When a friend has a miscarriage

I have had a miscarriage before. It is a difficult time. Just try to be there for your friend as much as possible. Avoiding her will make things worse. Hang out with her, let her cry on your shoulder if need be. Make sure she knows she has people around her that care about her.

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One I learned from a friend - it's not only the time of the miscarriage that is painful. Make a point of remembering the due date, and the anniversary of the miscarriage. These will both be very difficult times for many women, and it hurts when no one else remembers or understands why these times are also sad.

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Several years ago, my best friend lost her mother. I felt completely useless, and guilty. After all, I still had a mother, alive, healthy, and calling me almost every day. When my friend's mother died, and my friend called to tell me, I asked her if there was anything I could do. She said no. So I took the day off of work (left in the middle of the day), and went to her house. I told her, "even if you don't need me, you probably do", and I just hung out. Took her shopping when she needed to go, because I didn't want her driving. Just sat with her in silence. Later, took her to a camera shop to work on a picture of her mom for the memorial. The point here, is, she didn't want to be alone, but she's such a strong, independend woman, she didn't know how to ask for help. Later, she told me that I did the best thing for her. Was just there, and didn't try to say, "I understand".

I've never been close with anyone who's miscarried, but I would think that the situations are similar. We all need human contact during the hardest times in our lives.

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Well said LS.

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My mother got pregnant halfway through my pregnancy. She was 6 weeks along when she told me. I kidded and told her that she "stole my thunder," and felt TERRIBLE when she lost the baby a couple weeks later. I had no idea what to say.. I knew she had a history of miscarrying, but even so, I knew it still hurt her really bad.

I'm glad you blogged about this, because sometimes, at the moment, a person can really be at a loss for words.

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Just listen. Ask her how she's feeling. Ask her to tell you how it all happened. And then tell her she's still a good person, a good mother, a good wife, a good friend.

Most people want to tread delicately with a miscarriage; they are afraid that mentioning it will cause the woman spasms of emotional pain. But, just as with most birth stories, especially stories of difficult or scary birth experiences, most women need to tell the story of what happened over and over until they can excise it from the heads and hearts.

The absolute best thing you can do for your friend is to not act like its taboo to speak of and encourage her to talk about it - it will be the most powerful healing tool anyone can employ.

Beyond that, a small but indulgent gift to make her smile (a special pastry, a trip to get a pedicure, a pitcher of dacqueris, a pretty summer hat...) will also remind her that she is special and loved.

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A close friend of mine just had a miscarriage last week. She was 6 months along. Everyone is walking on eggshells around her. She is very sensitive to even talking about it, which I do understand. Someone asked her if she knew the gender, and she went ballistic saying she didn’t want to know the details, etc. and that she was sick of people asking her. It was a very ugly scene. Now I don’t know what to say or do, the slightest thing will upset her. She has isolated herself. She’s single, and lives alone, so she’s able to go days with no outside world contact. She won't answer her door; return phone calls, emails, nothing. Finally, 2 days ago she came by the office to say hello. My daughter called when she was here, and I told her I'd call her back, and that I loved her……this was the extent of the conversation between my daughter and me, nothing more...well, her hearing me talk to my daughter made her upset. Not just upset, but mad at me. She stormed off and said “I don’t need to hear how perfect your family is right now” and she left the office????? My heart truly goes out to her. I know she’s hurting and I want to help. I understand she needs to mourn, but also think she needs to vent and talk. Isolating yourself is not healthy. I just hope that she will come around, and let us help her through this rough road. Should I just back off until she cools down?

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""I don't want to hear 'It happens to a lot of women' or 'my mom had four miscarriages before she had me.' I know people are trying to make me feel like I am not alone, but hearing how common miscarriages are only makes me worry that I might have another one.""
Well, I think that the best way to support someone in this kind of times is to act with her as normal as possible. The seond thing I would suggest is to have a compassionate feeling for her and ignore her mistakes as she is in a bad state of mind.

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Hollie, I don't think you should wait. Pain is self-reinforcing and often, people going through what your friend is going through will end up in a pattern of depression that builds on itself. If you really want to help, you can help her break that cycle.

She's in the second stage of mourning right now: anger.

You can be so helpful to her if you can get her sat down, somewhere safe and private, and just listen to her freak out for a while.

Don't offer empty platitudes like "you can have another" "it happened for a reason" or "maybe it's better this way". They will only anger her and offer her reasons why her body is a traitor to her heart.

Do tell her she is strong. Do tell her she's a good person. And, accept when she tells you she isn't.

Encourage her to talk about the dreams she had for the baby. Until she can come to terms with that, she will drag her anger around with her everywhere.

And, if you can get her to share, don't just ask her if there is anything you can do, ask her if you can hold her. If she says yes, hold her and rock her like she was a child. Becasue I bet she feels scared like one.

There are many bereavement resources out there. Perhaps you can research a local option and give her the info.

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Do not say "you can try again" b/c it hurts every time. My mental response was always, "I don't want another baby. I want *that* baby!"

Do not give her a gift. For some bizarre reason a friend at the time decided I needed a stuffed animal. I saw it as a souvenir, a reminder of my miscarriage. I gave it to charity (I tried not accepting it but she literally shoved it into my hands).

I think the best thing is to be open to listening. Maybe e-mail is the best way to talk. If she's having a sleepless night or is having trouble coping face-to-face, she might feel better knowing she can get in touch whenever via e-mail. IM is good too (it was for me).

I also went on antidepressants a few months after so maybe be encouraging of whatever route she & her doctor choose to get her through that period.

Hope this was helpful :)

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WOW! What great advice. Thank you. This will be so helpful to me. I'm really not good at this stuff, and I think your tips are going to help me tremendously. One more question………..before she was pregnant, we used to drink sometimes together. Would it be inappropriate to bring over a bottle of wine? I just remember when my mom passed away, a friend brought over a bottle, and we sat there, drank it and talked all night. It was just what I needed. I really don’t know the dos and don’ts here. All I do know, is that I want to be there for her. Thanks again, for all the ideas and tips. I never would have thought about those things. Some of the things, you said, not to say, I could have easily of seen myself saying not knowing any better. Thanks, guys!

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Yes, the best thing to do is just be there and say you are sorry. The worst thing is to totally ignore it. When I had my first miscarriage, not one person from my husbands' family even called to say "I'm sorry". That made me feel horrible. It turned out that my mil had told everyone not to call, that it would make me feel bad. When I told dh to tell her otherwise, the calls started coming in. Sure, I might have cried on the phone, but it wasn't the person calling "making" me cry. It was just nice to know someone cared.
I generally forgave people's dumb comments- "It was God's will", "Something was wrong with the baby so it was for the best." But the worst was the woman at work who came into my office and told me she had seven miscarriages before having her kids. At that point, the pain was so raw, all I thought was that I would die before I could go through that much pain.

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Perhaps I'm odd, but for me hearing how so many people have had miscarriages really helped. Before, I never realized how common it was and now people were coming out of the woodwork with their stories and support and I felt much less alone. I also appreciated people who were willing to listen to my story over and over and over again. I was only 6 weeks when I miscarried so I didn't really feel attached to the baby or like I had lost someone, but it was still really upsetting. I even felt sad yesterday which would have been our due date. Luckily, we managed a really quick turnaround and are due again in July.

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I think the best you can do is to say "I'm so sorry" and offer a hug. After 7 miscarriages, I don't think there is anything anyone can say or do that would make it any better for me.

When they are ready to talk, you might ask if they have decided to name the baby, and use the baby's name in future conversations. It is comforting for parents to know that others remember their little one.

Some people plant trees in remembrance, create a scrapbook, or buy a special piece of jewellery to wear, with baby's birthstone, or engraved with the baby's date of loss.

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What I hated was people asking me vaguely "How are you doing?" without specifying whether they meant in general, or about the miscarriage(s), though I could tell they meant about the miscarriage because of the way they lowered their voices so as not to be overheard by others, or slightly cringed as if in hope I wouldn't say anything other than "fine". Don't ask if you don't want to know.

The gender question would have bugged me if it was asked by the wrong person (someone who was not very close to me previously) or if asked too soon in the discussion. It sounds nosy if it's the first or second question asked, or if it's asked when there are other people present (in fact, don't initiate any questions in a group unless she brings it up first).

Be really forgiving. I'm pretty sure I did not act like Hollie's friend did, but if I had, I would hope my friends would be understanding. At the same time, I don't have the right to insult them or berate them, so it's also ok to *gently* set boundaries: "I want to be here for you and listen if you need it, but I can't do that if you are going to be rude to me/insult me/etc."

At very least, send a card. If you don't know what to say, it's ok to say that, but "I'm sorry for your loss" is never inappropriate.

Oh yeah, and I felt a little ticked off when a friend sent a card and wrote that she was sorry for the loss of my "fetus". It wasn't a fetus yet anyway, it was an embryo, but to me, it was a baby, MY baby. Calling it by the clinical term seemed so cold.

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Kate, I think you are right on: many women don't even realise how common miscarriages are. But, you have to be careful how you phrase things.

You wouldn't want to come off sounding like "well, it's common, everyone goes through it" and have a mom feel "if it's so common, my pain is not unique and special, and I'm an even bigger screw up becasue I'm not handling this".

You also wouldn't want to tell a mom that you know how she feels, based on your own miscarriage experiences, because you don't. You can understand that she feels such deep pain, but you can't know her specific pain. Perhaps it was going to be her first or last pregnancy and there were specific hopes and dreams and significances to it, or maybe she miscarried later than most, or maybe she miscarried early and feels like her body is a failure or that she has done something to kill her child, or that her God was judging her for sins only she perceives, or she thinks it's kharmic revenge for failures only she knows or perceives, or that it was the universe's premeptive way of preventing her from being a bad parent because her own parents were abusive or alcoholics or died before their time or any of a million and one unique things.

None of us can know what it feels like to be inside another's head or heart, but we can sypathise with the feeling of loss and pain. So, when we talk about generalities such as the commonness of miscarrying, we should always be aware that each individual happening is a tragic incident in someone's life.

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One of my best friends struggled for years with fertility problems. She started trying when she was 19, and didn't get pregnant until she was 26. At 14 weeks, she had her miscarriage. I'm not religious, but she's Catholic. She usually went to Perpetual Adoration whenever she really needed to find peace.

We went to Perpetual Adoration for a few hours, and it really helped her a lot. We scheduled it for very early in the morning, so we wouldn't be likely to be interupted.

She was able to talk about all the things she was looking forward to doing with her child and would miss. There were a lot of tears, but I think it gave her a lot of comfort to be able to say those things before/to God. She was still grieving, but she seemed a lot closer to making peace with what happened.

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Having had two in a row myself, I would agree that I didn't like hearing "It happens to a lot of women," or that it really wasn't a person yet. Give your friend, and her partner time to grieve like with any other loss. Don't tiptoe around the issue, but don't try to help them rationalize it either. I promise you that the doctors are doing enough of that already. (With my first I had a truly awful experience with doctors)

For me, having time to spend with my spouse crying and grieving was much needed. It would be great if you can free things up for them so they can go through that together.

Also, please keep in mind that it may take a very long time to physically recover. She'll likely be reminded of it everyday for a month with bleeding and sometimes pain. And for months afterwards as she waits for her cycle to come back to normal and is instructed by her doctor not to try again quite yet. If she hits the magic #3 (aparently you don't have a 'problem' until you've had three), she and her spouse will also likely be subjected to a huge number of tests and procedures.

If she does succeed in getting pregnant again, be prepared to celebrate the small victories with her and be there when she's feeling grief or guilt for the ones she lost, as well as the compounded nervousness that things can't possibly go right this time.

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One more thing I want to add -- obviously, this is not applicable to Rachel`s friend, or the commenters above, or probably to most women who miscarry, but for what I assume is a small minority, pregnancy losss is not a tragedy. There might be more to the situation than simple loss.

Early in our marriage, I got pregnant when I didn`t want to be, and lost it very early, at about 7 weeks. Right after we saw the heartbeat, I started telling people, figuring it was "safe." Well, it wasn`t "safe" at all, and I regret not keeping my big mouth shut.

Since I hadn`t wanted to be pregnant in the first place, I had felt no attachment to the embryo, nor any sense of loss. In fact, I felt overwhelming relief and happiness, because an unwanted burden had been lifted from shoulders. However, my husband had wanted a baby very badly, so HE was mourning for it, and blaming me for the miscarriage. It was a very bad time in our marriage.

So when friends said things like, "I`m so sorry," that was fine, but some people went on and on, drawing incorrect conclusions, and offering inappropriate advive -- "You must be so upset, to lose your first baby!" "You should start trying again right away!" etc.

Unless you know for a fact how the woman felt about her particular miscarriage, I`d have to say, fewer words are better than lots of words. Say, "I`m sorry for loss. Please let me know if there`s anything I can do," and then shut up, and take your cues from the woman`s reaction. If she changes the subject -- let it drop!

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I agree with most of the commenters - don't tell a mother who's experienced loss that she *should* do anything. I think saying, "i heard that you lost your baby" or something similar is a good idea, because it's hard to *say* it sometimes, and it's better if a friend acknowledges the loss so you don't have to wonder whether or not they know. soon after my own miscarriage, there were many people i simply didn't tell about my loss, because it was too hard. when i got pregnant again i just let the poor memory of casual acquaintances work for me and it wasn't until much later that i felt o.k. about volunteering the information that i'd miscarried that pregnancy.

when my friends gave me gifts after my miscarriage, I actually found that it made me feel loved and cared for - one gave me a really great novel, another gave me an expensive bottle of vodka. i guess everyone has their own way of dealing with loss. but those made me feel a little bit better.

if your friends have other children, i think the one best thing to offer would be childcare. dealing with an older child after a loss can be near-impossible.

at my blessing way during my next pregnancy my sister-in-law had a candle-lighting ceremony for me, where i lit candles for the baby i lost and the one inside... it was really wonderful. i needed that time, though (about 10 months). if i'd done it right away, i wouldn't have been ready.

oh, and finally: writing my story was amazingly cathartic. if your friends are writers, i'd urge them to write about how they're feeling. i wrote it all in my "secret" blog and so many people have come to read it and told me they didn't feel so alone -- somehow i feel that, in giving other people comfort, i've relieved some of my own grief.

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