Helping a grieving Mother

~Courteous people are empathetic-able to relate emotionally to the feelings of others. They listen closely to what people say. They observe what is going on around them and register what they see. A self centered person might say ,"I know exactly how you feel" to someone in a traumatic situation and then immediately start describing his own experiences. An empathetic person is more likely to say something like, "I can't know how you feel right now, but I can understand your grief [or anger or sadness]. And if you want to talk about it I'm here to listen." -Emily Post Etiquette 17th Edition, Peggy Post~

When a pregnancy loss occurs the stories of others losses often come out of the wood work. While there is nothing wrong with sharing your personal story of grief and recovery with a mother whose world has just fallen apart there are some ways to go about it that are better than others.

In my own experience I had many people who approached me and told me how sorry they were to hear of my loss and that they knew how I felt, they had loss a pregnancy also. While I smiled and listened to their condolences I really wanted to tell them they had know way of knowing how I felt. They could understand part of they sadness, the anger, the longing in my heart but their experiences were not the same as mine. Except online I did not encounter a woman who had lost a child due to my condition (a cervix that is too week to hold a baby to term). Most of the women that told me their stories had miscarried very early and after having had one or two children. I do not discount their grief, however, that is a very different experience from your first and second children being carried almost to a point that they could have survived, and holding them in your arms.

The best condolence I received was after my first loss when a neighbor of mine who had experience seven early miscarriages had stopped at my house for something. During the course of our conversation she told me that she didn't know how I did it (dealt with the grief of losing a baby at nearly five months along), all the while I could not imagine being her losing one baby after another and having no idea why my body would not hold a pregnancy for more than a few weeks.

God gives us special graces to deal with our individual circumstances and will never allow us to go through more than we can handle at one time, even if it seems we are 10 inches over our head at the time. That is a grace for our life and our trial though and does not mean we can know what the person next to us is feeling, experiences such as these even effect spouses in profoundly different ways. If you find yourself giving condolences to someone who has just lost a pregnancy a shoulder to cry on is the best first offer, let them talk about their grief, and if they are open to it you can use your experience to help them to work through their grief.

My own response to pregnancy loss veries at this time. I will often gauge it on how well I know the person. Most people who know me know my story so I do not even have to tell them my experience. I do offer condolences, a shoulder to cry on (or a in-box to vent to). I also offer ideas to memorialize the pregnancy and/or books to read that can be helpful. From there I allow the other person to take the lead.

I Would Die For That

This video is so touching if you have had any experience with infertility or long for a child at all.

My husband and I often tell people that Olivia is our miracle baby or that she was a long time coming. Often times people do not really understand what we are saying. We started trying to conceive in December 1999, two years later I finally became pregnant. We were twenty at the time we started it was very frustrating to be told to be patient when our Friends were on birth control and getting pregnant. We were so happy to get the news that we were having a baby. Unfortunately at 19 weeks into the pregnancy I went to the bathroom to discover that I had bulging bag of waters. We rushed to the nearest hospital and found out that there was nothing that could be done the pregnancy was over. Our first baby girl Desiray was still-born 15 hours later.

It took 18 months for us to conceive again. In that time there had been no confirmation as to what had caused my first pregnancy to end and I had about seven different doctors in that time frame (you gotta love the military). I was diagnosed with PCOS which is a condition where you do not ovulate on a regular basis. I was just about to start taking Clomid to help me ovulate when we found out I was pregnant for a second time. Since we had no idea what had gone wrong with the first pregnancy we were very scared about this one. I put my self on a modified bed rest and everything was going very well. I was sent to a high risk Dr who stated that losing a pregnancy at 19 wks was a one in a million chance and it would not happen again. That was at 14 wks, according to every Dr I have spoken to since my chances of wining the lottery are better. Seven weeks later at 21 wks I was in the hospital in pre-term labor. When the Dr checked me I was 75% effaced and 3-4 cm dilated. At that point there is still a chance if the Dr does the right stuff....my Dr did not. I was left sitting up in a hospital bed all night, the next morning our second daughter, Madilyn Rose, was born. She was with us for a while, I don't even know how long I just know that I cherish every minute that I held her in my arms. It was at this time that I was diagnosed as having a possible incompetent cervix. My cervix cannot hold the weight of a baby and carry it to term so it opens up early and without medical intervention I cannot carry a baby full term.
Eight weeks after Madilyn was born we moved from England back to the US. When we got settled in we applied to be foster parents because adoption is something that is really on our heart and we felt that going through foster care was the best way to do it. While adoption is still something we feel lead to do we have put it aside for now.
We also started doing fertility treatments. Metformin for treating PCOS and Clomid to help me ovulate. I lost count of how many cycles I did but we were at the end of the rope on that rout and insurance does not pay for any more that that so we had some decisions to makes. We were pretty sure my body just had its own timing for ovulating and I would be pregnant in Dec 05 Jan 06 but then my husband got orders to deploy to leave in Jan 06 and I did not get pregnant in Dec 05 so I was pretty sure I would not see a baby for years to come.
While my husband was deployed it was a healing time for both of us. All of the years of trying to have a baby and losing babies had really put a lot of stress on us and the time apart really did us some good. And DH was in a war zone so it put life into perspective for him as there were a couple of times he was not sure if he was coming home or not. He was suppose to be gone until Aug 06 but got sent home in May instead. When he returned we just enjoyed each other for a few weeks and then I went to the Dr to get a referral to the infertility Dr again so that we could start trying for our baby again. While I was there I asked her if she could do a pregnancy test on the off chance that I could be pregnant because there was no point in me making an appointment if I was just going to have to cancel it. She ran the test and the next morning she called me to tell me it was positive. I couldn't believe it, I wasn't even late yet for that cycle. We were thrilled and understandably very scared at the same time. We put our baby in Gods hands because it was by the grace of God that we were even having one considering that my husband was still suppose to be half way around the world at the time. I had a cerclage placed at 14 wks and had really an ideal pregnancy until about 30 wks when I started having some symptoms of pre-term labor. At that time I started working half days and went on modified bed rest (no house work, no extended shopping trips, no heavy lifting, ect.) and I had very little signs of per-term labor after that. At 38 wks my cerclage was removed and a week later I delivered our third baby girl Olivia Faith (bringer of peace and the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen) a healthy 7 lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long with no complications during the delivery.