grimley1968
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2005
- Messages
- 5,779
Just reading up a little on the last few pages of posts ...
Susan, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend's miscarriage. As my wife and I have experienced 4 times (5 if you count a pair of twins lost extremely early), miscarriages are brutal. We even lost one at about 4 months, well after most miscarriages occur. We even knew the sex and everything of that one. We even knew she had a slight chromosomal abnormality that probably would not have affected her intellect.
In our experience, we could have used more of our friends' ears more than anything else. People kept bringing by food, flowers, etc. That was nice, but people didn't really want to talk about it, and acted pretty uncomfortable when we would reference it at all. I found that a little bizarre. It's sort of a no-man's land: you're supposed to feel sad, but not grieve too much. You are told that it's not the same as losing someone who actually was born into the world. That was a hard pill to swallow with the loss of our girl at 4 months gestation. We were thinking of names for her before the miscarriage.
Fortunately, for us, DW's last pregnancy was a success and our nearly 4 YO younger DD, Sydney is proof. That, more than anything else, eased the pain of all the miscarriages suffered between having our two beauties. The one redeeming aspect of all those miscarriages was that it was enough of of a sample for us to narrow down the exact reason they were occurring. DW was able to take a prescription for some hormone, and that did the trick in allowing us to have Sydney, although it made DW's morning sickness worse than it otherwise would have been.
Whether people will admit it or not, one thing that definitely affects how devastating a miscarriage can be is how far along the pregnancy was. I know this sounds bad, but the one we lost at 4 months was much, much, much harder than the ones we lost at 6 or 7 weeks. Another factor is whether the parents already have kids. We only had one miscarriage before having Maddy, then a bunch between Maddy & Sydney. The one we had before Maddy was extra sad because we didn't yet know if we'd ever have any kids.
This is, of course, a man's POV, who did not have to endure surgery every time a miscarriage occurred.
Whether or not your friend decides to try again, the best thing you can for her, IMHO, is to be there and listen.
Susan, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend's miscarriage. As my wife and I have experienced 4 times (5 if you count a pair of twins lost extremely early), miscarriages are brutal. We even lost one at about 4 months, well after most miscarriages occur. We even knew the sex and everything of that one. We even knew she had a slight chromosomal abnormality that probably would not have affected her intellect.
In our experience, we could have used more of our friends' ears more than anything else. People kept bringing by food, flowers, etc. That was nice, but people didn't really want to talk about it, and acted pretty uncomfortable when we would reference it at all. I found that a little bizarre. It's sort of a no-man's land: you're supposed to feel sad, but not grieve too much. You are told that it's not the same as losing someone who actually was born into the world. That was a hard pill to swallow with the loss of our girl at 4 months gestation. We were thinking of names for her before the miscarriage.
Fortunately, for us, DW's last pregnancy was a success and our nearly 4 YO younger DD, Sydney is proof. That, more than anything else, eased the pain of all the miscarriages suffered between having our two beauties. The one redeeming aspect of all those miscarriages was that it was enough of of a sample for us to narrow down the exact reason they were occurring. DW was able to take a prescription for some hormone, and that did the trick in allowing us to have Sydney, although it made DW's morning sickness worse than it otherwise would have been.
Whether people will admit it or not, one thing that definitely affects how devastating a miscarriage can be is how far along the pregnancy was. I know this sounds bad, but the one we lost at 4 months was much, much, much harder than the ones we lost at 6 or 7 weeks. Another factor is whether the parents already have kids. We only had one miscarriage before having Maddy, then a bunch between Maddy & Sydney. The one we had before Maddy was extra sad because we didn't yet know if we'd ever have any kids.
This is, of course, a man's POV, who did not have to endure surgery every time a miscarriage occurred.
Whether or not your friend decides to try again, the best thing you can for her, IMHO, is to be there and listen.