Childlessness and Pregnancy Loss

I listened to an interesting podcast the other day. Those of you who know me might be surprised - I definitely struggle with podcasts. In fact, I started to write an explanation, but have turned it into a post on A Separate Life this week. But this was one I had to hear. Because Loribeth featured on The Full Stop podcast, in a discussion that is very pertinent to me - Childlessness and Pregnancy Loss. Don't continue if you're not ready for this, or if you have difficult feelings around pregnancy and pregnancy loss. (Though I try to address these at the end.) You'll find the link here via  Loribeth's post about the podcast. And a warning: it's a tear-jerker!

As any regular reading of No Kidding in NZ knows, I had two pregnancy losses in my path to Otherhood, and then spent years participating in and moderating an ectopic pregnancy website, before I even thought of starting this blog. So I was interested to see what angle the discussion might take. Any limited time for four people to discuss a topic is, of necessity, going to limit the discussion itself. (In her post, Loribeth mentioned the "gazillion" things she wished she'd been able to say!)  We understand that. And there were some very interesting points. These are my comments on it.

First, the issue of silencing ourselves was raised. Loribeth has talked about this too, but I was thinking about it from my own perspective. Talking about loss seems to be largely taboo in our society. The whole "don't say you're pregnant until after the first trimester" really says "it doesn't count until you are properly pregnant." (I had someone say, "oh, it's still really early then" as if it didn't count, even though my nausea was very real. I'd announced my pregnancy early only to my family at Christmas, as they would have wanted to know why I wasn't drinking! But it was dismissed.) After a loss, the rule of no early announcement says, "we don't care about early pregnancy losses." People don't want to hear it. It's as if you're "not really pregnant" or, as a friend said to me, "you never had anything so there was nothing really to lose." So even when we have a loss, we are unable to talk about it. We are silenced. 

In ectopic terms, this too is incredibly dangerous, as it means a general lack of awareness by both family and friends, the women themselves, and their doctors. Women's early pregnancy pains or other symptoms are easily dismissed. I was lucky that I had a great GP, who wanted to monitor my HCG levels to ensure I was having a miscarriage. When my levels did not fall, but rose insufficiently, it was clear I was not - it was an ectopic pregnancy, which instantly means "danger." I've since seen many many women - one woman is too many - be told by their doctors not to worry, they're just having a miscarriage, only to end up in hospital with life-saving emergency surgery after internal bleeding, or needing emergency medication. I remember Bamberlamb telling me that, when presenting at hospital with symptoms of her third ectopic pregnancy, she had to ask the nurses/doctors for their names so her husband would know how to name if she died as a result of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. It was only then that she got the help she needed. And it was only because she had been active on the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust Messageboard that she knew all the symptoms and what they meant - and knew them far better than the medical professionals at the emergency department.*

But, as the podcasters noted, we also silence ourselves. At first we do it out of self-protection, I think. I found I could talk about the mechanics of my ectopic pregnancies - the reality of the medical treatment, what implanted where, etc - more easily than the fact that I lost the future baby. Anything involving emotions would have set me off - I wasn't much of a crier before loss, but then the floodgates opened! So I preferred not to talk about it, except with a select few, or online, when you can type even when the screen is blurry through the tears. I also felt embarrassed and ashamed. I don't now. Not at all. But at the time, emotions are complicated. Protecting ourselves as we work through them is important self-care.

We also silence ourselves, trying to be sensitive to others. We don't want them to be uncomfortable, so we hide our own emotions and therefore our own experience. We don't want newly pregnant women to worry any more than they might. But in doing that, we are also not being honest about how it affects us, or the significant percentage of women who experience loss or childlessness. I find it interesting that it is often the grieving person who is forced to be the most sensitive to others. (Don't get me started!)

But all this silence is not entirely honest either. When we can cope, when we are ready, talking about loss openly is much more honest, both to our own experiences and our own relationships with others. It must help those who will come after us. Because there are always those who come after us, and knowledge is important, awareness is life-saving, and information is power. That's why I worked in the field (voluntarily) for years, and why I still try to talk about it openly when I feel it is appropriate and/or necessary.

Support, as Lori mentioned on the podcast, is something we take when we can get it. But often that support drops away, especially if people go on to have children and drop off the radar. She found that in her support group, and I found it also at the ectopic messageboards, as more and more of my friends went off and had their families, and disappeared. I didn't really belong there except in the anonymous moderator role. But my presence, like Lori's as a leader of her support group, was important visually, just to let people know we were okay. And then I found blogging, where I do belong, even if I live on the other side of the world from most of you. That's why I love this community so much!

Michael, of the Full Stop podcast, also talked about how "the ghost (of his and his wife's losses) continues to be with us." Their losses are around birthdays and Mother's Day, and that is hard to ignore. I can relate to that. I learned I would never have children at a scan on my birthday, and both my ectopics took place over Christmas and New Year. Others I know remember the dates of their last IVFs, or when they decided not to look at assisted reproduction, or adoptions fell through or they had no choice but to opt out.Though I'd like to give some hope. After over 20 years, I can think of those dates and losses with love and compassion for the woman I was, but largely without the pain. (Although I admit that the Mother's Day reminder is an unkind double whammy.) I've written about this here, and here, amongst other places.

His perspective on how a man grieves, whilst at the same time wanting to help his wife, is complicated too. He had nowhere to find support. I remember my husband saying that his GP asked "if his wife was over it yet." I don't recall him saying the GP asked how HE was handling it. And I remember how, when I was feeling better recovered and stronger, that my husband felt he could finally open up to me more about his feelings. 

Finally, there was a really interesting discussion around envy amongst the childless community. Even though we are all living lives without children now, the speakers felt the envy of those who never got the joy of that positive pregnancy test, or who felt the losses of the children they never had but don't feel they can talk them as losses, or those who never had their losses recognised, or those who never named their losses or had those names recognised by family and friends, or those who never held their lost babies, or those who never saw them take a breath, etc. And those who are envied might also envy - it's only natural, I think. They might envy those who never felt the fear of an emergency hospital intervention, who never felt the grief of a late-term or full-term loss, who never had to take medication or have a D&C to end an incomplete miscarriage, who never had to tell family/friends/colleagues of their loss. 

Envy is, of course, for what the other person had, not what they lost. It's a blindness, and is only about the loss felt by the envious person (eg. the lack of a pregnancy positive, or a good scan, or heartbeat, etc). And that is real. But we also need to know the existence of that envy can feel like we are negating what the subject of that envy has lost. That the magnitude of their loss feels cancelled out by the moments they had that we might not have. 

That's where compassion comes in. And sometimes, compassion can only come with time, when we are less self-centred, and our envy can morph into true compassion and empathy for another's loss. I think, I hope, that the childless community is good at that, ultimately. Most of us recognise that everyone's grief is different, and there's no better or worse.

* I know all this is wordy and perhaps repetitive. If one woman finds this information about ectopic pregnancy, and it helps her or someone she knows, it is worth noting.