(This week’s topic and post
was so lengthy that I elected to break it into a more manageable, readable two parts. )
When a baby dies,
both the mother and father grieve, but they tend to express their grief
differently. In this post I’ll discuss the unique characteristics of a mother's grief.
Because you—as
the mother—carried the baby physically and experienced the hormonal changes,
along with the myriad of emotional and physical changes those sometimes haywire
hormones bring, you will likely grieve more openly, (women tend to emote more
openly anyway, don’t they?), and for a much longer period than the father. This
fact illuminated itself one day for us when Chris made a striking and revealing
comment to me after several days of carefully editing my manuscript. As he laid
it on the counter in front of me he said softly, “You suffered a lot more than
I did.” I always suspected I had (given both the severe physical debilitation
and the recovery) based on the way he demonstrated his grief, but I hadn’t said
so. On this occasion I simply nodded and asked, “You think so?” “Yes, you did,” he responded.
For ages mothers
and motherhood have claimed a special, revered place in society. In Ancient biblical
times it was a shame to a woman who could not reproduce. (I don’t know if they
ever gave any thought to it possibly being the “man’s problem” that causing the
procreation problem.) Read the biblical account of Hannah in her distress and
the way her husband’s other wife torments her because of her barrenness in
First Samuel. Or remember the desperate actions of Abraham and Sarah that got
them and their family into so much trouble. And today motherhood is still the
longing and desire of most women. (Read most,
not all.) God sets it in the heart of them: to have and nurture children.
I remember
distinctly when I “cravings” to become pregnant and be a mother assailed me.
It was like a switch flipped on in my brain, sending happy, maternal longing volts through
my body. It came as a shock to me since the mere thought of having children had
always been anathema to me. I was never going to have children. Not me!
Children were for other women. I didn’t even really like little kids, (I mean
really little kids and babies) even though I held a K-12 teaching credential.
Oh, of course, I thought they were soft, cute, and mildly entertaining, but
more problem and energy than I wanted to expend on them. And for many reasons I
was afraid to have any children.
(That’s an entirely different topic.) Yet once that switch ignited, there was
no turning back. So when your hopes and dreams—and perhaps your self-worth
quotient—become invested in that outcome, having them demolished is
devastating. It leaves you feeling deprived, dreadfully and embarrassingly inadequate.
With such a strong desire to fill your need, losing a child—or not being able
to have one—is emotionally crushing.
Many factors affect your
grief: physical, hormonal and emotional factors all compiled to produce your
intense sorrow, resulting in what may be a lengthy grieving period. Even before you knew you were pregnant,
indeed, at the very moment of conception,
your body was busy nurturing your child and preparing for its birth. Your body
immediately initiated tremendous hormonal shifts to stimulate the baby’s
development and make your body a hospitable place for the baby to grow. Your
body suddenly went into overdrive to produce another life as well as
simultaneously sustain yours. When that ends, either in a live birth with a
healthy baby, or early miscarriage, or in utero death, your body responds
immediately to the change. Your baby has died, but your body doesn’t often know
it.
If you suffer an
early miscarriage, your breasts will suddenly no longer be tender and the
pregnancy “glow” will disappear from your face. If you lose a child later in
pregnancy, in the second or third trimester, your milk may let down in your
breasts, your abdomen may take some time to return to normal size, an
episiotomy or C-section may need time to heal. These will all be devastating
reminders to you of your loss, they may continue for weeks. Return to my March 11 and April 22, 2013 blogs to read the shock I experienced when my milk
let down just hours after Victoria’s death; and the way I reacted to the
C-section scar bearing constant, unrelenting witness to her former existence
and death.
Keep in mind
that these hormonal shifts can cause the “baby blues” women experience with
“normal” deliveries that result in healthy babies. You aren’t exempt from them
because you didn’t have the same, happy outcome. Experiencing these can cause
you to sink deeper into grief and depression. Your heart was prepared to mother
but now bleeds from a vicious, unrequited wound.
The bond you
spent weeks or months developing actually continues as a “bond of grief” after
your loss. Not only have you lost your baby but also a part of yourself. An integral part of your body
may feel like it’s missing. A sense of emptiness envelops you, an emptiness that
can be more overpowering if you have no other children. This may undermine your
self-worth and inundate other areas of your life: work, relationships with your
husband, family or friends, and even your other children. A friend who had
recently lost a baby in the late first trimester of her pregnancy wept as she
relayed how she was taking out her anger and frustration on her kids, feeling
powerless to stop her actions.
Try to focus on the
blessings in your life:
your talents, strengths and friends, the love of your husband. Remind yourself
that you are a mother, even if you
don’t have a living baby in your arms to ‘prove’ that fact. A baby taken from
you does not invalidate your motherhood.
When people ask you if you have any children, give them a resounding “Yes!” When people ask me how many
children I have, I tell them “three.” Then I briefly explain that we had a
daughter between the two boys, which explains the nearly five-year age spread
between them. You have a precious baby—your
child—in heaven; eternity with them
awaits you! You do have a glorious
reunion to anticipate! Don’t let your thoughts, or others’ thoughtless words,
rob you of that truth.
Do everything you can to
take care of yourself.
Pamper yourself. Doing so will help you maintain a positive attitude, an
attitude of hopefulness. Get out of bed in the morning, get dressed nicely and
continue to maintain your health and appearance. Seek out and participate in
activities that make you happy. Have lunch with a friend. Go to the movies, preferably
one that will make you laugh. Laughter truly is good, healing medicine for the
bones and spirit! Don’t feel guilty laughing either! Pursuing these activities
and actions will help diffuse lingering anger, depression, sadness and guilt,
all of which can balloon out of proportion if you add fuel to them with
negative self-talk and self-pity.
Feeling that you failed the
baby’s father is
another issue you may confront. A husband and wife’s relationship often deepens
when she becomes pregnant. They have joined with God to accomplish something
miraculous. You start sharing more dreams together, pick out names, guess about
the sex, voice your preference over it, select baby paraphernalia. Your husband
is likely proud of “his” accomplishment. Making your husband a father, blessing
the man you love with this tremendous gift, is important to you.
You may feel as
if you’ve deprived your husband of his child, of his right to be a father.
Occasionally a woman will consider providing her husband with a divorce so he
can remarry someone who will “easily” provide him with children. Any number of
irrational thoughts like these may cross your mind. Talk about these concerns
with the father; be open with him about your fears and feelings of failure.
Deal with them so you don’t build an impenetrable wall of fear, silence, or
mistrust between you.
Talking. Need I say it again? Women talk more
than men, and now is not the time to clam up! Men will tend to clam up, however, or lose themselves in their work to
avoid thinking about the loss too much, or feeling too much pain over it.
That’s natural for a man to do; they find fulfillment and identity in their
labor, so they are apt to automatically retreat to that in their healing. If
your husband doesn’t want to discuss the loss as much as you then find friends
who are willing to listen to you, who will allow you to express your grief
openly and more frequently.
I expected Chris
to grieve in a way that was identical to mine. Neither of us appreciated the
unique ways women and men grieve. I should have explained my feelings to him
without expecting him to automatically understand them or appreciate them. In
turn, he should have allowed me to talk about it without acting indifferent and
silent (a cover for his deep pain). A man should try to understand what a woman
is experiencing, and demonstrate his
appreciation of her feelings without being dismissive, but a woman should
never expect the father to know or fully comprehend what she’s going through.
He can’t. He didn’t carry life in his body; he didn’t feel life’s movement,
wiggles and hiccups. He didn’t live the
pregnancy like you did. Remember that a man will almost always more reserved in
his response than a woman. Do not assume his reserved demeanor means he is
suffering any less than you.
Attending a
parents’ bereavement group together may be immensely helpful for both of you to
express your pain, learn from others, and for you to find and capture the ears
of sympathetic mothers and your husband commiserating fathers.
If you are the
grieving father, remind your wife how much you love and appreciate her and do
not blame her for the loss.
Allow for your
differences. God created us—men and women—and we need to appreciate, celebrate
those differences.
_________________________________________
Next Week: “How A Mother Grieves, Part 2,”
especially returning to your social circles and work. I’ll also add a brief
section on about the unique grief that can be experienced when an abortion is
selected in response to a diagnosis of congenital abnormality or condition
incompatible with life.
_________________________________________
Thanks for
joining me.
Until next week!
Blessings,
Andrea
(Reference: A Silent Sorrow.)
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