Tina, I think we've all experienced people who have said the wrong thing. No matter how kind a person is, if they haven't experienced a miscarriage, they often say the wrong thing. What really bothers me is how quickly people expect you to recover from it. I've never received a card or anything after my losses. You send cards when people die. I don't know how this is any different. You asked about PPD. I agree that it can be part of the process. I also believe that long term PTSD is part of the process, especially if you've had recurrent mcs. I find myself getting triggered all the time. I read the formal description of PTSD and it fits me pretty well.
You know what's interesting is that with my most recent loss last week (my 4th), it was ectopic and I had surgery. I've had more people reach out to me about this loss than any other. And quite honestly, this one was the least meaningful to me because I knew it was doomed from the start. With my first loss, I made it to 10 weeks and had a heartbeat. I'm still not over that one, but I didn't get nearly as much attention. I think people can relate to surgery, but can't relate to miscarriage.
I'm making it my mission to educate people. I'm tired of hitting the ignore button. If people say something wrong, I let them know. I just don't care about sparing other people's feelings at the expense of my own anymore. I'm so sorry you had to endure stupid people saying stupid things. You don't deserve it. xoxo
You are so right and thank you so much!!
this means so much to me..
what's sad about that person is that she DID have a miscarriage, but since I said I was doing ok with it (at the time), she thought I didn't care, and in the end called me a fake, a liar and an attention seeker - and also selfish. I too knew this one was going to not go well from early on. I was more devastated the first time - at 8 weeks we found out the heartbeat had stopped at 7 weeks, (we had seen it at 6 weeks). I was a - well - I can't describe it. It was devastating - I am sure all here can relate. I had a D&C the day we had scheduled to celebrate our 12th anniversary. We checked into our cabin we had reserved that night after the D&C. It was - horrible. I tried to use that little get away to heal a bit, but 2 days at a cabin wasn't even close to what I needed.
It got worse, and i won't go into the gory details here - but I ended up quitting my job due to a cruel person that I worked with who told me she had been with people to have AB******S - seen the heartbeat - and it didn't mean a thing.
This time around, I knew what to expect (sort of), so when the HCG's didn't climb, which is what happened before, I wasn't caught of guard. We never had a Ultrasound, my HCG didn't get over 200, and I started bleeding. I was depressed, sad, and heart broken, but mentally dealing OK. Initially - I'm learning it takes a few days before the grief really kicks in - that's me anyhow, it wasn't instantaneous. I try to remain in control of my emotions. Anyhow - because I didn't totally break down as soon as I found out, someone thought I was blowing it off and didn't care. And when i tried to explain myself, I was accused of - well what i mentioned above.
I feel sorry for the person - they don't understand how I was trying to cope, they've had one miscarriage, not many (thankfully for her), so she can't truly understand.
It all was very painful and I feel some comfort here because I can post this in a location where we have all had more than one loss, and maybe find people who understand that each time may not be exactly the same, and, yes, maybe we are better prepared the second - or maybe third or fourth time - maybe we are more numb. I think - the further you are along, the more devastating it is. So, I was farther along the last time, and felt the worst of it, this time I was less along, so had already had WORSE, so was better handling it. If I had been farther this time, it would have been more devastating. I don't know - maybe i'm trying to rationalize too much.
reading your post, it just feels so spot-on....
Thank you so so so much!
xxx
