Week 23?
I've spent some time recently reading blogs of other people hoping to conceive in similar circumstances. Well, I say similar - in fact they're mostly very different. There are some heartbreaking stories out there of still births and babies born who survived only minutes. They're very different from our story because to get that far through pregnancy, and to have to go through birth as well, it seems that you've already bonded with the child and see him or her as a person. Certainly in most of the blogs I've read recently (all, incidentally, written by the mothers concerned - although one has contributions from the father) talk of the child by name and some mention a funeral service of some sort. That really is a million miles from our experience. Mrs T miscarried at only 6 or 7 weeks and we feel we lost an embryo rather than a baby. It was a life - a human life - but not one which either of us felt we needed to grieve over. I'm sure many miscarriages that early happen without the woman ever knowing she was pregnant.
Another theme that crops up in the blogs I've been reading is that of thinking about how old the lost child would be now, and what he or she might be like. I'd not thought about before, but I just looked up our dates and see that Mrs T would be about 23 weeks pregnant now - about half way through - had things not gone wrong. According to the book we started reading that means that the foetus would be about 20cm long ("from head to bum"). It's not something I want to dwell on, and Mrs T certainly hasn't mentioned thinking about it. No - as far as I'm concerned, our first pregnancy failed. It's behind us and we can, to some extent, forget about it.
This may, of course, be very much a male perspective.
6 comments:
I don't think that's an unusual perspective. I just lost a pregnancy very, very early on (about 5 weeks) and while it was sad for me in some ways, I think it had more to do with losing that first glimmer of hope since Joseph died. I didn't think of it as losing another baby.
I think if you were pretending it hadn't happened, that wouldn't be healthy...but you're not doing that.
It's interesting to see a male perspective on these things.
Found you from Lauralu's blog as well.
I have to say that I feel like the "odd one out" in that both of my early miscarriages (7 and 9 weeks, respectively) *did* feel like a big loss to me - the second moreso than the first, granted, since we jumped right back into trying again, but I was still affected by it. (That may be more because I have battled with depression as it is, losses notwithstanding.)
But, I *can* recognize that my losses are not as great of a loss as what those with late loss have experienced. I'd never compare my losses to those who have experienced far worse -- although personally I think comparing pain is not a useful exercise. Everyone's pain is their own. The big thing that I think has changed for me from being a part of this 'circle' (and I am deeply grateful to have these women in my "life") is that for me, I cringe when I see other women tell a pregnant woman "you're past the point where anything can happen" because knowing my blog friends' situations, I know that's not true. It's given me greater compassion for what others have experienced and made me realize how truly lucky some people can be to never experience loss of any kind.
I hope this post makes sense. I'm not trying to dispute anything, just explaining my personal point of view. :)
All of our losses were early as well between 6-7 weeks. In some ways it was different than losing an infant or pregnancy much later but in others it was extremely traumatic.
Everyone feels differently and processes in their own way. You two sound like you have a good handle on your emotions and are open about them. Which is the key. Honestly the first due date was the worst for us. We never thought it would be but it turned out to be really painful.
Miscarriage is the loss of a dream as well as a life. However you find your way to feeling ok about it and heal is a good thing.
Wishing you both the best in whatever comes.
Lisa,
Thanks for your comments. We all feel things differently, I know. I especially liked your comment, "Everyone's pain is their own."
How very true that is. I learned a few years ago that "I know exactly how you feel" is never true. How can we?
Gabe's Mama - all the relevant stuff is in one early entry, "The Big Secret".
We've conceived once without assistance, but only after over four years of trying.
after my recent miscarriage, the loss i felt was the loss of the potential of a child, not of an actual child, like i did after our son was stillborn. i am pretty depressed, but nothing like i was after we lost hans. and yet i think that if i had had an early miscarriage first, it would have been more difficult. i'll never know, i guess.
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