Healing Your Grieving Heart After Miscarriage

100 Practical Ideas for Parents and Families

Center for Loss and Life Transition

Contents

1.

EMBRACE YOUR NEED AND RIGHT TO GRIEVE

"So it's true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love."

— E. A. Bucchianeri

• No matter what others might wrong-headedly say or imply about the supposed relative inconsequentiality of miscarriage, you have suffered a significant loss. Of course you are grieving! Of course you have a need and right to mourn!

• Miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy are not negligible losses. Your loss is exactly as profound as it feels to you inside. Your reality is real.

• Still, not everyone whose life has been touched by miscarriage feels the same. Each person's sense of loss and grief is as unique as a snowflake. Your thoughts and feelings will not be the same as your partner's or others grieving the loss of this baby. And you will find that other families who have experienced miscarriage will not necessarily share your precise thoughts and feelings. That's OK. There is no right or wrong. Everyone is entitled to their own unique grief and mourning after a loss.

• Affirm your need and right to mourn. If other people act as if nothing's happened or judge your grief, try to understand that they have been conditioned by a culture that minimizes loss in general and miscarriage in particular. Educate them. And turn to others who are able to empathize with your loss.

CARPE DIEM

Today, tell someone about what this miscarriage has meant to you.

2.

MOURN YOUR LOSS

"There is no foot so small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world."

— Unknown

• Everyone grieves when we lose something significant, but if we are to heal our grief, we must also mourn.

• Your body's and mind's natural response to miscarriage is to grieve. Grief is the constellation of internal thoughts and feelings you have when you lose someone you love and value.

• Your grief is what you may feel as a weight in your chest, a churning in your stomach, an ache in your arms, memories of your miscarriage experience, or bittersweet thoughts of a hoped-for future that will never be.

• Mourning, on the other hand, is the outward expression of your grief. It is an active process. Mourning is releasing your grief, be it through crying, writing your thoughts in a journal, creating art that represents your feelings of grief, talking to others about what happened, or participating in a support group.

• Many of the ideas in this book are intended to help you mourn your loss of this baby. These ideas have been written to help you express your grief outside of yourself so that over time your heart can heal.

CARPE DIEM

Check in with yourself and ask, "Am I allowing myself to actively mourn this loss, or am I holding my grief inside?"

3.

USE THE WORDS THAT FEEL RIGHT TO YOU

"Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace."

— Buddha

• With miscarriage, especially losses in the early weeks of pregnancy, finding the right words to describe your loss can be hard.

• Do you say that you lost a pregnancy? Do you say that your baby died? Do you simply say that you miscarried?

• Many families affected by miscarriage are hurt when they hear doctors use terms like "spontaneous abortion," "products of conception," and "fetal demise." While these words may be medically accurate, they are not compassionate nor do they capture families' profound feelings of love and loss. What's more, the word "miscarriage" may seem to lay blame on the mother for not carrying her child well enough. I actually think that our very lexicon of pregnancy loss needs an overhaul.

• Empower yourself by using the words that best capture your unique thoughts and feelings about your loss. If it feels right to you to use the word "baby," then by all means, do so — regardless of how far along you were in your pregnancy.

• Similarly, work to find words to describe your emotions. When someone asks, "How are you?", perhaps you can honestly say, "I've been feeling really (sad, angry, lonely, lost, or heartbroken)." Or, "This week was really hard for me because ..." Saying "I'm fine" or "I'm doing OK" if you're not doesn't serve you or the listener very well.

• Also consider naming the baby you lost. We name people because they are unique, once-in-forever individuals. If you feel this way about the baby who was miscarried, then by all means pick a name so that you have a way to talk about him or her as time passes. Gender-neutral names such as Jessie or Riley might be appropriate, or you could choose a simple term of endearment such as "pumpkin" or "sweet pea."

CARPE DIEM

Talk to your partner or a close friend or family member about the language you want to use (and just as important, don't want to use) in talking about your loss.

4.

UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need 1. Acknowledge the reality of this loss

"Seeing is always an act of courage."

— Marty Rubin

• Your developing baby has died. This is a difficult reality to accept. Your mind and heart may try to push this reality away at first. In the beginning, some degree of denial is normal and necessary for your survival. Yet gently, slowly, and patiently, over time, you must begin to embrace this reality. Little by little. Hour by hour. You will come to integrate the reality in doses as you are ready.

• Acknowledging the full reality of your loss will happen as time passes. Over the coming months and years there will be many experiences that will remind you of this reality. These are necessary experiences for you to have, as painful as they may be.

• You will first acknowledge the reality of your loss with your head, and then, eventually, you will begin to acknowledge the reality with your heart and soul.

CARPE DIEM

Tell someone about your miscarriage today.

5.

UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need 2. Embrace the pain of the loss

"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey."

— Kenji Miyazawa

• Embracing pain sounds counterintuitive. In fact, you may be actively looking for ways to avoid or prevent yourself from feeling the pain of your miscarriage day in and day out. It is easier to avoid, repress, or push away the pain of grief than it is to confront it and feel through it.

• Yet confronting and allowing your pain to surface is what will help you reconcile and integrate your loss. As I often say, you must feel it to heal it.

• In the early days after your miscarriage, your pain may seem ever -present, as if it doesn't let up for even a moment. Your every thought and feeling may seem to be centered on your loss. While you do need to experience your pain, you can only do so in doses. Take breaks. It's healthy to seek distractions and allow yourself bits of pleasure every day. Go for a walk, watch TV, or talk to friends about something other than the loss.

CARPE DIEM

Dedicate 15 minutes right now to thinking about and feeling your loss. If you don't want to be alone for this, reach out to someone who doesn't try to stop your tears or tell you not to hurt. Sit with this person as you express how painful this experience is for you.

6.

UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need 3. Remember what happened

"Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us."

— Oscar Wilde

• You experienced a pregnancy and then the loss of a pregnancy. Depending on the number of weeks' gestation and the type of miscarriage, you may or may not have seen the baby on ultrasound (or for later miscarriages, after delivery), listened to the heartbeat, experienced pregnancy symptoms, or felt him or her move inside you. But regardless, from the moment you knew you were pregnant, your life changed. It changed again after your miscarriage.

• Whenever we experience significant loss in life, we hold its memory in our hearts. Loss changes us. And remembering loss is a form of honoring our lives, our reality, and what made us who we are today. To strive not to remember, on the other hand, is to dishonor our lives and our reality.

• If those around you try to take memories away from you in a misguided attempt to spare you from more pain, let them know that this is not helpful. It is good for you to talk about the pregnancy and miscarriage. It is good to display ultrasound pictures or cards that people may have sent you, show people the nursery or baby items you'd purchased, and share the hopes and dreams you had for this baby's future.

• Remind yourself that it is remembering the past that makes hoping for the future possible.

CARPE DIEM

If you have mementos from this pregnancy, such as a pregnancy test, a newspaper printed on the day of the miscarriage, ultrasound pictures, photos taken of you when you were pregnant, or a list of names you were considering, gather everything up and place it in a special memory box that you can go through whenever you're thinking about this baby.

7.

UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need 4. Develop a new self-identity

"An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience."

— James Baldwin

• A big part of our self-identities are formed by the roles we play in life. You were pregnant, about to become a new mother or father. But you didn't reach parenthood, at least not for this baby. How does this affect your self-identity? Your partner, the baby's grandparents, and the baby's siblings (if there are any) will also struggle with how they think of themselves and the family in the aftermath of the miscarriage.

• Even if you have other children, this baby's death will probably change your self-perception in many ways.

• In the search to better understand why their loss occurred, many parents will try to find blame with themselves. Rarely is a miscarriage related to something the mother or father has done wrong. Instead, the feelings of blame often stem from the fact that our sense of self is always, always affected by significant loss — especially when an immediate family member dies.

• In the months and years to come, if you mourn fully and honestly, you will find ways to accommodate this loss into your sense of self and family.

CARPE DIEM

Work on articulating how this loss is changing you. Complete the following sentences with the words that feel right to you. I used to be ____. Since the miscarriage, I am ____. When I used to think about ____, I felt ____. Today, when I think about ____, I feel ____. Keeping writing as long as you want.

8.

UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need 5. Search for meaning

"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid."

— Frederick Buechner

• When a baby dies, it feels so unnatural and out of order. We question the meaning and purpose of this sad turn of events. No question is too small or too strange. All of them are important questions to ask. Why did this child die before me? Why does a baby die before he is even born? What is the point in that?

• "Why" questions may surface uncontrollably and often precede "how" questions. This mental quandary that occurs with grief can feel consuming at times. You might be asking, "Why did this happen? Why me? How will my life be different? How will it be the same?"

• You will likely question your philosophy of life and explore what really matters to you as you work on this mourning need.

• Remember that having faith or spirituality does not eliminate your need to mourn. Even if you believe in an afterlife of some kind, you and this child have still lost precious time together here on Earth. It's normal to feel dumbfounded and angry at God or whatever source within the universe you may believe has permitted this to happen.

• Ultimately, you may decide that there is no answer to the question "Why did this happen?" For some parents the only answer is this: Miscarriage does not make sense and it never will.

CARPE DIEM

Start a list of "why" questions that have surfaced for you since your miscarriage. Find a friend or counselor who will explore (not tritely answer) these questions with you and help you arrive at your own answers over time. Encourage your partner to do the same.

9.

UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need 6. Receive ongoing support from others

"You must be at the end of your rope. I felt a tug."

— Unknown

• As mourners we need the love and understanding of others as we move through our grief toward healing.

• Don't feel ashamed by your heightened dependence on others right now. If your miscarriage was recent, you may feel the need to be around people all the time. You might feel compelled to talk about the pregnancy often. You may need help with day-to-day tasks that you have no energy for right now, such as getting meals together, doing laundry, or completing paperwork. Rather than feel bad about this, take comfort in the knowledge that others care about you.

• Unfortunately, our society places too much value on "carrying on" and "doing well" after a loss. So, mourners are often abandoned by their friends and family soon after a loss. This is especially true after miscarriage because many don't appreciate that it is a significant and painful loss. And sometimes family and friends avoid encounters because they don't know what to say.