Handling Miscarriage
by on 25/08/2014 2940
Also available in : Bahasa Malaysia 中文版
To be honest, I don’t think there is one right way to handle miscarriage.
The emotional accounts related to the loss of an unborn child vary from one mother to another. Some of us get by just fine, perhaps feeling a little sad for a few days while some of us get traumatized by the experience that just the thought of conceiving is enough to scare us to try again.
When I went through a miscarriage some two months ago, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. I thought I would be sad and I was expecting to feel absolute grief. I’ve read many confessions of mothers who went through a miscarriage and how they are devastated by the experience.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t want the baby for me to feel rather, well, almost nothing.
If I were able to carry the baby to full term, it would be my fourth child. My third was about seven months when I found out I was pregnant. Even though I felt like I just had a baby, the feeling of being pregnant again made me happy and I was looking forward to having another one.
Maybe it was the fact that I already had three children that the miscarriage didn’t disturb be as much as I thought and expected it would, I don’t know. But I knew every pregnancy and every child is different to a mother. So I don’t know why I wasn’t feeling the sadness that I thought was associated with miscarriage.
I did feel numb for several days, as though I don’t know what to do or how to react, not just to the miscarriage but also to almost everything else around me.
Then I realized that even after two months, I still couldn’t forget that I had a miscarriage. I realized that I think about the baby I lost almost every other day. It’s worst on slow days when I have more time to myself to entertain my thoughts.
I may not be devastated when I had the miscarriage but it sure haunt me until today.
I felt a distant loss and an unbearable longing for something that I knew I would never have again. Even though I know I can try to be pregnant again, it felt as though if I were to conceive again, it won’t be the same with the one that I lost. It’s a funny thing considering I had a miscarriage when I was about 9 weeks. Even with the 3D sonogram, I won’t be able to see my baby’s features and know how he or she looks like.
But I read somewhere that women become mothers the moment she knew she is pregnant. So even though I already have three children, the day I knew I was pregnant again, was really one of the happiest days of my life. Perhaps it is the joy and expectation of being pregnant caused me to feel the poignant loss and longing that nothing can fill.
It is hard to pinpoint the exact cause of miscarriage, according to my gynecologist when I went to see him after I had the miscarriage.
Many attribute it to strenuous activity, unhealthy lifestyle like smoking and drinking and even to hormonal changes. I can’t tell which one of these caused my miscarriage because I don’t think I did anything different from how I was when I was pregnant with my three other kids. This “unknown cause” haunts me even more because I kept thinking if there was anything that I did wrong and had I not done it, maybe I could still be pregnant.
I don’t think there is a timeline for a woman who had a miscarriage to stop feeling sad or the sense of loss. But I know it’s important for us to not give up on being pregnant altogether. I admit it though; that right now, I’m very cautious about being pregnant again because I don’t want to have another miscarriage.
But I also know these are unfounded fears.
My next pregnancy, if I ever have the chance to get pregnant again, could be as healthy and problem-free as my three other previous pregnancies. However, no matter how hard I try, I don’t think I can entirely shake off the fear.
In the course of trying to move on from my loss, I tried a few things advised by other mothers who had the same experience. I’m glad to say that now I find myself slowly letting go of the distressing experience.
Forgive myself
I realized I spent two months wrecking my brain to figure out what I did wrong that until it caused a miscarriage. I scrutinized every single detail of my activity leading to the incident to identify if there was anything at all that I did out of the ordinary. This caused me stress and regret beyond anything I have felt because I kept blaming myself that had I been more careful, this probably wouldn’t happen.
This affected my husband and he too was stressed. Rather than supporting each other after the incident, it drifted us apart because both of us felt there was something that we did wrong. In the end, we managed to talk things out and realize that neither of us is at fault and it was destined to happen so we learn to forgive ourselves and accepted it as part of our journey as a married couple.
Find peace within myself
My mother advised me to get closer to God in order to find the peace I need within myself. She told me to learn to accept that everything always happens for a reason and that I will definitely learn something from the experience. Either through prayers or meditation, I was able to center myself and see that the miscarriage was a lesson for me to be a better person in handling my emotions and for my husband and I to love each other more. Slowly I find myself allowing myself to let go of any negative emotions I have been feeling.
Spend time with my husband
I realized that this is perhaps the most important thing to do in recovering from a miscarriage. We were able to talk about the incident without feeling resentful and after a while we were even able to joke a little about how if I were pregnant, what phase I would be going through now. We took time to recover by being with each other and acknowledging the emotions that we felt.
It was very calming for me to know that my husband is feeling mixed emotions about the incident too and what were his fears and expectation. We spent more time being closer to each other so we assure each other that no matter what happens, we will be there for each other.
Every mother will need to find her own way to recover from her miscarriage depending on how bad it affected her. But with patience and a lot of support, a miscarriage can be handled delicately without opening up old wounds.
