A male perspective on miscarriage

Pawwed Rig

Neyite wrote: »

I'll stop derailing this discussion now, but I'll set up a thread over there and anyone who wants to kick off the chat, please join in.

Mod - feel free to post a link here.

minibear

Obviously I can't speak for my partner but he was always included during our many hospital appointments. We had found out at five months that our baby would most likely either not survive birth or die shortly afterwards. I was scanned every week, then every few days in the time leading up my due date. Staff were as good to him as they were to me and when I finally went into labour we were given a private room where he remained with me throughout my stay, sleeping in a recliner chair (that wouldn't recline!) and being offered food whenever I was.

One thing that stayed with me on the night our son was born: Our baby had slipped quiet and still into this world and after a little while my partner had left to call my parents. One of the nurses was sympathising with me and in a surprised tone, noted how upset he was. This wasn't a young trainee but a midwife I would say was only a few years off retirement. I can't remember how I responded but I often thought back to that statement and in my head I thought "how exactly did she expect him to respond when his son has been born but never drew a breath" I was offended for my partner when I thought about it but now with time having passed I realise that that is how society sees it.

The father is the one who simply has to go back out into the world, whether it's going to buy groceries or collect prescriptions. He has to go back to work. He has to run interference for his wife with prospective visitors and phone calls. he may have other children in the family to bring to school etc. He doesn't get to grieve the same way that the mother does because he ends up with the public role of "representing" the family. So maybe sometimes it is understandable that the father almost delays his grieving to some extent. It might simmer there, unspoken because he's the one who needs to be strong at that time. As well as psychologically, the mother is recovering physically. In my own case, I didn't want to see or speak to anyone except my own family and a couple of close friends. It was a long time before I was comfortable being out and about in the community because I didn't want to talk to anyone or have to be "normal" with people again. I often asked my partner if he wanted to talk about our son, sometimes he didn't, sometimes I had to probe a little by asking questions to tease out his feelings but I'm glad I did because even months later he was still trying to be strong for me, for both of us.

I think it's great that some posters have availed of counselling. We were both told that at any time in our lives if we felt that we wanted to speak to a professional that it could be arranged through the bereavement midwife. For anyone reading this thread who has suffered a loss, the organisation A Little Lifetime is a wonderful group with a great online forum for bereaved parents. I joined it after we got our diagnosis and it helped immensely in preparing for the arrival of our son. The online community forum (private) is as welcoming to men as it is to women, although there are a lot more women there.

We've come a long way in even speaking about the loss of a baby, there was a time in the not too distant past that the mother was sent home having never seen or held her child. The baby would sometimes be buried in a mass grave, secretly in a family plot or in a Cillín. She was expected to get over it and carry on as if nothing happened. The father wasn't even taken into consideration. But it's a slow advance because it's almost a taboo subject. Babies aren't supposed to die, they should be born and cry loudly, keep us awake half the night and demand all our attention. Maybe some day in society the quiet babies will be as spoken of as their louder siblings.

Neyite

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Mod - feel free to post a link here.

Many thanks:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057651082