of resentment, anger, and frustration that I was dealing with. So, I knew that I wanted to seek help and I did that along with my own spiritual growth and things of that nature to try and heal to get me back to health.”

Williams said that she had a myomectomy (surgery to remove the fibroids) two months after the loss. She added that her doctor encouraged her to move forward. Sixteen fibroids of varying sizes, with the biggest one being around 18 centimetres were removed.

“It was a lot, so we removed them and thankfully they’re still gone,” she said, adding that “I was also adamant that I was going to try again, so I wanted to be as well as possible mentally and physically. I was 37 when it happened and so I was laser focused on being okay in order to try again.”

“Try again”

Williams shared that she started to try again for another baby as soon as she was given the green light and clearance from her doctors.

As women, we often hear about trying to have children before the age of 35, but I was already late in the game. We also always hear that ’40 window’ is always threatening us and the ‘biological clock’ that’s ‘fast approaching’, along with all these other narratives. The concerns have always been on my mind but I still tried and my partner and I continue to try.

Jihan WIlliams

“As women, we often hear about trying to have children before the age of 35, but I was already late in the game. We also always hear that ’40 window’ is always threatening us and the ‘biological clock’ that’s ‘fast approaching’, along with all these other narratives. The concerns have always been on my mind but I still tried and my partner and I continue to try. The journey hasn’t ended in a successful pregnancy or a baby as yet, but I just turned 40 and so I’m hopeful,” she said.

She expressed that fibroids are still not truly understood. “So, we don’t really know what’s adding to it or causing it to happen. The reason could be hormonal and it could be things you eat. We really don’t understand fibroids well even though so many of us, as women of African descent, are plagued by them. I remember reading somewhere that if you eat red meat and drink alcohol, that they could be two major reasons for the development of fibroids,” she said, adding that, “I don’t drink and I hardly eat red meat. So, where did 16 of them come from?”

The ‘present’ experience

Jihan WIlliams. (Image source jihanwilliams.com)

Williams shared that she has been toying around with an idea of another book because “I realise that my journey is a bit different to what I’ve seen with people who write about pregnancy loss. I’ve seen books and blogs that people write after they have gotten their rainbow baby (baby after a pregnancy loss). I hardly see anything about the here and now”.

“Many people talk about it in the past tense and I’m talking about it in the present tense because this is an ongoing situation. What I write is a real and authentic expression of the experience. I’m not waiting until  I have the baby to say, ‘this is what happened and this is how it felt’. Right now, it doesn’t feel so good, but I’m trying to find the motivation to remain positive,” she said.

Williams says more is coming in terms of her advocacy and he writing. She also shared that there is more to explore. “I’m trying to explore that through a blog I started on my website. I try to be consistent with it but I don’t want to have my life consumed with thoughts about pregnancy and infertility. Sometimes you just need a break. When I do feel like talking about the experience, the blog is where I do it, as well as on my Facebook page,” she said.

The second part to this story features local gynecologist, Dr. Melissa Forbes-Gabbadon, who spoke with Our Today about early pregnancy loss, miscarriages, and stillbirths in addition to support for women who have endured or will experience the loss of their baby.

Connect with Jihan Williams on Instagram and Facebook @jihanawilliams or through her website at jihanwilliams.com.

Read related story at the link below:

Black women over 40 per cent more likely to have a miscarriage – Lancet study

Social media sensation reflects on journey living with uterine fibroids

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