| Early miscarriage
One minute you’re going to be a mum, next minute it’s all over. Susan Quilliam on coping with the emotional aftermath of an unborn loss You may have seen Martine McCutcheon in the papers recently, making her stunning debut in the musical, My Fair Lady, in London. But two years ago, in December 1999, Martine was in the news for a different reason – when her pregnancy ended in sudden miscarriage. ‘It's hard to deal with,’ she said at the time. Martine's not alone. 60% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, the vast majority very early on. Though it happens often, it’s still – as Martine found out – an incredibly upsetting experience. Because miscarriage is a bereavement, however early it happens. The loss In general, the longer a woman has known she’s pregnant and, especially if she's seen ultrasound scans of her baby, the more likely she is to feel the loss. Even if you’ve only been aware of your baby for a few days, you’re still likely to go through all the classic stages of bereavement. So you’ll feel upset, shocked, helpless and out of control. You may try to block out the grief by denying anything’s wrong. You may also, more surprisingly, feel angry – maybe at the doctors for not spotting a problem earlier, or maybe at yourself because you suspect that something you did caused the problem. When Lauren Booth, Cherie’s sister, had a miscarriage at twelve weeks, it left her wondering whether her ‘Chardonnay and cigarette’ lifestyle was to blame – she’s since become a health fanatic. All of this won’t be helped by the fact that your hormones will be plummeting because you’ve been pregnant. Your feelings can be even more confused if you weren’t really sure that you wanted the baby – because you may fear you did something unconsciously to harm it. So it’s vital to get support right from the start – from your GP, or perhaps your health visitor or midwife, if one has been assigned to you. They can help you talk things through and, if necessary, they’ll refer you to a counsellor.
Alternatively, you can find help and support on the iVillage miscarriage message board and the Miscarriage Association also has a helpline, an information service and a network of volunteers who have been through miscarriage and can support you. You and your partner You may also be able to get support from your partner – he may be devastated too – a recent study in the British Journal of Medical Psychology suggests that 87% of male partners feel grief-stricken after a miscarriage. Further, they may actually not be able to express that grief. They may be keeping a stiff upper lip and pushing the feelings down. They may feel they have to be strong for you. They may lose themselves in their work – leaving you feeling abandoned. Or they may try to shrug off the upset and ‘carry on as normal’ – the last thing you want. So it’s vital to talk about your grief to your partner. Tell him how you feel and let him feel the grief too. OK, he may react differently – men are more likely to be upset at the physical trauma you’ve gone through and less likely to feel emotionally attached to the baby. But he does need your support, just the same, to heal. How about the other people around you? You may hold back from explaining to your other children what’s happening – but they may need to know. It can be frightening, particularly for a child who’s old enough to realise that something’s wrong, if they don’t know what’s happening. So offer an explanation aimed at the right level – little ones just need a sentence or two – and, yes, keep it simple. Above all, make sure the child understands that it’s not their fault that ‘mummy hasn’t got a baby in her tummy any more’. It hasn’t happened because they’ve been naughty or bad in some way. When it comes to other adults, the main problem may be that they don’t know how to support you. So they fall back on ignoring the problem, not mentioning it, or brushing it away with ‘don’t worry, you can have another...’
The thing to realise here is that such people aren’t deliberately setting out to hurt you – they’re only behaving like this because they don’t know what else to do. So the best way to handle them is to tell them clearly what to do. If you want to talk about anything other than your miscarriage, say so. If you want to talk about it non-stop, ask them to listen. Given something to do that will help you, most people [will] willingly rise to the challenge. 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: Books Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss by John R Sussman, (Taylor Publishing) |