Misconceptions about Miscarriage
(Excerpt taken from When Mourning Comes,Living Through Loss, © Chuck and Eileen Rife. Used by permission.)
October
is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month. If
you or someone you know has experienced the loss of a baby, please know that my
heart hurts with you. Often miscarriage is a misunderstood loss. Because the
medical profession still does not fully know why miscarriages occur, the event
is shrouded in mystery. When I experienced the loss of two babies at four
months gestation, I experienced all the varying emotions of grief: shock,
denial, anger, and sadness.
A woman may succumb to several
misconceptions surrounding her miscarriage. (CFP comments: I believe this can apply to premature births, also.)
I
did something to cause the miscarriage.
Guilt is a common feeling among
women who have miscarried. They tend to blame themselves for the event. If only
I hadn't lifted that heavy box or painted the bedroom. If only I had eaten more
vegetables. If only I hadn't jogged on Wednesday, this would not have happened.
The truth is, in the majority of cases, the miscarriage or spontaneous abortion
was beyond the woman's control. Her body expelled the baby because there was
either an abnormality in the fetus, her uterus was malformed, an infection was
present, or a host of other reasons the medical profession has not yet
discovered. Blaming herself will only keep her stuck in the past and prolong
her grieving.
I
am a failure.
A woman often suffers a lowered
self-image due to her thoughts regarding the miscarriage. She mistakenly feels
that she failed herself because of certain expectations she has concerning the
pregnancy and motherhood in general. She feels she has failed her husband and
family. This, of course, is untrue as she had no control over the response of
her body. She may fear future pregnancies because she is uncertain as to how
her body will react. She feels out of control.
Once
the miscarriage is over, I can get on with life as usual.
I tried to do this after our first
miscarriage, picking up with my housework and daily responsibilities as if
nothing had happened. Underlying feelings of anger and sadness kept churning
within me, affecting my relationship with my husband, Chuck, until months later
I finally spewed them out before the Lord, which opened the door to my
emotional healing.
A woman needs to grieve her loss
fully. Often the losses that occur suddenly with no warning, as with a
miscarriage, are the hardest to deal with. She needs to talk her feelings out
with God in prayer and in writing. She also need to share her feelings with her
husband and with a trusted friend. Sometimes, another woman who has had a
similar experience can be of help and comfort.
A
man does not feel any pain associated with the loss.
A woman needs to recognize that her
husband is grieving in his own way, too. He may be hesitant to express his
feelings, because he feels the need to be strong for his wife and keep the
function of work and home going while she is recovering. During our first
miscarriage, I was so absorbed in my own pain that I did not see Chuck's hurt.
I even vented my anger on him, accusing him of not feeling the loss or caring
about the baby. In truth, he was hurting, too. Since he was not physically
attached to the baby as I was, he could not fully relate to the empty feeling
of losing a part of himself. First, he grieved for my hurt and pain. Secondly,
he grieved the loss of our child.
I (Chuck) shielded my feelings from
Eileen in hopes of easing her discomfort when, in actuality, I needed to face
the pain honestly and talk through the feelings with her. Honest sharing would
eliminate the distance between us, pulling us together as we worked through a
common grief. Since I lost my job two weeks before our second miscarriage, our
grief was compounded. We had two major losses to grieve. As a man, my role as
provider was threatened which affected my significance. I was busy
re-establishing my identity when we were side-swiped by the miscarriage. When I
saw Eileen in such physical pain at the hospital, I felt powerless and
helpless. I was afraid she might die. There was nothing I could do but tell her
I loved her and pray for her and the baby. Once she returned home from the
hospital, I had to keep the household machinery running while she recovered
physically and emotionally. I couldn’t give myself permission to fully grieve
until I met the needs of the family in front of me.
Sometimes, a man needlessly
shoulders the responsibility for the miscarriage and goes overboard trying to
make things up to his wife. While kind deeds are helpful, open sharing is even
more healing after the loss. He needs to express his fears and doubts so that
their future relationship together will not be hampered. Sharing creates
strength in the marriage and acts like a glue, bonding the couple together.
Eileen and I have found that writing our thoughts and feelings down is an
effective way of expressing grief when emotions are fresh and unrefined.
In my (Eileen) novel, Chosen Ones,
Yvonne and Dan experience the heartbreak of miscarriage with many of the
dynamics mentioned above at play in their story.
Eileen's newest book Second Chance released in 2012.
Giveaway: choice of any of Eileen's books to the winner. Must post the link to this post up on Facebook or Twitter (click on the title of the post up top and then go to the URL in the while line above on the computer and copy that and paste that onto your FB post.)
