Miscarriage, not false grief
(January 29, 2019)
A friend of mine asked me to find a text about grief related to miscarriage to put on her blog, since I have experienced a miscarriage and an involuntary termination of pregnancy.
I searched and searched, but couldn’t find a text that truly represented how I felt. So I decided to write the text myself.
Read: The stages of grief.
First, grief is something that is relative to each person; it is not necessarily linked to a death. It can also be linked to an event or even an object. If a person is grieving or says they are grieving, we have no right to judge them and tell them that what they are experiencing is not grief, because it is a different feeling for everyone.
A miscarriage or termination of pregnancy, regardless of the number of weeks, is a loss that is very difficult to overcome. The main reason is that our society trivializes miscarriage. Most people say that it is not grief, that there is no reason to be sad because the woman did not know the baby and that it was just a fetus anyway. However, I will tell you one thing: even if we could not feel it moving yet, even if some of us had not heard the heartbeat yet, we wanted that little being. What’s more, we still experienced some symptoms: heartburn, intense fatigue, loss of appetite, etc. Even though it was still in the fetal stage, we couldn’t wait to feel it move, to see the ultrasound, to find out the sex, to finally see its little face after all those months of waiting, to be able to hold it in our arms, to watch it grow…
And keep in mind that miscarriages or pregnancy terminations can occur in the first few weeks, but sometimes they happen after several weeks, and sometimes we have even heard the baby’s heartbeat and seen it on an ultrasound, which makes things even more real for both parents. Would you still dare to say that a miscarriage is not a bereavement?
A miscarriage is a loss, a loss of something we were eagerly awaiting. Even though we know that many things can happen, as soon as we take a pregnancy test and it comes back positive, we start imagining the future and already have high expectations. It is therefore perfectly normal to feel sadness, anger, or any other intense emotions. Don’t hold back from experiencing them, and if you feel like talking about it, do so. It doesn’t matter what other people think.
It’s obvious that for the friends and family of a woman who has had a miscarriage or undergone a termination, it’s not easy to deal with, because they don’t know what to say, and that’s perfectly normal. But I’m telling you, if a woman tells you she has lost her baby and you don’t know what to say, don’t say something cliché that will hurt her. Just tell her that you don’t know what to say, but that you are there for her. That simple little sentence does a lot more good than a cliché like: “You’re young, you can have another one!” because NO, it’s not another one I want, it’s this one I wanted. No other baby can ever replace this one, and even if I have other children, I will never forget the ones I lost. One baby cannot replace another.
We mustn’t forget that it takes two to make a baby. Yes, it affects the mother a lot, but the father also has the right to grieve, even if he doesn’t necessarily feel it in the same way. It’s a trial that the couple must go through and overcome together.
With time, we eventually come to terms with our grief, each in our own way. And each person experiences grief differently. I can tell you that even though we eventually move on from our grief, we can never forget it, because that little being was a part of us for a few weeks. As with all grief, we don’t forget, but we eventually come to terms with our loss and learn to live with it.
I would love for women in our society who have experienced a miscarriage or termination of pregnancy to be able to talk about it easily without feeling judged. I know I can’t change things on my own, but if all women who have been through this kind of situation allow themselves to talk about it when they need to, perhaps it will make perinatal grief less frightening for our society. It is through small actions that we can bring about significant change.
I cannot force you to believe that miscarriage and termination of pregnancy are forms of grief, but I hope that my text has at least made you think.
