During my pregnancy, I remember people telling me to wait to announce until after 12 weeks, the safe mark. I remember comments like "if you lose it, it'll be easier to forget about it then." "If it didn't exist, it didn't happen so it's easier for fewer people to know." How wrong people were!
Losing Sophia at 28 weeks taught me that there's no such thing as a safe mark. It taught me that I should have listened to people less and from my pregnancy to my loss journey I have learned that people say the most insensitive things.
During my journey through the loss of my precious girl I have faced comments like "You're young, you'll have more." " She's in a better place." "She wasn't meant to be." "You'll get over it." Of late I hear this less, perhaps because people speak to me less about Sophia. But often when I hear these comments, the only energy I have is to agree because arguing with someone who thinks like this doesn't deserve my energy.
As well as that I've listened to "At least you didn't lose her at a later stage, that would've been harder." "At least you got support, many women didn't get support years ago." "Aren't you lucky things have changed from the way it used to be." In the same way, every time I've heard these comments I can feel my energy disappear.
I never have the energy to reply the way my heart begs me to so here is my response.
"I may have more, you don't know that for sure but I still had Sophia." "There is no better place than in the arms of a mother." "If she wasn't meant to be then she wouldn't exist, but she does." "I will never get over it, I will learn to move forward with Sophia being apart of my life." "Please don't compare another child's life to my child's, they are both precious children who deserved a chance." "I never said I wasn't lucky for getting support, I just wish you'd acknowledge the pain I am feeling." "There is no luck when it comes to losing your child. The pain I feel is all I know, that's the pain I need you to support me with."
So why do people say these things? I'm convinced people lack the understanding of baby loss and are just terrible at trying to bring positives to something so negative.
The latest is that I'm anxious around going back to work next week. I'm scared of not being the good nurse I once was. My thoughts tell me "But what if someone says life is crap and I agree because life has been crap." Whenever someone has asked me about going back to work all I've heard is, "You need to go back Stephanie." "You've got to move on now." "You'll be fine." As I try to explain to people how I feel, they immediately tell me they don't want to know by giving me these statements. Without realising people say things that hurt. Another angel mum gave a fantastic description when I told her about the latest discussions with people because, like me, she has faced every single one of these comments and has felt the same as me.
Imagine having a wound, it's healing but still tender, a comment is made and that wound re-opens. Another insensitive comment is said by someone else and the wound gets deeper. Every time an insensitive comment is made, it deepens, it hurts us until it deepens so much that we become numb to listening to those comments. Every time it reopens or deepens we become lethargic, no energy to respond so we give in and just agree.
I want to make it clear that when I return to work I will not be the same nurse, I'm hoping I will be better because I've felt pain and maybe I can help others who face similar pain.
I encourage people to hold off saying these comments to bereaved parents. They don't help, they hurt. But what can you do? You can listen. You can tell us it's okay to feel whatever way we're feeling and that our child was important. You can never fix our pain because our pain exists along with the love for our baby. I know it's hard to understand if you've never faced this kind of loss. But I ask you to try. We know when someone dies that we send sympathy and we talk about our memories with that loved one. We know that when a baby is born it's all excitement and celebrations. In our case, these worlds collide. We are proud that we've had a beautiful girl who has brought so much love to this world but we hurt because we have lost our precious girl and all she was going to be. My advice is to just listen to us and speak their names, yes it is that simple.
In the meantime, I'll keep smiling for Sophia who continues to give me the courage to be open and honest, to forget about judgements from others and to continue to raise awareness especially as today marks Baby Loss Awareness Week.
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