Providing Support Through A Miscarriage

Providing support through a miscarriage to a friend can be challenging especially if you’ve never experienced one yourself. Pregnancy loss can be isolating and lonely for a grieving mother.

Below are the ways you can support that mama going through a miscarriage.

7 Tips On How To provide Support A Friend Through A Miscarriage

Supporting a friend through miscarriage is so vital. Pregnancy loss is uncomfortable and as a friend or family member, you shouldn’t pretend that the miscarriage never happened.

1. Be A Supportive Friend

Know that the grieving mother may or may not want to talk about what she went through. Expect to sit in silence with her. Many women may cry or they may be quiet. That is a normal response. The important part is you are there with her and supporting her with your presence. She will talk when she is ready.

Some ways you can support a family member or friend through a miscarriage are:

• Send text messages often
• Come over with coffee and drink together
• Share your personal experience with miscarriage if you have gone through it yourself
• Encourage self-care
• Send a handwritten note
• Go on a walk togther

2. Provide Physical Touch

No words are needed with the emotional pain of losing a baby. Many grieving women who don’t necessarily like physical touch NEED it. It Is a way to connect with your loved one. When we lose a baby no words can make it okay. Physical touch may be the best way of acknowledging grief and difficult time.

3. Listen

Again, you don’t have to “know what to say” to a woman who has experienced pregnancy loss. Be okay sitting in silence and in time she will share her own feelings. Be a good listener once she wants to open up about her experience.

Family members and friends may tell you they were sorry, the baby wasn’t healthy, or you will have kids one day. Every person said these things with good intentions, it’s just not the kind of thing a grieving mother wants to hear.

4. Lend A Helping Hand

Do the SAME things you would do for parents who birthed a baby. Some great ways to lend a helping hand are:

• bring a homecooked meal by
• mow the lawn or shovel snow (weather dependent)
• offer to babysit older children so the parents can get alone time
• Pay for house cleaning services for a month
• Set up a meal train so the parents will get food from friends and family over an extended period
• Offer to walk the dogs

In all honesty, the parents of a pregnant loss will not be up for cooking meals or cleaning. It will take every ounce of energy to process their feelings, emotions, and grief.

5. Don’t Forget About Dad

Men often get overlooked when they lose a child. Fathers experienced a miscarriage too and are also going through grief. Support Dads the same way you support mothers.

The things you would do to support a grieving mama are the same things for a grieving father. Encourage the dad to also implement self-care and heal.

6. Don’t Forget About The Other Children

Children’s grief is often forgotten about when they lose a sibling to miscarriage. Being no emotional care was offered to them during the process they may think what they are feeling is not okay.

Allow your children to see you cry and cry with them. Make them feel like they are part of the process. Ask if they want to be involved in the memorial in any way. Give them an opportunity to ask questions about miscarriage and what happened. Reassure them that there was nothing anyone could do. If you believe in a higher power remind them that they are loved and that their angel sibling is with God now.

7. Send or Bring A Gift

Sending or bringing a small gift to grieving parents is a great way to show love. A gift lets the parents know they aren’t alone and that you are thinking of them. Plus it brightens their day.

A few gift ideas are:

• miscarriage care package
• Send Flowers
• A remembrance necklace
• Plant or succulent
• Thinking of You Candle
• Chunky blanket
• Miscarriage Affirmation Cards

If the family has older children, bring a care package for them too. A kid-friendly care package can include a journal, stuffed animals, books, favorite toys, and coloring books.

Bringing a gift that is helpful or comforting will be appreciated by the whole family.

A Personal Miscarriage Story: Paige’s Angel Baby

I have thought about my missed miscarriage story so many times. Putting it down into words rather than in my head was hard. The pain of that pregnancy loss is all so real, even though I miscarried over 2 years ago.

Let me share my story with you.

Let’s Start at the Beginning

After my husband and I started trying for a baby those two weeks of waiting before taking a pregnancy test were so long. Finally, the waiting game was over and it was time for me to pee on that stick! It took 30 seconds for those two pink lines to show up. I stared at those pink lines in disbelief but oh so happy.

My Pregnancy Weeks 4-9

From weeks 4 – 9, I had minimal morning sickness, once every week or two. In the beginning, my breasts were sore and slowly they hurt less and less. I also was experiencing tiredness. For the most part, I felt “normal” and didn’t “feel pregnant”.

I had finally made it to the 9-week ultrasound and I was NERVOUS. I worried about having amiscarriage for the whole 9 weeks. For whatever reason, I just didn’t feel very optimistic about my pregnancy. The tech took me back and I had a vaginal ultrasound done sure enough there was a baby inside of me with a heartbeat! All had looked well!

My Pregnancy Weeks 9-13

I had finally let my guard down and stopped worrying so much about miscarrying and started to allow my self to get excited over the pregnancy. Weeks 9-13 I had no pregnancy symptoms. My breasts no longer hurt, my morning sickness was gone and my energy started to come back.

My 13 weeks appointment with the OBGYN rolled around and I was sitting in the waiting room with my husband. We were so excited to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. We got called back into the room and happily waited for the doctor.

The doctor had finally come in and answered all of my questions. It was finally time to lay back and get the baby’s heartbeat. I could hardly wait! As we waited for the doctor to read the heartbeat it became clear that the doctor couldn’t find it. She assured us that the baby is still small and that sometimes this happens. The doctor got the ultrasound machine and started scanning my belly. She was very quiet and at that moment I knew something was wrong.

Finally, the doctor spoke and said that our baby doesn’t have a heartbeat and it looks like it died around week 9. The doctor explained to my husband and me what a missed miscarriage was and that I had one.

I had a Missed Miscarriage

You may be thinking what is a missed miscarriage? Don’t you know when you miscarried because of the bleeding and cramping? Well, a missed miscarriage is often referred to as a “silent” miscarriage. Your body doesn’t respond as it would with a “normal” miscarriage. There isn’t any vaginal bleeding, abdominal pain, or tissue discharge. You may in fact still have pregnancy symptoms with a missed miscarriage because the body still thinks it is pregnant. You feel like all pregnant women do. Your body hasn’t realized that the baby isn’t viable. The body has “missed” it.

Miscarriage Options

From my experience, I was given 1 of 3 options. I could wait until my body figures out that the baby isn’t viable and carry the baby until I miscarry naturally. I could place a pill called Misoprostol into my vagina to induce contractions within 24 hours of placement. The final option was to have a procedure called dilation and curettage (D&C). A D&C is a surgical procedure where the baby is removed by scraping the uterine lining.

After the options were presented to me, all I could think was we saw our baby 4 weeks ago and everything was fine. How could this be happening to me?! I was in shock. I was not retaining any of the information the doctor was telling me. My husband was able to discuss the options with our doctor. In the end, the best choice was the D&C. “Lucky” me the doctor happened to have an opening for me to get a D&C the next morning.

I did my best to hold back tears not wanting to break down in front of this doctor. The doctor says these things happen and that I am healthy and my husband and I can start trying again as soon as we want. She reassured me that we could have a healthy baby. Not the kind of thing you want to hear when you can’t even process that you have lost your baby in your belly.

Coming Home from that Doctor’s Appointment

There were so many emotions that were felt leaving that doctor’s appointment. My husband broke down and cried while I was numb and still in shock. Neither of us slept that night. We both cried off and on. The whole day felt like a nightmare. When was I going to wake up and realize it wasn’t real?!

The Morning Of The D&C

Morning finally rolled around and it was so hard to fight back the tears of emotions I was feeling. I wanted to appear strong but I was also afraid. The time had come to depart from my husband and wheel me off into the operation room alone.

That moment was TOUGH and I felt so fragile and vulnerable. The next thing I remember was waking up from surgery. In that moment came the realization of what had happened. I lost my baby and it was no longer with me. The sadness was overwhelming. I didn’t know what else to do besides cry.

I had never experienced sorrow like this before.

-Paige

The physical recovery from the surgery was much easier than I thought it would be compared to the emotional recovery. I bled and had some cramping for a few days but the physical pain was manageable. The emotional, mental, and spiritual battle of our loss was more challenging to recover from.

Paige’s Miscarriage Story Wrap-Up

Every woman processes a loss of a child differently. I struggled with the grieving process. Although I wished there was, there wasn’t an instruction manual for how to grieve after a miscarriage.

I struggled A LOT with interacting with people who knew I miscarried. I felt like people tiptoed around me or didn’t bring up my miscarriage and all of those actions felt much more isolating.

With all that being said the pain of pregnancy loss does get easier with time. I will be the first to admit it the pain is still there to this day. I think your heart will always mourn the loss of your baby but it just gets easier to process with time. Accepting support through a miscarriage is vital to the healing process. If you don’t have a support system, please know there are online support groups and a hotline you can call. You aren’t alone.

Supporting a friend through a MISCARRIAGE Conclusion

Being a grieving parent and journeying through a miscarriage is challenging. It can be lonely and isolating. Each mother and father have their own story and ways of processing what happened to them. The parents of pregnancy loss will need more support than ever.

There is no written manual on how to support a friend through a miscarriage. Although there isn’t a size fits all there is a multitude of ways to support the parents and acknowledge that the miscarriage happened. Helping out with chores when you can, being a good listener when the parents want to talk about what they went through, and sending a small gift are crucial.

As a society often people acknowledge the mother’s needs but don’t forget that the father is going through similar emotions. They are grieving too. Make sure that their needs and mental health are met.

Don’t forget about the older children’s needs as well. We often forget that losing a sibling is also traumatic for them. Cry together as a family. Let your children know that it is okay to have big emotions and that what they are going through is tough.

Doing any one of these things to support a mother and father going through a miscarriage shows them that they are loved. It sends the signal that they are not alone and have a tribe to support them even when things get tough.

Many parents going through a loss of a child feel guilty for what happened. Going through a miscarriage can be very isolating and it helps to know that your friends and family are there to support you.