Chris, Thank you for setting this forum. I had considered doing something similar in the midst of my experience. I had never experienced agony and grief in this capacity before and nothing compared to what my wife was going through. Most of my family hasn't heard this story.
Joy - baby #2 was in the oven - We began to dream about this child, As do all expecting Mothers and Fathers. Will they be a boy or a girl? What will they look like? How can I be prepared? What will they be when they grow up?
Instantly our love grew, even greater following a first look during an ultrasound @ 6 weeks.
She started spotting, we called the doctor, they told us everything should be fine.
It continued for 2 more weeks and I insisted My wife be seen by a doctor. They did an ultrasound
Generally the Tech is friendly and talks to you about what you're seeing on the ultrasound machine.
Not Today. Today he was quiet because there was no heartbeat detected
We were presented with 2 options, D&C and Chemical
We chose Chemical, they wrote the prescription and we went home.
She went to bed and I made the dreaded phone calls. We had only shared with immediate family due to the 12 week rule. We had never considered it would be us in this situation. Nobody we knew had ever miscarried, we believed.
Family, Doctors, friends
Nobody prepared myself and my wife for the physical experience that my wife was about to endure while I watched.
Packing salt on the wounds
The doctors recommendation once the baby and sack passed was TO FLUSH IT.
So She took the pill and we waited. Relying on google - We discovered that My wife was going to have an extremely physically and emotionally painful experience.
And I could only bear witness.
I scooped the sack from the toilet and froze it.
We would not flush our child, no matter how small.
The state of NJ doesn't engage in Cremation without a certificate of death. Certificates are not issued unless the baby was 20 weeks or older.
We were left in a position where we needed to perform the cremation, which we did
As we became more open about our experience and began to read.
As it turns out Miscarriage is fairly common. Family members and Co-workers who need to know shared their experiences.
That doesn't lessen the hurt from the apathetic folk saying things like
"it just wasn't meant to be" "that's gods plan"" It was only 7 weeks old, its not even a baby yet"
To us it was.
Gentlemen, I am not here to tell you it's easy or that it wont happen again.
What I can say is that myself and many others have felt your grief
We have sucked it up in front of others and our other children
We have tightened our boots and held our chins high for the woman in our lives knowing our pain is just a fraction of hers
We have all had to remind ourselves to stop dreaming about the child that is no longer here.
You will never forget your angel
Just like all things in life, this too my brother will pass
-Eamonn
Hi Eamonn
Have to agree with what Chris has said. We lost our baby when my wife was 16 weeks pregnant. It easily has been the worst month and a half of my life. My wife had to give birth to our Unborn child and she had to get rushed to emergency surgery for a two litre blood transfusion and four litres of plasma she could easily have died that day. I had to hold my unborn child Rowan not knowing what to do I felt so helpless and alone for that time was so hard to process. We have had the funeral since.
Hi Eamonn
Have to agree with what Chris has said. We lost our baby when my wife was 16 weeks pregnant. It easily has been the worst month and a half of my life. My wife had to give birth to our Unborn child and she had to get rushed to emergency surgery for a two litre blood transfusion and four litres of plasma she could easily have died that day. I had to hold my unborn child Rowan not knowing what to do I felt so helpless and alone for that time was so hard to process. We have had the funeral since.
Good Evening Eamonn,
Firstly, let me say how sorry I am to read this story regarding the loss of yours and your partners child. Nothing can ever prepare anyone for this.
Apologies that it has taken a while for me to get back to you on here also.
The love for a baby starts from day 1 of finding out, as does the excitement of wondering what is next and what do we do now? and it can be so cruelly ripped away from us in seconds.
I found telling people of our loss the hardest, i made out that it was part and parcel of life, whilst inside i was screaming out to just admit how i really felt, devastated.
You are 100% right in what you have wrote with regards to those 'apathetic folk' - those comments are the absolute worse, as it doesn't matter if it is day 2 of pregnancy or week 20 of the pregnancy, the expecting parents still feel the same grief.
your post is going to resonate with so many people that will visit the site, so I really appreciate you opening up and sharing your story.
I 100% agree that our partners should be our primary focus whilst this horrific scenario is happening, but it doesn't mean that we also shouldn't take time for ourselves.
Thanks Eamonn, look after yourself.
Chris