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Miscarriage Support ~ The First Year of Grief
Dear Marty ~ Miscarriage Support: Coping with a Daughter's Miscarriage
Q & A by Bereavement Counselor Marty Tousley
Question:
My daughter suffered a miscarriage earlier this month and then her beloved 11 year old dog died unexpectedly a few days later. This has been too much for her to bear. She can't face collecting the body from the vet's, but feels she owes it to her dog as her last act of love for him. He was her constant rock through many dark days and no words of comfort are helping. Our family is concerned for her well being, as she has a two-year old son to care for at home. Her husband and I have had to return to work. Is there anything we can do, or anyone who can help?
Answer:
I'm so terribly sorry to learn of your daughter's miscarriage earlier this month, followed by the unexpected death of her beloved dog barely one week later - I can only imagine how shocked and devastated she must be by both these tragic losses. You've also lost your precious grandchild, and for that, you have my deepest sympathy. As I'm sure you already know, we grandmothers grieve twice - not only for the baby who died, but also for our own children, whose pain we must endure as well.
In response to your concerns, I'd like to address each of these losses.
First, your daughter's miscarriage: Too often the death of an unborn infant is trivialized by our society as an insignificant occurrence, which can leave your daughter feeling very angry, isolated and alone. Her heartache may be misunderstood by others, which may give her the impression that it is inappropriate and even abnormal to be mourning the loss of her baby. But the death of any baby is worth tears and grief, no matter what the age. And if she and her husband really wanted and planned for this child, she has lost much more than her unborn baby. She's lost all the hopes and dreams she may have had for her little one as well. She's lost the opportunity to mother this baby, to hold him, to love him and to watch him grow up.
Finding Miscarriage Support
I sincerely hope that your daughter has someone to talk to about this. Grieving is difficult enough without having to do it all alone. She needs to find someone who understands the process of grief as well as the trauma of a miscarriage. Sharing her feelings, reactions and experiences with another (e.g., her husband, a trusted friend or family member such as yourself, a bereavement counselor, someone on the Internet, a clergy person, a support group comprised of other grieving parents) will give her a safe place to express herself, help her understand that what she is feeling is normal, and may give her the hope that if others have found a way to survive a loss like this, then she will find her own way, too.
If your daughter doesn't have the energy to do so herself, on her behalf you might consider contacting your local hospice organization, mortuary, church or synagogue, or even your local library, and ask what bereavement counseling services are available in your own community. It's also beneficial for your daughter (or yourself, again on her behalf) to spend some time on the Internet, exploring many of the caring sites devoted to this important topic. Most of these sites have been developed by grieving parents whose feelings and experiences may be similar to your daughter's own. Many of them are listed on the
Death of an Infant, Child, Grandchild
page of my own
Grief Healing
Web site. (I've also listed resources for grieving grandparents on that page, which you may find helpful for yourself.)
Explaining sorrow to a toddler
You say that your daughter has a two-year-old son to care for at home, and you're concerned that she may have trouble being there emotionally for the rest of her family. Of course your daughter loves her boy - but he is not the baby she has lost, and she has every right to miss her unborn baby as much as she does. She may not be certain how to handle or explain her sorrow to her little boy, and so it may help for her to read some articles about how children of different ages normally react to the death of a sibling, and what she as a parent can do to help him come to terms with this. You'll find some excellent resources on the
Child / Adolescent Grief
page of my Web site.
National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month
By Nina Bennett
In order to increase understanding and awareness of the over 1 million deaths each year of babies in pregnancy or in the first few months of life, in 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed a resolution declaring October as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. The Awareness Month, meant to bring to light the devastating losses suffered by so many each year, is marked by ceremonies, fund-raising walks and memorial services.
I know all too well the devastation of this kind of loss. My precious granddaughter Maddy, after a healthy full term pregnancy and normal labor, with no indication of fetal distress, slid still from her mother's womb. She was a perfectly formed, beautiful baby, with no known reason for not surviving delivery. My response to anything is research, and what I discovered while seeking information and support added yet another layer of pain to my devastation.
According to the March of Dimes, stillbirth occurs in about 1 in 200 pregnancies. Each year in the United States more than 26,000 babies are stillborn. Simply put, 71 babies are stillborn in this country every single day. 142 mothers and fathers return with empty arms to a home filled with shattered dreams. 284 grandparents are devastated on a daily basis, feeling isolated in their own grief and powerless to help their children. The medical care providers are left shaken and mourning as well. Up to half of all stillbirths occur in pregnancies that had seemed problem free. The International Stillbirth Alliance reports that "unexplained stillbirth in late pregnancy is the single largest cause of death in perinatal life in the Western world." And these statistics are only for stillbirth. This may actually be an underestimate, because there are no national standards for reporting stillbirth.
In 2003, the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), which is one of the National Institutes of Health, announced funding for a five year national research effort to study stillbirth in the United States. The Stillbirth Research Collaborative Network consists of five research centers around the country. While some factors leading to stillbirth are known, the cause of more than half of all stillbirths is not. In the press release announcing this initiative, NICHD states that the number of reported deaths from stillbirth is equal to that of all infant deaths combined. The Stillbirth Research Collaborative Network has enlisted specialists from many disciplines, including grief counselors.
In 2001 Arizona took a commendable step by passing legislation to issue a Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth. Since then, 13 other states have joined Arizona. Beyond the psychological benefit to parents, which is enormous, this legislation allows for increased accuracy in tracking and reporting stillbirth. The toll stillbirth takes extends far beyond the medical cost of caring for women and their babies. There is no way to assess the emotional impact on families eagerly awaiting a new member. Perinatal loss is rarely mentioned in our society, thus disenfranchising not only parents but also grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, from their grief. As a society, we have made great strides in acknowledging and supporting family members bereaved by cancer, which once was an unspoken illness. It is time for our society to take action to reduce the incidence of perinatal loss and infant mortality, to speak openly about the void left by the death of a baby, and to acknowledge the large numbers of its citizens who struggle to rebuild meaning in a life challenged by the most horrific loss of all.
© Copyright 2006 by Nina Bennett
Nina Bennett, author of
Forgotten Tears: A Grandmother's Journey through Grief,
resides in and is a native of Newark, Delaware. She is a frequently requested guest lecturer on issues of perinatal bereavement and grandparent grief. Her articles have appeared in Grief Digest, MISSing Angels, Different Kind of Parenting AGAST newsletter and the News Journal. Contact e-mail:
The Death of Your Daughter's Beloved Dog
This is a separate loss which is also worthy of grief, and the more she understands it, the less "crazy" she will feel and the better she will be able to manage her reactions to it. It's also possible (and normal) that she may find herself grieving more for her dog than for her unborn baby, and unless she understands the normalcy of that reaction, she may feel guilty for feeling as she does. And so I strongly encourage you to point your daughter to whatever pet loss resources you can find, too. Again, you'll find a wealth of information, comfort and support on my own
Grief Healing
Web site. See my
Pet Loss Links
page and my
Pet Loss Articles
page, among others you'll see listed there. Another alternative is to present your daughter with an online e-mail course I've written on the topic of pet loss; you can read more about it at
A Different Grief: Helping You and Your Children with Pet Loss.
I cannot emphasize enough that when you're trying to help someone in grief, information is power. (I've also written an online e-mail course on grief; read more about it at
The First Year of Grief: Help for the Journey
.) I strongly encourage you to access - or help your daughter to find - the wealth of information that is available to both of you. I hope you will think of it as the most precious gift you can give your daughter at this sad and difficult time. Please know that I am thinking of you both and holding you in my heart.
Wishing you peace and healing,
Marty Tousley, CNS-BC, CT
Bereavement Counselor
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