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.
A loss where you have not met your baby affects 1 in 4 pregnancies and often the cause is not able to be determined, still as common as this is, the depth of devastation is not understood until it is experienced. It can bring up intense feelings of grief, emptiness, sadness, anger and anxiety which are too often minimised with the expectation to pick up and move on. Often, there isn’t a space where you are able to grieve and that grief is experienced silently and unsupported, especially if you haven’t had the opportunity to announce your pregnancy before you received the news.
Feeling grief when you haven’t had the chance to meet your baby is more universal than many of us were taught to believe and it’s OK if you are feeling this way. The power of your emotions might surprise you, and you might feel an impulse to push aside these big feelings but the best way to cope with these emotions is to move through them – and Bears of Hope can support you in this.
“The best and the most beautiful things in world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”
Helen Keller