Three years on from my last miscarriage, the easiest way to talk about our journey in becoming parents is to just lay it out: I have two children, but I’ve been pregnant six times.
There is no greater conversation stopper than telling someone that you have lost a baby. We have so many superficial interactions as we plod along through our day-to-day lives. Miscarriage is not something anyone really wants to talk about while you’re trying to open a buggy in front of the kindergarten while simultaneously fishing a snack out of your handbag. It can be hard to find meaningful time to talk.
Even now, I don’t feel qualified to talk about miscarriage. I don’t feel it’s my place to make sweeping statements about what should and shouldn’t be said. I only know my own experience and as someone who does like to talk, these are things I have found hard to talk about.
Nobody talks about how long miscarriage takes. For me, my earlier miscarriages were like long, horrible periods. For the later ones, I had to wait until I could go into hospital and deliver the babies. Neither my body nor my brain could understand that I wasn’t pregnant for weeks afterwards. I felt very confused and lost. This is when I needed the dinners dropped off, when I couldn’t talk, when there was nothing to say.
Nobody talks about how parenting while you’re grieving is almost impossible. Miscarrying with a toddler in the background isn’t much fun, or as it happened later to us, miscarrying with two preschoolers bouncing around and needing snacks and clean clothes and dinner when all I wanted to do was stand like a zombie in the kitchen eating cereal out of the pack, was also impossible. This was when I turned on the TV and let them have dance parties while I sat on the sofa with a hot water bottle and belted out Baby Shark.
Nobody talks about how the grief you’re experiencing isn’t just your own. For us, we almost had to take our grief in shifts, like we did with sleep when we had a newborn. There was still work, dinners to make, socks to remember for kindergarten, and potty training to master. This was when I was so grateful to see people checking in on my husband too.
Nobody talks about how hard it is to lose baby weight when there is no baby. I know I should love my body for the children it has given me, but things get more complicated when there is no baby and you’re left with empty arms and a saggy tummy. I’m still working on this one.
Nobody talks about how the would-be due date is the weirdest anniversary in the world. I have never seen as many pregnant women and newborns as I did around the due dates of the babies who didn’t make it. This is a day that I found impossible to plan for. How are you supposed to plan for a day when you don’t know how you’re supposed to feel? Go for dinner? Spa day? Duvet day on the sofa? I tried all of them.
Nobody talks about how you don’t love a baby less if you lose it before the 12th week. We wanted our babies, we were excited about them and the more pregnancies I’ve had, the more I’ve realized that not telling anyone about the pregnancy before the 12-week mark kept it harder for others to understand the grief we felt. Telling people about the pregnancy before then, of course, is a very personal decision. I’m happy I confided in people who shared our excitement for the weeks we enjoyed those pregnancies.
Nobody talks about how there are things you learn from this. I have learnt that there is no such thing as an expert in miscarriage. Most of the time, doctors don’t know why they happen. Friends don’t know what to say. Nobody has any answers. Therapy helps.
Nobody tells you that your experience of miscarriage is unlike anyone else’s. Nobody can tell you how you feel or make you feel better. Nobody has the right to minimise your grief by telling you about how someone else had it worse. It sucks for everyone.
We don’t always get to talk about our babies. In May 2018 I lost a baby boy at 16 weeks. His name was Eamonn and I’ll always be grateful I got to hold him and tell him how perfect he was.
We teach our children that every family looks different, ours doesn’t look the way we’d hoped it would, but it’s pretty perfect the way it is.
BIO:
Maeve Nic Samhradáin is originally from Ireland. She has been a member of the Vienna Family Network for the last ten years and volunteers as the Newsletter Editor and serves on the Steering Committee. She works as an administrator, has two children, and two cats, and is married to Colin who is English and very nice indeed.
The Vienna Family Network has a support group for Stillbirth, pregnancy loss, and miscarriage in Vienna. There are monthly online meetings with qualified therapists. You do not need to be a member of the Vienna Family Network to join.