I just can’t seem to stay away from the New Zealand site, Miscarriage Support Aukland Inc. I have written about it before, in my post Miscarriage at Home. Again, here is the link, miscarriage support.
In their grief section, they offer a lot of issues that are related to miscarriage. I hadn’t seen such a comprehensive list as this and will reprint it here:
the loss of the festivities of a joyous birth and perhaps future ones
the loss of our dreams for this child and the future our family would have had together – we had made plans for life
the loss of being able to call ourselves a mother (if no previous pregnancies)
the loss of access to successful womanhood (in our own or others eyes)
the loss of trust in the body we feel has betrayed us
the actual physical loss and the fear that can be felt from the amount of blood passed
the confusion and dismay when experiencing a ‘blighted ovum’ when there is only an empty sacthe loss of innocence for future pregnancies
the loss of the belief system we didn’t even necessarily recognise we held that says “this won’t happen to me”
the loss of our basic trust in life
the loss of control over our expectations of life
the loss of the achievement of a goal we had set for ourselves (this may not have been experienced before)
the loss of self-confidence
the loss of control of our feelings
the threat of loss of our identity
the failure to reproduce when the body is giving monthly signals of fertility
the illogical shame, guilt or embarrassment
the worries or fears that this amount of grief (over what is often seen as a minor blip in life) cannot be normal
the feeling we should hide our loss and not talk about it as others think we are over-reacting
to be unable to do what other women seem easily able to do as a ‘natural part of life’ and our jealousy and anger of that
the loss or change in relationships (sometimes permanently) as we experience others lack of understanding and the isolation and loneliness this causes
dealing with others’ inappropriate comments, some with the best of intentions
dealing with the thoughtless attitude of others, who have children without experiencing problems, which can be complacent, smug or pitying (perhaps unintentionally)
dealing with our feelings over others’ pregnancies (relatives being even more difficult), especially when they are due around the time we would have been and then later their new babies
our strong reaction when we observe children being mistreated, feeling how precious they would be to us
the ‘what if’s’ or ‘if only’s’ that may result from us not even knowing we were pregnant
the thought that we have somehow killed our baby, or we did something wrong
the longing for our baby not to be taken away with a D&C even when we know he or she is dead
the loss of our last chance of having a child because of our age
the loss of our last chance to conceive because of the inability to pay or be eligible for further IVF treatment
the feeling we have let our partner/others down
the guilt and confusion if we have previously had an abortion
the sometimes harsh judgements we make about ourselves
I will be commenting on some of my personal experience with these issues in my posts this week.
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