Yesterday evening, my husband came home with the news that a coworker had "lost her baby." I have that in quotes, partially because it's his words, and partially because I hate the phrase and am using it under protest.
A pregnant woman whose baby dies does not "lose" her child. That sounds as if she has misplaced her baby. Whatever you choose to call the life that was growing inside of her has died. I remember having the ultrasound that proved that my own baby, whose heartbeat I had just heard for the first time three days prior, was no longer going to continue to grow and be born into this world. My doctor told me I had lost my baby. I wanted to scream at him, first for my loss, and secondly because I did not LOSE my baby! I knew exactly where he or she was: in my uterus. His or her heart was no longer beating. That fact was hard enough to digest without feeling as if the blame was somehow mine. Even though I had done nothing to cause that loss of life, every time I heard someone say they were sorry I lost my baby, it felt as if the whole world was blaming me.
My husband was not blamed for "losing" that baby. He heard things like, "I'm sorry your wife lost the baby." Great. Even his coworkers blamed me. Harrumph.
Needless to say, it felt as if my entire world ended. That was my third pregnancy, too, so I had two beautiful girls who needed me to pull it together and try to function. Hello, Zoloft!
My husband's coworker does not have the benefit of knowing she can carry a baby to term. This was her first pregnancy. My heart absolutely breaks for her. She also suffered this loss of life much later in her pregnancy. A first trimester miscarriage is miserable enough. I cannot even fathom how horrific it would be to one day feel your baby moving around inside of you, and the next day there is nothing, and no successful delivery in-between the two.
I hope my husband remembers what not to say to a woman who suffered such a loss. "I know exactly how you feel. We lost a baby, too." No, you don't know. I don't care if you have had one miscarriage or twenty. Every woman feels this loss differently, and foisting your own thoughts and feelings on someone else is just adding insult to injury. You also don't know if a woman is feeling guilt, relief, or shock. She might have been concerned she could not handle having a child, or additional children, and is completely conflicted over what she feels.
"You can always try to have another." You don't know that. That mother might not physically be able to carry a child to term. She might not be emotionally able to take another chance. I know my OB-GYN was upset that I would ask about permanent ways to prevent having another child after my fourth pregnancy. He insisted that no permanent solutions should be considered until after a happy, healthy baby was born. I told him it was hard enough for me to risk that fourth pregnancy after having a miscarriage with my third. I would either have a successful birth and welcome my third child into the world, or I would have another miscarriage and close up the baby shop for good. Emotionally, that was all I was able to handle. Thankfully, our son was the end result of that pregnancy. Not all women are that fortunate. Other mothers might not feel able to handle more attempts.
What I do hope my husband says is that we are sorry to hear about her loss, and that if she wants or needs to talk about it, we are here. And then give her time to get through this. I hope he takes his cues from her. If she walks out of the room when he's telling a story about something silly our kid did at school, he had better not hunt her down later to finish the story. She might not ever want to hear about children again, she might want to hear a zillion stories to give her hope about her own future, or she might feel somewhere in the middle. Whatever the case, I hope she knows a lot of people care about her, and are thinking of her right now.
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