Thanks for creating this webpage and forum - I haven't found any other like it and this is the first time I've felt a real need to share. Apologies if this turns into a bit of a rant...
My wife has been pregnant 6 times now, and all we have to show for it is a needy sausage dog and a whole lot of painful memories.
Our first was at the end of 2018, our son (which I still find hard to say) was diagnosed with a serious brain defect at 20 weeks. We made the heart-wrenching decision to terminate the pregnancy, so my wife had to give birth to a stillborn baby knowing it was our 'choice' to do so. We were then in and out of hospital for months due to bleeding issues and retained tissue.
Since then we have been through 3 miscarriages (2 anembryonic and 1 with a heartbeat which quickly failed, all around 7-8 weeks) and 2 'chemical pregnancies' which we caught as we were testing early. The latest miscarriage was just 2 days ago, my wife goes into surgery this Friday for the forth time. She is terrified, mainly about potential repercussions of multiple surgeries on our ability to have kids at all.
My wife has been going to therapy for months to help with mindfulness and dealing with grief, which has definitely helped, although she has her ups and downs as we all do. So far I haven't, and while our first (who we named Emi) devastated me, I never really took any time off from work or sought out therapy, I guess feeling it was better if I kept myself busy and was there for my wife as much as possible.
For some reason this latest one hit us both hard. I think I had been holding on to the fact that my wife was pregnant almost as a 'get out of jail free' card to compensate the crap we had been through and the general monotony of the pandemic. For the first time I've felt I need to get it all off my chest, my wife and I had a heart to heart yesterday which involved plenty of years, and I went looking for this forum to write it all down.
I'm generally a pretty resilient guy and like to think I deal with stress pretty well. My wife is much more emotional (not necessarily in a bad way). I find it really hard to support her when she feels properly depressed or even spirals into a panic attack, which has happened a couple of times throughout our ordeals.
We are also trying to deal with complicated family issues (but who isn't), including my dad who seems intent on tearing the family apart and a sister in law who shares multiple baby photos on a daily basis. Sometimes it gets a bit much.
I'm not sure what exactly I'm looking for from posting on here, but something was telling me I should scribble it down and share it around, maybe just to see whether others have felt the same and have some top notch way of dealing with it all. I have considered therapy but slightly reluctant and not sure exactly why; I've had mixed experiences with things like coaching at work which I imagine is sort of similar. My natural way of being is to process things myself rather than talk them through (but maybe that's a bad thing?).
Hoping we find a light at the end of the tunnel, but it is feeling like a long one these days. The only one who has benefitted so far is the aforementioned sausage dog, who finally got to sleep in our bed last night as an overly spoilt emotional support pup.
Hey Ollie - I am so sorry for you losses.
I had a different long reply/rant written but something didn't quite work. Maybe it'll still show up eventually.
Either way just wanted to say I relate to just about everything you said - thank you for sharing your story. You sound like you are very resilient, we've had 3 losses and I don't know how I could do another.
Hang in there man, I'm rooting for you. I did find a miscarriage grief group in my area after a lot of searching and it has been really good. If you can find something like that we both found the group talk extremely helpful.
- Brad
Hi Chris,
Thanks for reading and replying to my post, and so sorry to hear about your loss. You're right about the pandemic not helping, I can't even be in the waiting room with my wife before and after her surgery like I was the last 3 times, I have to just drop her off and wait to be told to come back, which makes her even more anxious about the whole thing.
I'll have a look at the blog post you suggest and the other links. We are just taking it day by day at the moment but knowing there is support available is useful. Thanks as well for the offer of a private chat, I'll see how things go over the coming days and weeks, very difficult to know how we will be feeling on each day!
Ollie
Evening Ollie, Firstly, my thoughts are with you and your wife at this very difficult time. Your story is truly heartbreaking and my deepest condolences go out to you both. I wish your wife the best for her upcoming surgery. I always say the same thing, in that I am not a professional therapist / grief councillor, although we do have some who visit the page regularly. If you are looking for professional help, please check out the helpful links page. The guys who comment here will have lived in experience and have been through the agony of miscarriage. I was the same as you, I didn’t want professional help, I just wanted to talk to others who had been through and couldn’t find anything, that’s why I created this page. Therapy I believe can definitely work, but only if you want it to, you will only get out of it, what you put in. The pandemic has not helped anyone, and going through miscarriage in a pandemic is the pits. I went through it during the pandemic also, and it was horrific. My wife having to go into the medical room and find out by herself what was happening and that we had lost our baby - by herself - awful. I’m so glad to hear that you and your wife have managed to have a heart to heart, that’s a great start in being able to help your feelings, the fact you’ve done that and then came here and shared your story is admirable. With regards to support for your partner, have a look at the blog post I shared with regards to the pamphlet from Relate. Nobody can tell you how to process things, and nobody can tell you how to grieve - only you know that.. but know this, we are here for you, and if you need a private chat ever, feel free to drop me a DM. Chris.