DeannaLife goes on even if your pregnancy doesn’t. I had to go back to work, face all those students, deal with questions.
I was in a bunko group, and four of us were pregnant. We all joked we’d have to forego the dice game for several meetings to have baby showers instead!
After losing Casey, I decided to quit the group. Some things I just couldn’t handle. I didn’t go to any of their baby showers either. I had no desire to torture myself.
Still, I couldn’t always be protected. A few months after the loss we went to a bar–a BAR–to meet up with some old college friends for homecoming. I felt it would be safe. No one brings babies to bars! (Remember Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama? That’s a good movie about pregnancy loss, by the way, and how the couple didn’t cope, then figure things out…)
We’re standing in the parking lot just outside the patio as it is so crowded with UT alum. Everyone is laughing and talking. No one knows about the baby–these are people we haven’t seen in years, so I could escape a bit. We’re having fun!
Then up walks one of my bunko friends with her baby! I couldn’t believe it! Here was an infant, the same age as mine should have been, all gurgly and cooing and dressed up. They were showing him off!
I promptly began this horrible hysterical crying, sobs and hiccups and dry heaves, then threw up behind a car.
Let everyone think I was drunk. Fine by me. Stupid people bringing a baby to a bar.
Okay; still have some latent hostility. Deep breaths.
So, there are all sorts of these kinds of things that might happen in the weeks and months following a loss. I’m going to try in include as many of them in the book as I can, such as:
- Baby shower invite
- Going back to work
- Seeing ex with a baby or pregnant new love
- Sister is pregnant
- Around pregnant women not taking care of themselves
- Around parents who mistreat children
- Baptisms at church
Did anything happen to you that you could share? Or can you think of other social situations I should include?
How about when one of the women in the group does successfully become pregnant and her apprehension at sharing the news with those still greiving?
This is extreme, okay, but my sil had a miscarriage at 11 weeks when her boyfriend was in jail for a DUI. No one knew it. She believed she was pregnant, and even gained weight. She had a shower that my mil attended stating she felt the baby kick. My sil’s due date passed and no baby. My in-laws went down to visit and see what was really going on, and on the way, they got a phone call from a friend who said their daughter was in the hospital. They headed to the hospital and found her not in the labor and delivery area, but in the psych area. She voluntarily checked herself in after going to the er saying she was in labor. In reality, there was no longer a baby and she was not in labor at all. She had a legitimate disorder and was treated. Jump ahead to my pregnancy, we decided not to tell her just as we had not told any other family. At 16 weeks, I then lost the baby, and we didn’t share this with her at all. I then had my next miscarriage Oct. 22 (two months later). We had a get together for Halloween, and I was called by my SIL, she was pregnant, and “could you bring maternity clothes for me to borrow.” I packed up what I had, and went to the get together. It was so hard to give her those clothes, she was about 18 weeks along…just beyond when I lost my CJ. After the party, we went to my in laws house and she showed us a video of her sonogram, taken a few weeks earlier. I was seeing her baby at just about the same age as I had seen CJ still on the monitor. It was so very hard. I didn’t want to say anything to her about my miscarriage so as not to scare her, but I hurt inside. I think this is a rare and extreme case, so don’t know how it would apply to a book…but thought I would share. I eventually did tell her of my mc and didn’t share the timing so she wouldn’t figure out the torture I was going through when she showed her video.
Also, I previously wrote about the class picnic in the early summer, I was pregnant along with a group of other women (wives or classmates of my husband’s). At my husband’s college graduation, women were showing off the babies and I tried to be strong. I walked up to them and wanted to say how cute the babies were. They looked at me with a faint recognition, but went on oohhing and ahhhing all together. I walked away and went to my seat…and cried. I felt bad for my husband as this was his big day and I was drawing attention to myself, crying. I thought I was strong and not jealous, and really didn’t feel jealous. I just felt a great grief and pain…not anger, not feeling it unfair, white hot hurt. I was very embarrassed on top of that.
About 5 months after my 1st m/c, one month before my due date, a girl we used to hire to do freelance work came in to my office. I didn’t know her very well, but spoke with her on the phone a lot. I didn’t remember ever telling her I was pregnant. She walked into my office, patted my belly and asked how the baby was. I nearly fainted! I stammered out that I’d had a miscarriage. She looked embarrassed, apologized, and left. I went to the bathroom and burst into tears. I’m overweight, so she evidently thought my fat was the baby.
1. I was due around February the 7th (my birthday) and so was my cousins wife. So her birth was bitter-sweet to me. I loved meeting the baby but yes it did hurt a lot.
2. I had an appointment with OB/GYN after the loss and they scheduled me on one the busiest days. I was sitting in a sea of woman in their seventh and eighth months, I fell apart in the middle of the room.. it was so quit all you could hear was me sobbing. The nurse called me back pretty quick after they noticed but never admitted how inconsiderate that was to do to a grieving mother.
3. I got baby catalogs and when I called to cancel them they sent me two.
What about family members who had m/c’s a long time ago (and now have children) who want you to “get over it” because they did?
Mothers’ Day at church is still a big problem for me. They want all the mothers to come forward for their gift. It’s not that I want the usually cheesy gift, but am I a mother or not?
When you get pg, our health plan has a nurse call you every 2 months to see if you have questions and how you’re doing. With the first call after the m/c, I told them that I’d lost the baby. When they called again a few months later, I became hysterical. When I talked to the supervisor, she became angry with me and said she’d had an m/c too and there was no need for me to act that way!
Seeing a family member’s children (beautiful little girls) always show up to family events with fancy dresses on, but the girls are dirty and the dresses are torn, makes me angry. I have to control my spending because I want to buy them beautiful outfits that my children will never wear, but I know they’ll just end up the same way. Since my first m/c they’ve had 2 more children for a total of 5. I had a party when she had her tubes tied.
Oooh. The girls in the pregnancy loss group will have to do something wicked fun for Mother’s Day so they can manage. I’ll have to think of something!
Spa day?
Maybe the women can go up in solidarity at a church…to get their gifts. It’s possible for one of them to start a new tradition in their area, a day of recognition of mothers forgotten. Wow. I am one obnoxious mom with five kids and I cannot believe how forgetful we can sometimes be of the women who really and truly are mothers…and no one knows but them and a few close family/friends.
Our church had a panel on Mother’s Day this year. One woman had 10 kids born and four miscarriages, one had just had her first child, one had struggled with infertility and miscarriages and was a teacher but never adopted or birthed a living baby and knew she never would, and one couple had adopted several children. All were recognized as mothers…and all had their time to speak and answer questions.
You could pretty much put that in as is. I had a friend to stay just after mine, somehow neither of us sussed that the fact she had a newborn baby with her would cause any difficulty… geez I was sad.
Just an idea but I’m an artist, I paint illustrated names for kids so my job was pretty harrowing for a while there after my miscarriage. I advertise in pregnancy and birth mags and also in catalogues for pregnancy and birth charities. It’s in my face the whole time. I’m ok with it at the moment but I’ve only had one m/c and I hope to try for a baby again. I suspect things will be entirely different if I end up having another miscarriage – not least because Mr BC isn’t prepared to go through more than two – we were both pretty badly cut up after we lost our little one. I guess this might be a slant on one of your characters maybe – especially if she has more than one miscarriage which, if I do, is certainly where the dynamic will change…..
Cheers
BC
Well, this may be a little unbelieveable to believe but its true. My sister was pregnant or just had her baby when I mc’ed my 2nd and 3rd babies. It was so hard. I was expected to go visit my niece/nephew but was having a hard time. My cousin just had her baby too. I did go but not without jealously.
Also, something awful happened. When I lost my 2nd baby a friend told me she was pregnant. She never was pregnant. She did it for pure spite to find out. I dont know why but its true. We still have to associate but I do it very little.
OOOO–spa day for mother’s day. I like it!
This isn’t really a social thing I guess, but getting maternity catalogs and all the emails I had signed up for from various sites saying “your baby is X weeks old” and showing you pictures of what your developing baby would look like and be doing in that week of pregnancy was absolute torture. I tried to cancel my subscriptions, but some of them kept coming and I sent some VERY nasty emails to those websites.
Seeing an acquaintance who had heard we were pregnant, but not about the miscarriage, at a picnic when I would have been about 6 months along. He said “you don’t even look pregnant, you’d better eat and feed that kid something quick.”
There were three of us pregnant at my office at the same time, all of us due the same month. I lost Aiden at 5 months and returned to work a couple weeks later. 2 months later I walked into one of the baby showers by accident, nobody told me obviously because they didn’t want to hurt me, but walking into it completely blindsided was so much worse — I could have called in sick that day or something! I had to go home as I was hysterically crying and couldn’t handle it anymore. Everyone that was at the shower knew what it done to me when they saw my face and my supervisor said that they were coming to my office all day long to check on me after I left. I thought that was nice, but wished I would have been warned in some way.
Also, a coworker left our office while I was still pregnant and never found out about my loss. Well he called one day and I answered the phone and he congratulated me on the baby, asked how old he was and how he was doing. I was so taken aback by it I just said “I didn’t have a baby. You’re mistaking me with someone else. Who did you need to talk to?” I proceeded to go to the bathroom, ball my eyes out and again, I had to leave to go home. I could not accept the fact that I had just denied my one and only son…what kind of mother was I?
I just had a miscarriage last night and am thinking about going to work tommorrow. My boyfriend is in jail for hanging out wiht STUPID freinds who let him take the fall for drugs. the whole time of this preganancy i have been stressed to no belief. then last night was the ultimate. I went to the hospital with bleeding and cramping. I lost the baby but i couldn’t stay at the hospital. the left me in the labor and delivery ward with all the people having their abies. So i left against medical advice. I told my boyfriend who cried.. in jail. I fet so horrible because i had to tell my children. I feel so lost.
After my second miscarriage two weeks ago, within a timeframe of 9 months (my husband and I have no living children) I discussed surrogacy with my only sister who has one daughter. She flat out stated she would never have another child and was not a candidate for surrogacy for me (IF I needed that type of assistance). I found out today through and email from my mom that she is now happily 8 weeks pregnant.
wow there are some stories here.
i told everyone about my losses and felt no need to hide it but i have found that people forget or just don’t want to talk to you about it after the fact.
when i mc’d aug 06 i told my boss and he allowed me time off. anyway in my due month april we have our manager bring us into a meeting and says he has a surprise and for us to guess so the usual pops up ‘you’ve got another job’, ‘were changing managers’. well i’d seen part of an email to his girlfriend that worked in our company to and she had mentioned being sick and he’d played it off that she had got drunk and was hungover hence being sick….i then guessed and said ‘your girlfriend is pg’ he looked so surprised but said yet it was true so he advised that she was 12 weeks and they were waiting till she was safe. i couldn’t muster a smile and sat down and was a bit snappy. anyway two staff members who were friends then came over and asked what was wrong and it clicked and i said that this was the month my baby would’ve been due so i was really sensitive they were all sympathetic but then walked away fine while i sat there in shock.
i mc’d again feb 07 and me and hubby will continue till we have a baby if i suffer more mc’s then i will but we agreed we’ll do this together i couldn’t bear to think of stopping.
during the time we’ve been ttc i’ve seen 3 family members and at least 6 friends since we mc’d and only a few have talked to me about my babies. i am now ok and love being around babies and pregnant bumps but for a time it was hard to be around pg family and friends. when my cousin’s fiancee found out she got pg just after her hen do they made to keep it quiet till they hit 12 weeks and i managed to find out as my aunty had told my mum and my cousin and his fiancee kicked off at her and made her upset (they apologised later and it was fine in time for the wedding) it was blurted out after the argument that night and i came in on it. when i heard it i just sat down quiet i couldn’t speak all i wanted to do was cry my eyes out that someone else had achieved a pregnancy while i was still fighting to get pg again. were now referred to a fertility clinic so we can have a baby as all i hear every month is ‘have you got any news’.
good luck to those of us still trying. its a long and difficult journey and when we do eventually have our kids then we will tell them of their lost siblings