A common question after an early pregnancy loss is: “How do you recover from a miscarriage? My family thinks I should “be over” my miscarriage by now, but I’m still grieving. Is this normal?”
It is very hard for others to understand the grief of miscarriage.
If you had lost a child, then it is likely their reaction would be very different, as there would be something more tangible they can see you are grieving over. Also, they may be grieving with you.
With a miscarriage you have lost your baby and so you are entitled to grieve. But you often grieve alone. Others often don’t think the same way and because the pregnancy loss was so early, and you never physically saw your baby or felt the bay move inside you, don’t consider the pregnancy loss should have the same emotional impact and that you will grieve.
When I do an ultrasound in early pregnancy and you see at less than 10 weeks pregnancy a baby in the uterus moving its arms and legs, when you can detect a baby’s heart beating at just over 5 weeks pregnancy (when the baby is just over 3 week) old then it certainly is loss of your baby you are grieving.
Try to get emotional support from caring people in your life such as your husband/partner, your mother, your sister and maybe from a professional counsellor.
It is important you don’t blame yourself – it is not your fault! There are many possible reasons for pregnancy loss. These are summarised on my website in the article miscarraige
It may help if you see me for discussion about the miscarraige and support and planning for the future.
Especially if you have had multiple pregnancy losses you should see me for support and discussion of possible causes and for planning for the future.
Even if it was an unplanned pregnancy that you had, I find the emotional trauma is so great that a woman what’s to try again. While you can’t replace the loss the best thing you can do is to conceive again and have a successful pregnancy. To be cuddling a healthy baby will help you move on more than anything else. But you will be very nervous in that next pregnancy and will need a lot of support and TLC especially in early pregnancy.
Often after a woman has termination of pregnancy she grieves about her pregnancy loss. The termination may be because she thought it was the best thing to do at the time or because she was put under pressure to have a pregnancy termination by her husband/partner. But after the termination, when the emotional reality and implications of what she did tug at her heart strings she can become very upset and depressed. Several times I have seen women who have come back pregnant again and continue the pregnancy even though the reasons for the termination have not changed and are a reality this pregnancy also. They explain they are trying to overcome the grief they have experienced after their termination of pregnancy.
