Thursday 16 October 2014

What happened when I told my world about our loss

Yesterday, being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, I posted about our recent miscarriage on Facebook.


I don't think I was being brave, I was very scared to do it. But I felt that surely there are other people I know suffering in silence and I wanted to reach out to them. I also wanted our little Poppy to be acknowledged.

I don't normally post a lot to Facebook, I just use it to keep in touch with family and friends overseas. My message box is more full than my wall, if you know what I mean!

I thought this would be a nice, easy and non-threatening way to deal with the topic. One of the biggest fears I have about sharing is what people will say, this way I didn't have to deal with it in person. I know it also makes people feel uncomfortable as they don't know what to say, so what could be easier than clicking the 'Like" button, right? No need to say anything at all.

Only a very few people responded. Most of these were just a click on the Like button, but a couple added a few xxx for good measure. My mum wrote a beautiful message. I got a couple of "Thinking of you" responses from a couple of people I haven't actually spoken to in years. I also got a couple of PMs from my sisters and aunty, just to check in on how we are doing (we've since had a family member pass away, so really hard at the moment). Then there was one response I have so far chosen to ignore.

It started with a "Thinking of you" and ended with sharing that this person had herself lost a baby. It was the part in the middle that upset me. She suggested that the only reason I even knew I was pregnant was because of 'advances in testing' and that years ago I wouldn't have even known I was pregnant, so wouldn't have anything to be sad about. I really don't even know where to begin with this and just thinking about it making me agitated, so I'm still trying to ignore it!

The other upsetting thing was the family and friends who were obviously online, posting pictures of cats and videos of people falling over who didn't respond at all. Now I know that because I am very boring they may have hidden me from their feed or whatever, but it felt like they were right there and they chose to ignore us. I'm trying not to think about that, either.

To end with a positive, two of the people who responded (who have 4 children between them) then went on to post a status of their own saying that they were thinking of all their friends who had lost babies, which I thought was lovely.

Overall, I think I am glad I chose to share, and I will probably do so once each year, to keep our baby's memory alive.


4 comments:

  1. I've been thinking about this since first reading it, mulling over how I feel guilty, like people would pity me or feel uncomfortable and how dh would hate for me to post about it. But most of all if I was to post about mc MC now then people would know we are ttc and that's what really stops me from sharing about it. I have decided that once we have our baby I will post about our loss and try to add to breaking the shame and secrecy of miscarriage.

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    1. I understand what you are saying. It's your story and something both you and DH would have to be comfortable with.
      It's hard to explain, I had all those same thoughts. I really didn't want anyone to know we were TTC but the fact is, as it turns out, pretty much everyone assumed we were anyway.
      All the best. And when the time comes that you do decide to post about your loss, feel free to share here for support too

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  2. If I post something happy, like a pic of my daughter or something funny, it gets a lot of likes and comments. If I post something about loss, it gets maaaaybe a few likes or comments, mostly from those super close to us, and sometimes nothing at all. I fear the stigma may never be lost if people cannot even click like to acknowledge someone's pain.

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    1. I know what you mean. In the past year since posting this, this has happened more times than I can count. I share a lot of links to support articles and stuff on my facebook (I haven't had the courage to publicly share this blog yet!) and also to my instagram. Instagram shows me that people actually unfollow me after I post things like this. I'll never get my head around that, and I don't let it stop me. But it is a reminder that people are happy to share in your joy, and much less willing to stand by you in heartbreak.

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