After losing Baby Teysko, we received a huge amount of sympathy cards and emails, and people were incredibly gracious, kind, and understanding. There were a few well-meaning souls who really shouldn't have said anything, though, because even though their intentions were to be helpful, they were some of the most callous and stupid things I've heard.
There's a thread on the grief message board I frequent where people post the most hurtful things that they've been told. I'm lucky in that I haven't heard anything as bad as some of them (ie "you're boyfriend was a loser anyway, it's better that you lost his baby"). But I have heard some remarks that, if you stop for just ten seconds and think about them before you open your mouth, are really dumb. So consider this a Guide to what not to say to a friend going through a pregnancy loss. Chances are you know a woman who has had a loss - 25% of women experience them. So read up and remember these sentiments. These are not what you want to put on a card.
1. Well, at least you know you can get pregnant.
Why this sucks: I get it. This is supposed to somehow comfort me because I know I can get pregnant again, right? Again being the operative word. Because, you see, I knew I could get pregnant before I lost my baby. I'm not sure how losing a baby is supposed to reinforce my fertility. Here, let me burn down your house. At least you know you can live in a house, right? So you can live in another house. See, it doesn't really help much, right?
2. There was probably something wrong with him.
Why this sucks: First off, you're no genetics expert. You don't know what was or wasn't wrong with my boy. In many cases, like mine, the pregnancy was perfectly healthy, but infections cross over, or cords choke the baby. There are lots of ways for healthy babies to die, sorry to have to tell you (this might burst your own bubble of wanting to assume it won't happen to you). Secondly, how is it supposed to help me to think that I created a mutant baby, not suitable for life on earth? If it's not bad enough that he died, now I'm supposed to find comfort in the idea that maybe it's better because he only had half a heart?
3. You're still young. You can try again.
Why this sucks: Listen, I've just been through childbirth where I got to push and push and have no baby at the end of it. My hormones are a raging hot mess. Plus, I have hemorrhoids. So ask me how interested I am in trying again. Answer: not very, thank you very much. So take your Pollyanna trying-again-talk and stick it where the sun don't shine, ok? Cuz I'm about to unleash a can of post-labor whoopass on you.
4. Everything happens for a reason.
Why this sucks: This one really takes the cake for me. Don't you just sound all peaceful and zen, preaching about things happening for a reason. That sentence is always, always, always spoken by someone who hasn't been through any kind of big trauma (not just losing a baby, but anything traumatic). Because once you've had an experience like this, you realize that things most certainly do not always happen for a reason. Sometimes things just happen. And there is no reason. It's just how it is. Oops. Did I just cut off your ear? Oh well, you know, it happened for a reason I'm sure. Now you can be Van Gogh!
If you're worried about navigating a minefield of hurtful comments, what can you say to someone who has just lost a baby? The first, and biggest thing is, let us talk. Ask us about our babies. Ask us about the nursery we had ready. Ask us what his name was. Ask us what we loved about him already. Because the thing is, we want our babies to be real. They're real to us, from the moment we see a positive sign on a pregnancy test. If they're real to you, too, then they become more real in the world. We want people to know that these are real babies, who are deeply loved by their mommies. They're not just scientific embryos that didn't develop. They were here. They were here inside of us. And they are ours forever.
Next, don't be afraid of our tears. One of the greatest gifts you can give to someone is to sit with them while they cry. Don't try to make us stop crying. The tears have to come. If you can be comfortable with that, you give us freedom to be vulnerable, and we both get to share something intimate with each other.
Finally, ask us questions and offer your help (if you want to). Be specific. Saying, "Are you taking the time to nurture yourself?" is better than, "are you doing ok?" Call us. Don't just tell us we can call you, because we probably won't. We're ashamed of our grief, too, and we want to hide. But if you call us, if you show an interest in helping us, then you give us the gift of knowing that we don't have to hide in our house all day, just suffering and watching Judge Judy.
The biggest thing is to just listen to us and don't try to make it better. You can't take away the pain. You can't make it better. But you can make us feel not so terrible if you can be gracious enough to let us show you our pain, and not just sweep it under the rug like it doesn't exist.
And please think about what you're saying. How would your words make you feel if you were on the receiving end? If you think they would comfort, then say them. If you're just talking to fill up silence, or because you don't know what to say, then close your mouth and walk away.
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Megan Scott
Scylla the Rock
S.ophie
NSisifo
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Prior to graduating high school , I visited my favorite teacher--and still a lifelong friend--who had just had a stillbirth due to cord strangulation. I was 15. I knew nothing. I walked into the room and saw that she had been crying, from the looks of things, apparently all night. Just then the nun/nurse came in, threw the curtain back to let the sun in, and said "Cheer up. You're young, you can have another one". I was stunned. THAT was the moment I decided to become a nurse.
People have NO idea..especially these days, what someone might have gone through even to become pregnant. How many in vitros, how many injections, how many miscarriages. Nurses are JUST as guilty as anyone else. I once delivered a patient to the recovery room after giving her anesthesia for a D&C she required when her spontaneous miscarriage left her bleeding. She was crying. The nurse asked her why. I'm afraid I let that nurse have it.
Sorry, practically blogging here. This has always been a trigger issue for me. Thanks for posting it so well.
I truly feel terrible for you, having a nursery all ready without having your beloved and much-wanted baby to live in it. It's a horrible way for nature to cheat you--labor, without the baby to reward you at the end.
Passes the kleenex box if tears will help right this minute, please go ahead. This loss definitely warrants them.
When my mother died, I felt the most furry when a well-meaning Christian would say, "It's okay. Now she's in a better place."
The most consoling words I received were from a friend. I mentioned that I was grieving over her death. He said, "Well, that's as it should be. That's how you are honoring her."
He made me feel like my tears were okay, like they were flowers on her grave. You go ahead and cry. Your tears are the flowers on your baby's grave.
I send you hugs.
Blessings to you during your healing.
Lezlie
I am very sorry for your loss.
R
When my grandmother died, just seconds after I moved away from her bedside to call the doctor after hours of waiting beside it, I was numb.
And then when they started to take her away something in me broke and I broke into tears while kissing her forehead, there was an old lady some relative trying to drag me away telling me all the while how lucky she was finally to have escaped and be at rest. I've never hated anyone more before or since.
Grief should never be curtailed, never be held inside. The biggest gift you can give anyone who is grieving is to let them grieve and just be there.
Just what you said.
Still, I am sort of bothered by posts like yours (and there are many). I think people's intentions take precedence over anything, and even your own advice about making the baby "real" is not necessarily what everyone wants. How do you know? I can imagine a version of this very post including some of those exact responses--"What nursery did you have ready?"--might be seen by some as very insensitive. The idea that there is an entire website dedicated to others' poorly constructed but apparently well-intended responses to a pregnancy loss strikes me as both misguided and mean-spirited.
For many who are experiencing grief, whether due to loss of a pregnancy or anyone else, I think the greater concern is that people will simply stop coming around for fear of saying the wrong thing. This post only adds to the vague notion that one's heartfelt sympathy must take a particular, acceptable form and I think does no favors to the larger cause of keeping friends close.
btw, I had five miscarriages, one late term, before my first live birth, and another (late term) one in between my first two sons. I completely agree with the idea that each child is distinct and none of the subsequent births precisely "supplanted" the lost ones. I don't, in fact, quibble with any of your content; I merely think focusing on what people say rather than their compassionate intention is misguided and ultimately counterproductive.
I have never found anything that salves my feelings when I have been hurt...and please save me from the "Time Heals All Wounds"
comments because Time does no such thing.
What calms the hurt is to resume your life and focus on the present moment. The past is pain. The future is fear. Right now is the best place to be.
There are two things your comment doesn't address:
1. There isn't always a given content which is necessarily best. In this arena, in particular, what this author says is helpful is simply not definitive proof that it is. It may be true for her, but I disagree that her sensibility is necessarily universal. I stand by my statement that what she offers as helpful may indeed be seen as otherwise by equally grieving mothers-to-be.
2. The effect of posts like this can be counterproductive if they contribute to an accumulated notion that there is only one right way to approach something (and that right way feels capricious so it's best to stay away). I cannot speak for others, but I'd rather have the company of well meaning flub-ups than nobody at all. Others may disagree.
(On a personal note, I am impulsive and worry about this sort of political correctness. To be genuinely distressed at the grief and sadness of a friend and desire to support her, but to have to feel constricted and judged about the way I express that support--well, that feels all manner of wrong to me. And I stand by my feeling that a website dedicated to mocking or railing against the attempts at compassionate support by others is misguided).
As for your Time Heals All Wounds rant, I have no idea where that comes from. There is nothing I've said here or elsewhere that would suggest I might go down that road.
I don't mean to sound harsh, I really don't. I do see a place for such a discussion for people who are looking for this kind of education. If in fact people end up making grieving others feel worse, well, then of course let's educate the masses. Perhaps it's my mood or the tone of this that set me off. I just wanted to offer a differing perspective, I suppose.