Finding the words - what to say #babyloss

Finding the words

There aren’t many positives to be had when having to end a very much wanted pregnancy for medical reasons. One of the main positives is the reminder of how many truly amazing people I have in my life and that I’m very lucky to be surrounded by supportive and caring people. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life this can get lost, but I am now truly appreciative of those around me.

Over the past few months my friends have given me a masterclass in how to treat someone who’s going through baby loss. They have been truly brilliant. It makes me wonder how I would have responded if one of my friends was going through a similar time – I probably would have felt awkward, not wanting to say the wrong thing or upset them. Wondering whether it was better to say nothing at all and then coming out with 101 clichés wishing I’d just kept quiet. I feel like I’ve learnt a lot over the past few months from my friends which will hopefully make me a better friend in the long run.

So how should you treat someone going through baby loss? I know this might not be right for everyone, but this is what I found helpful through the hardest of times.

Talk – I think saying nothing is the worst thing people can do. When people don’t acknowledge what’s happened it makes me feel like they don’t think it’s important or it’s not that big a deal. The truth is probably far less sinister and they probably just don’t know what to say. When people mention what happened, although hard to talk about, it shows they care and this outweighs any social awkwardness. I’m usually more than happy to chat, but if I am having a hard day – I’ll still be grateful for you mentioning it but I might change the subject.

Keep talking – Losing a baby isn’t something you get over and it takes time to start to move on. Sometimes it can feel like people have forgotten about what happened to you or you assume they feel you should be fine with it all now as a couple of months have passed. I really appreciate it when people pop up out of nowhere and let me know they are still thinking about me or ask me how I’m really doing, not just a passing ‘alright’ in the corridor.

But talk about other stuff too – I realise here I want to have my cake and eat it. But particularly in the early days it was really nice to hear others peoples news. It can be quite isolating being at home and away from work. I think people think you’ve got a lot on your plate (which you have) and therefore they don’t want to bother you. But it’s really nice to be distracted and to have a good old chat about something completely random, like you usually would. 

Other channels – I get that sometimes having a face to face chat about something this emotive can be hard. I received some amazing letters, cards, facebook messages, emails, texts etc. There are so many ways you can let people know you are thinking about them. Load of people sent us gifts – flowers, hampers, spa vouchers, one of my friends practically brought around a weekly shop! At times like these a knock at the door with a bunch of flowers can and does really lift your spirits. Although the same delivery driver must have come to our door about 5 times in one week – he kept commenting how popular I was and that I must be doing something right! This made me chuckle – if only he knew. It was lovely to have the house full of little reminders that people care about us.

At least – Try not to start any sentence with ‘at least’ it never ends well! There are things you can take positivity from after the event. I know I can get pregnant through IVF, but I don’t know if I ever will again. At this moment in time – being told ‘at least’ you can get pregnant isn’t overly helpful. Although I know this is true and some people have many rounds of IVF and are never lucky enough to have a success, when people say ‘at least’ it feels like they are downplaying what’s happened. I think people want to say something positive when times are hard, but actually just acknowledging how bad things are and that you actually don’t know what to say is absolutely fine.