Truthfully, perinatal grief due to miscarriage can be hard to comprehend for someone who has never experienced it. Part of me has this unrealistic expectation that people should “get it“, that they should understand the emotional and physical toll a miscarriage has on a woman, on a family. People should get it, but every so often I am taken to task when I talk about my grief, my pain and the children I was never able to meet face-to-face.
I hear from people — usually well-meaning, that what I have been through “was just a miscarriage”. That for some reason that makes my pain less. I hear that I should be happy I wasn’t “further along” that I didn’t really “know my baby” and I shouldn’t “let it” bother me.
My children and my experiences are more than “just” a miscarriage.
To me, it is a deeper understanding of pain, of joy, of loss and of life. It is a new understanding of empathy, of supporting others and a new normal that I now live with. It is little lives that I never got to know, dreams that were never fulfilled and an innocence that I will never get back.
There are days where I don’t give it too much though and then in the next moment, the feelings can feel so raw and new that I am transported right back to the very moment.
Please stop saying that it was “just a miscarriage” there is no “just” when it comes to lifelong heartbreak.
Photo credit: adapted from Focx Photography/Flickr
{Your Thoughts}