Free to Grieve

My friend Michelle gave me a book that is helping me a lot. It's called "Free to Grieve" by Maureen Rank. I'm going to post a few things in the first chapter that helped me.

Chapter 1: A peculiar kind of hurt.

"Women who lose pregnancies sometimes feel frightened, other times guilty, often confused, but nearly always very alone. What is the pain of this loss? And why so much pain?"

It is unexpected.

It's not talked about.

Miscarriage may be your first experience with death.

You may feel you have failed to fulfill an adult responsibility.

Pregnancy loss may mean the end of your baby chances.

Others don't know how to respond.

Society has no death rites for miscarriage.

You may be coping with death in a weakened physical condition.
"If, as many believe, postpartum depression is a biologically induced reality that causes a vulnerability to depression among women with new babies, think of the consequences of these hormonal shifts for a woman who has just lost her child! Perhaps this is part of the reason women find miscarriage so very difficult to handle, and also in part why husbands do not seem to completely share the depth of their wives' sorrow."

The cause of pregnancy is often medically vague.

To a mother, a child has been lost.
"For some women, the reality of a child's existence hits after they feel the movement. And though the emotional rush we call "love" may not come until delivery, for some women that love is every bit as intense toward the growing little as it will be when the babe snuggles in their arms. This process of bonding between mother and child begins early, earlier for some women than ever realized. So even if a mother's hit as hard as the loss of a much-loved friend."

A pregnancy loss is the death of a part of you.
"What people do not realize is that for the mother, this infant has been part of her since conception. She has come to know it in a way that no one else has. In a sense, she has not only lost a child but also a part of herself. Her breasts ache to nurse and her arms long to hold her lost infant. She literally feels empty, weak, and insecure; a very real and significant part of her has died."

You have a baby, but you have no memories to cling to.
"If you miscarried, or delivered a stillbirth, you lost a child. And that loss took place in such an abrupt and uniquely difficult way that those who have not experienced it will probably not understand. But your suffering makes sense. You have good reason to hurt."

If anyone stumbled across this page and it helped- please let me know. I know these words helped me. 'A peculiar kind of hurt' are the most amazing words I have heard, thus far, to describe what I have been feeling.