Thoughts for Friday

Some reasons why grief after miscarriage is more complicated than grief after the death of a loved-one:

1) It's almost always very sudden and you don't know when it happens. You can't pinpoint a date or time of death. You will always mourn the day that you found out, not the day it happened.

2) You have to deal with the fact that you will never meet this person that you already love so much.

3) You're mourning the loss of a future for a person you will never meet.

4) There's nothing physical to bury or to memorialize. There's no body to have a funeral. There's nothing that other people can physically see.

5) No one understands what you're going through unless they themselves have been through the same thing before.

6) You have no good memories or photos of your child to get you through the tough spots.

7) You feel strange having extreme grief for a person you never met or touched and almost doesn't seem real, yet the grief you feel is very very real.

8) There's always the what if--what if I had been better about my prenatals? What if I hadn't taken that medication? What if I hadn't lifted E's carseat?

9) You've been through months of suffering, through extreme morning sickness, fatigue, etc. all knowing that in the end it will pay off--and now it won't.

10) You go through the physical pain of miscarriage and again, come out with nothing.

11) Because I have another wonderful child, I know what I'm missing out on.

12) I never got to hold him, but he's so real. I feel just like I've lost E. The pain is no different.

13) All of a sudden the plan that you have for your family changes dramatically.

14) You're grieving the loss of the innocence of pregnancy. You know that if you're pregnant again, it will be filled with dread and anxiety, not just the pure happiness and innocence it once was.

15) You're grieving the loss of the idea that you are in control of your life. You realize that all is up to God and we have no control.

Some things I've been thinking about.