Some Thoughts on Miscarriage

After reading this blog post, I got to thinking.  What follows began as a comment on that blog and has become a blog post all its own.

I truly believe that some of us feel we have to suffer our grief over a miscarriage in silence, because we have little or nothing by way of mementos.  If we had a child who died after being born, we would have photos and keepsakes.  A child who dies in utero, especially one who passes in the first trimester, is seen by some as "less than" and we as the parents are expected to just agree and get on with our lives.
I know that I make people uncomfortable with my unwillingness to pretend this child never existed in my life.  When people ask if I have any children, I often respond with, "None living."  I will mention having been pregnant, and someone will say that they didn't know I had a child, and I tell them that she died before she was born.  I don't pussy-foot around to make others feel better.  This child, my child, existed and I refuse to pretend otherwise.  I don't go around with a bullhorn announcing my loss to the world, either.  I don't often bring up the subject on my own, but I am more than happy to talk about it with anyone who wishes to do so.  I will definitely talk freely with someone else who has lost a child - we all need to know that we are not alone.

My daughter (lost to miscarriage at 10 weeks) has a name.  She has a date that is forever "hers" in my mind - the day I miscarried.  She left my body on that day and that is, to me, her birthday and her deathday.  The day that was my due date used to be an extremely difficult day for me, but that one has gotten easier to deal with.  The biggest reason her due date bothers me as much as it does is that it was also my grandmother's birthday, and I often wish that my daughter had lived to share birthday parties with her great-grandmother (my grandmother passed on in 2008, shortly after her 85th birthday and what would have been my daughter's fourth birthday).