I’ve just had a miscarriage.
It’s a real conversation stopper, I’ve found. Something that thousands of people go through every day, and it’s barely talked about. This is of course just my personal experience, but I think it would be really helpful if we could start talking about the last great taboo.
Often I see people don’t want to say they are pregnant until they have passed the three month stage; and without any judgement at all, if this is the case, then there are less people to support them if they lose the child; because people don’t know about it.
We need to learn the language, the gentleness, the time-scale and the things that help (and the things that don’t). I don’t see how we can do this, if the subject is shut behind doors. We need to learn those tips, the old grandmother’s tales, the emotional overload and the hormonal explosion that carries the full nine months, even if you do not. If you get pregnant, your body tries it’s best to look after that child, once that system kicks in, it runs it’s full course. Some women who are no longer carrying can even get to the stage of lactating, this isn’t common knowledge, and I think this needs to change.
I’m not claiming to be an expert, and there are many brilliant ones out there, and support networks and help for people (and please use them), but wouldn’t it be nice if the only place of comfort wasn’t just with an “expert” or friends occasionally whispering “me too”?
Everyone knows someone who has had someone close to them die, you know what to say, you know how to react, even if it is not comfortable, you learn, you grow, sometimes through saying the wrong thing, but you but find a path to knowing how to be the best support you can. You probably know someone who has lost a baby too, it’s just we don’t really talk about it. Maybe some people seek more privacy than I understand, but I don’t know how we are going to learn to support each other unless we start allowing this to happen.
Dialogue, sharing wisdom, sharing experience and learning from each other is how we grow. And hopefully it’s how we can grow into a more caring world, which is safe to bring children into. We really need to talk about this stuff, it’s really painful and it’s really common.
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