An award-winning filmmaker and lesbian mom is making a documentary using her own miscarriage as a starting point to look broadly at miscarriage care in the U.S., in the context of the current attacks on reproductive health. Here’s how to watch a trailer and to join a live discussion about the film this Wednesday.
Photo credit: Emily Geraghty
After director/producer Cheryl Furjanic had a miscarriage—a second-trimester pregnancy loss in a hotel bathroom 3000 miles from home—she writes, “I couldn’t find many stories about losses like mine.” Although this has changed somewhat, “there is still a severe dearth of these stories.”
Adventures in Miscarriage, she says, “leads audiences through the landscape of loss to show the shockingly cruel way people who miscarry are treated, and what we can do to improve it … all against the backdrop of the dangerous reversal of Roe v. Wade.”
That may sound grim, but she promises this is “a different kind of miscarriage story,” using “recreation, absurdist interpretation, and ridiculous over-exaggeration to entertain and educate while smashing the silence of pregnancy loss … and pushing for better miscarriage care.” This approach is a very queer one, she asserts, noting, “Camp is the LGBTQ sensibility that examines serious and often painful experiences through a humorous lens. Camp has long been a vital form of queer survival and resistance and is a central storytelling tool in Adventures in Miscarriage.”
Photo credit: Anna Barsan
Furjanic’s most recent film is Stonewall: The Making of a Monument. She may be most well-known, however, for her feature documentary Back on Board: Greg Louganis, which was broadcast on HBO and nominated for an Emmy Award and Producers Guild of America award in 2016.
The film’s other producer, Stephanie Schiavenato, is a Latina filmmaker, doula, and anthropologist who has written and spoken extensively about fetal loss. Twelve years ago, she was pregnant and had a premature delivery of twin girls who died shortly after being born.
Their goal for Adventures in Miscarriage is “to help improve the way that doctors, hospitals, OB/GYNS, insurance companies, and the people around us—treat people who are miscarrying.”
You can watch a trailer of the film here. Furjanic and Schiavenato are trying to raise funds to complete it, which they hope to do in 2024. Visit the trailer link to find out how you can make a tax-deductible donation to help support their work. (Please do your own due diligence as you would before making any online donation.)
Additionally, you can join Furjanic, Schiavenato, and midwife Ellie Miller Wednesday, July 27 at 6:30 p.m. ET, for a live Zoom conversation to learn more about the film and the current state of miscarriage care in the United States. Register here.
For more on miscarriage and other forms of reproductive loss (including adoption loss), check out Christa Craven’s 2019 book, Reproductive Losses: Challenges to LGBTQ Family-Making.