Pregnancy after Miscarriage or Loss Februrary 2010

[dory]

Milly 5 - oh sweeite. This is such a hard journey. I agree with Milly ( hello sweetie, I like to see you pop in from time to time, you'll be in here all the time soon enough).

Often the simple answer is what we want to give, but for us there is no simple answer. The answer you give will also depend on how you are feeling at the time.

I too have fumbled around answers, and I still haven't really found a response that comes quickly to mind.

Somedays I am not strong enough to endure the questions from strangers if I say "No", so I say "Yes" and feel like I am being dishonest. Sometimes I can say "No, but I have miscarried previously" ( to avoid the inevitable question about ages gender etc if a simple No is given). Somedays I am as blunt as anything, and say " No, my other babies have died" and watch the face of the person I am talking to struggle to take in what I have said and how they should manage. Somtimes if I have been partiuclarly blunt I then feel guilty for being so blunt.

Ultimatelt the right answer is the one you give on any particular day. And babe, it's not morbid. It's tough. You're just trying to balance honouring your angels with perceived social norms.

For me this time around though, as I am pretty much sequestered from strangers, and everyone that needs to know does, so I am not faced with this issue as much. I suppose as the pregnancy progresses and I am showing more obviously rather than looking a bit like a fatty boomba, on my few outings strangers will ask. And I won't really be ready for it.

Just be true to how you are feeling when you are asked.

Audax - sweetie - I am so sorry that you had such an empty experience when you told the IL, but I understand how you feel. I know you probably don't want to hear it, but at least they gushed and were excited. It's even more lonely to be confronted with the opposite. It's nice that despite their own reservations ( which are evident in what they said about not expecting to be told until 12 weeks) that they were able to be excited for you. Probably too much given you said they were gushing. It doesn't take away the fact that it hurt you and annoyed you though huh? Our poor families, sometimes I feel mine are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

The decision to tell people is yours and you make it for very particular reasons, it's your perogative.

I have only ever really struggled once about whether to tell someone about my loss. In the year before I fell pregnant with Amelia ( 2008) I suffered a badly dislocated finger and went to see an Occuptational Therapist for "hand therapy" ( hee hee, that ALWAYS makes me giggle like a school girl). My last appointment was in September 08 before I went away to play rep sport and I wasn't pregnant then. Not long after Amelia had died, I was having trouble with my finger again and went to see the OT. We had always gotten on really well, and I knew she had been recently married, as her wedding plans took up a lot of time during our appointments. I had anticipated she would be pregnant and when I went in, she was. I was still shocked, and inevtitably we talked about her pregnancy and I asked her due date, which was a couple of weeks after Amelias. I said something like oh "so you'd be 20 weeks now?". She was genuinely surprised and said no one had ever been able to tell how far along she was before and wanted to know how I did it. I looked at her sweet little earnst face, and just thought, what do I say? In the end I thought I just can't burst her bubble, she was so blissfully happy, and I didn't want to make it about me. So I lied and said my friend was as far as long as she was. I remember feeling like I had disrespected Amelia, but now I remember the OT's innocence, and I couldn't bear to see her face change. I suppose that makes a lot of assumptions about her, but her expression, was just so earnst. What I wanted most was for my face to have that expression, a fruitless wish, but at least I can remember what her face now when I think of it.

Another time at work someone asked me about 4 months after Ameila died "Oh how's your baby?". God I almost fainted. It was so left field, as the person I was talking to was unlikely to have known I was pregnant as I wasn't showing and she had been away from work on maternity leave. I must have looked completely stunned and no doubt the colour drained from my face. Instead of telling her what had happened, I stammered out "Oh you must be thinking of my friend, people always get us confused, she has a little girl who's 2 and just had a little boy". I then scampered out of there, back to my office, and just couldn't stop crying. I ended up going home from work. I think it was the only true melt down that I had at work. There were others, but I was able to recover from them, but not this one.

The things from left field that people say, usually well intentioned, that just rock our world and make us feel so vulnerable and fragile and take us back almost instantly to the raw grief. I wonder if it will happen for the rest of our lives?

Anyway, better go, have really gone on for far too long... too much time on my hands.

Maddison - hope you appointment today goes well!

Laney - how are you doing? Have you heard who Michelle is doing?