Early miscarriage

The future

Once the first shock of it all is over, you’ll slowly start to feel able to look ahead. But don’t do that too quickly – you need to finish mourning your lost baby.

You may want to mark the event as you would the loss of an older child, with a memorial service or a burial – one friend of mine planted a rose bush over the spot in the garden where the remains of her miscarried baby lie.

Doing all this will make it much easier for you to move on – and your next step will almost certainly, in time, be to try to get pregnant again. [And] here there’s lots of good news. As Ruth Bender Atik, director of the Miscarriage Association, says, ‘Most women who miscarry do not miscarry again’.

So expect to go on to have a normal pregnancy. Yes, check with your doctor about when it’s wise to try again. And yes, try to keep healthy, with a good diet, exercise, folic acid – and all the other things that will help you have a healthy baby.

Above all, avoid stress – Emma Thompson famously eased back on her workload, after years of trying for a child and suffering a miscarriage. She and her partner Greg Wise are now proud parents of daughter Jane.

When you have the child you long for, you may still need to remember your miscarriage. One couple I know mark the anniversary every year. ‘It may feel as if we’re stuck in the past,’ explained Lynne. ‘But by marking the anniversary of what happened, we honour the death of our child – just as we would if she had grown up to be a little girl, instead of a seven week old baby.’

See also:
Miscarriage: Why did it happen to me?
Grieving after miscarriage
Ectopic pregnancies

Books

Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss by John R Sussman, (Taylor Publishing)
Motherhood after Miscarriage by Kathleen Diamond (Bob Adams Inc Publishers)