Miscarriage & Stillbirth - Bears of Hope

Why you are here

Your situation is individual. You may have started to miscarry, you may have found out your baby has passed away through a routine scan, or a genetic abnormality may have been diagnosed. Whatever brings you to our support we want you to feel validated in your grief and no longer alone.

We know that grief is not defined by the type of loss you experienced – your grief relates to the absence of your child, your empty arms, the broken hopes and dreams for your family.

In many societies there is a cultural perception that grief is linear and you will “feel better” as time goes by which can make it harder to navigate your way through the layers of the emotional pain when everyone around you wants you to be positive or to move on from the grief.

While we have identified below the way you may have found yourself at our support we acknowledge that the grief experienced will be overlapping and you may relate to parts of it or all of it. Grief has its own individual layers and as a result your experience is your own but our support is for all.

You didn’t get to meet your baby

Medically this may be termed a miscarriage, chemical pregnancy or molar pregnancy but to us it is the loss of a baby we did not get to meet. Often we are told of the medical requirements and expectations of our body but not our heart – we know that grief exists because you didn’t plan for pregnancy to end early – you had a due date and you had likely started planning about the future family and now you are left uncertain about the future which can compound the emotional pain.

You held your baby without breath

We might hear people explain this loss as a stillbirth, late miscarriage, medical termination, placenta abruption, there are so many causes and unexplained reasons to why you may be grieving a baby you held in your arms that you did not get to see take a breath. In medical terminology we usually relate this area of loss to a baby 20 weeks gestation or weighing 400grams but we know that if you have birthed your baby before this time and held them in your arms then they have been born still. The birth of a baby is expected to be a joyful event and the time leading up to it is full of hope and expectation, no one expects a baby to die. In fact up to half of the babies born still occur in pregnancies that appeared problem free.

You had time with your living baby

Neonatal loss, premature birth, birth defects, SIDS, SUDI or a sleeping accident are some of the losses that may find you at this area of our support. What we know is that your baby breathed, and you had a limited amount of time with them while they were here on earth. Statistically we are advised that is a baby dying is rare in Australia however this does not make the pain and grief any less when you are part of that low statistic.