Topic : Pregnancy Loss

I would go see an OBGYN as soon as possible. There are lots of reasons for going to see your doctor after a miscarriage. Typically, a physician will check to make sure that the miscarriage is complete and that the uterus is clear. This is important to prevent infection. Your doctor can help you with your healthcare by analyzing your medical history, nutritional status, and check your present state of health. Your doctor can also help you by making certain that you are physically healed and ready to try to conceive again. He or she may well want to have you on prenatal vitamins before you conceive again. You may need various laboratory tests done. I recommend that you find a doctor who suits you as soon as possible. I think it will help you to have a solid source for information that is specific about you. These support groups are very helpful in lots of ways but none of us are your doctor who knows you, your body, and your history. 

  

I believe you are in Missouri. If you do not have health insurance, there are free and low-cost clinics available. Here's a few sites: 

  

http://www.kcfree.org/pages/faq.shtml 

  

http://www.muhealth.org/~medicine/studenthandbook/jcfc.shtml 

  

http://www.mssu.edu/missouri/immigrants/Health/clinics.htm 

  

http://www.vimi.org/alliances.shtml 

  

http://www.dhss.mo.gov/AboutDHSS/MAAB/mohealthcenters.pdf 

  

Take care of yourself and I'm thinking about you.  

Hi, 

  

I thought I would check in again. Thank you for sharing the advice on how to deal seeing pregnant women and babies. At first I had a problem with this and now it is getting easier. I see it differently now that you made the point that you did. 

  

I am finding the weekends difficult as this is when my new week would have begun. I broke down yesterday. I was thinking how I could have heard the heartbeat at the prenatal checkup I originally had scheduled this week and that I probably would have felt the baby moving. I would be in my 16th week now. I felt my son at 13-14 weeks which is pretty early but boy he was a kicker! He just turned 4 this week and he still is! He keeps telling me that he wants another "kid" like him and that I need a new baby in my belly for Christmas! He is such a darling...telling me not to be sad and he gives me hugs and kisses. I love him so much and I want to give him his wish for another "kid".  

  

It seems to be taking forever to have another cycle so my husband and I can try again. I am so frightened even though I have been advised that it is not likely to happen again. I am also scared of getting pregnant again and being alone. My husband is in the forces and can leave at anytime. We have no family near by. I live in Ontario, Canada and my family is in PEI,  a 16 hour drive away. I feel the few friends I have made here are not that reliable.  

  

I have thought of naming my baby also. I did not know what it was but I thought of Erin or Aaron. I feel kind of silly about this, but a website I looked at suggested doing this. I cannot talk to my husband about this. When I do he seems rather annoyed....Probably his way of dealing with it.  

  

I met someone at my sons playgroup who lost one of her twins last year. He was alive for a month. She is still in extreme grief and I think she may have PPD and I worry about her constantly. I have tried to get her on here for the support but she has not taken my advice. I think now that we met for a reason. She said the same thing to me as you did "A loss is a loss no matter how far you got with the pregnancy". I know that you are both right but I still feel that you both had it so much worse...I think it is something I tell myself to cope. 

  

Thank you so much for your support. You have been wonderful to all of us here.  

  

Thinking of you, 

  

Mel 

Hi Mel, 

  

I don't think it is at all silly for you to want to name your baby. You know your baby is gone from this life - it's not like you're trying to pretend that he or she is still here. What you are doing is giving yourself something tangible, something uniquely your baby's and that's his or her name. You can then think of your baby as "my little Erin" or "my little Aaron." Do what you need to do to work your way back to normalcy (whatever that means to you as you get through this). As long as you are staying grounded in reality, and it's hard not to after this kind of a crusher, you're going to be okay. 

  

All of the longing that you feel right now - the aching for hearing the sound of your baby's heartbeat, the ache for the feel of another life within you - it's understandable, normal and part of the process. Let yourself feel whatever longing you are feeling, don't run from the feelings, recognize them, understand them, and let yourself grieve and heal. Tell your son that you and his dad want him to have a baby brother or sister too. Depending on your son's own personality, you can tell him that your body is "getting better" but, be careful with this one because you don't want him to be scared that you're hurt in a way that he can't understand.  

  

After my baby died, I remember thinking, "Well, I'm really a grownup now" and I did not like that feeling at all. The reality is that I really was in the adult world and no one could fix this for me.  

  

There's another website out there that has a place for you to name a star after your baby. There are also support forums, including one on trying to conceive after loss. It also has a place for writing a letter to your lost baby. I know writing helped me. The website is:  

  

http://www.empty-cradles.com/index.html 

  

I agree that you and the other mom met for a reason. The only thing I would caution you about is to make sure that you do not let yourself become so intertwined in her grief that you neglect your own grief and recovery. It's a delicate balance but listen to your heart, heed your own internal warning signs and then I  think you'll be okay. You probably already know more about grieving and how to help others than you ever wanted to know but there is another site that can help when you are trying to help someone else: 

  

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/helping_grieving.htm 

  

You may want to suggest to the other mom that she take a look at a support group for twin loss. There's a website that offers such a support and has a good printable outreach pamphlet that you might want to give her. CLIMB stands for Center for Loss in Multiple Birth, Inc. Their website is at: 

  

http://www.climb-support.org/index.html 

  

The outreach pamphlet is at: 

  

http://www.climb-support.org/pdf/twintriplet.pdf 

  

Mel, here a few things that I have done that have helped me. A friend of mine gave me a picture of a beautiful rainbow that she saw in our town after our baby died. For my friend, this rainbow represented our baby. She framed it for me and I have kept it on my desk ever since. I also wrote a poem for her, and using the magic of fonts and good paper, created another frame that's on my desk. My husband and I have our moment every year on the anniversary of her death.  

  

  

I realize that you may have noticed that I am not using my baby's name here at all. That's because her name was very unique and I'd rather not be identified publicly. I couldn't just bring myself to give my angel a pseudonym so I'd rather just let you know in all honesty why I haven't called my sweethheart by her name.  

  

Day by day you'll get through this. And, should the day come when you are pregnant again, I will be leaping for joy. I think you'll have a whole network of women following your pregnancy moment by moment. Keep well and know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Consider yourself hugged! 

As I read your letter it makes me sad. There are no worries on what your daughter and son in law are doing. 

As a mother who has lost babies herself I have learned so many things and one is everyone heals in thier own way.  Your daughter is actually healing in a perfectly normal way. There are things that everyone does to honor their loved ones after the loss.  

They will one day being able to not go to the cemetary or maybe they will go everyday forever. We should never tell them how to heal or do it right as they are the ones who know when their time is to not go. 

They will go through so many diffrent types of emotion 

one is guilt, one is anger, one is emotion. Let them cry. Let them always share their stories and never say move on. 

In the bible God says there is a time for everything . 

I have some wonderful resources if you need them [websites exc..] let me know. 

Mary 

info@heavenlyangelsinneed.com 

http://Heavenlyangelsinneed.com  

  

hi everyone my name is Tiffany. In february of 04 I unexpectedly found out it was pregnant. My fiance and I was extremley happy. everything was going smoothly other then the fact i was so sick for the first 5 months, i knew in the end it would be all worth it. Well finally the day came of November 15 early in the morning i started to feel like i started labour. being a week over due. We ran to the hospital and began to be hook up all the monitors that were needed. The nurse is acting all weird and i know something is wrong, she wont say. she says we have to call the Dr. in early. shortly the dr. comes in with the ultra sound machine to tell me my baby is gone!!All my hopes and dreams gone just like that. with the flick of a switch. almost 26 hours later of a wicked labour i gave birth to a perfect baby boy, who i called cameron. He was 7,7lbs.. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck many times.They say there was no way to find this.Idont believe that with all the technology now days. What do i do from here.I have this gapping hole in my heart. I believe in my heart so bad i will have children but i was pregnant a second time since and the fetus stopped growing at 6 weeks.does anyone have anything incurranging to tell me

Dear Tiffany: 

  

Words cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am that your little Cameron died. It is a phenomenal blow to find out that your perfect little baby, who you have felt within you, now longer has a heartbeat. 

  

I know that the gaping hole in your heart is a physical and emotional pain that you probably never could have imagined before this. My baby died of an "umbilical cord accident" over sixteen years ago. It took a long time before the physical pain lessened to the point where I was not overwhelmed by it. I remember reading two interviews with two women, one in her 80s and one in her 90s. Both had had many children, each suffered the stillbirth of a child. And both of these women, after all these years, still teared up and felt such sorrow from the loss of their children. That helped me to accept that it's okay that the loss is remembered, that the remembered pain of losing  your baby, all those hopes and dreams, is normal. But, boy oh boy, does it ever hurt so bad. 

  

Tiffany, you'll never forget, you are the person who truly knew Cameron's life. Somehow, everyone of us gets through this - all the while remembering, all the while grieving - and we each recover (whatever that means for you) in our own way, in our own time. 

  

I also craved information about how this could have happened in this day and age. Sixteen years ago there was very little information. There's tons more information available now and a lot more in the way of research. You may wish to check out the National Stillbirth Society at their website: 

http://www.stillnomore.org/index.htm 

  

  

If you go to the International section, you will find a list of Society leaders in Canada and you can email them. The Society's directors (including doctors and scientists working to solve stillbirths and SIDS) are also on the website (click on "National Directors") and you can email them as well.  

The Society does look at issues surrounding stillbirth. Here's what their website says: 

  

Through the National Stillbirth Society you can have your stillbirth experience reviewed by our legal and medical experts who can offer opinions whether negligence or ignorance was a factor. They won't be available to testify at a trial, but neither is there a charge for their review. To avail yourself of this service you simply need to e-mail your story to us at stillnomore@cox.net. If you have any records or test results you want reviewed please fax them to us at 602-861-8090. THERE IS NO CHARGE FOR THIS SERVICE.  

 

I am not suggesting anything about legal action (pro or con), but I am suggesting that expert medical/legal information is available to you at no cost and such information can help you as you seek answers to that awful "why" question that keeps coming up again and again. I strongly encourage you to click "Click here to enter" on their website and go through all of their information and support. Also, the "Empty Cradles" website is helpful in a very direct, personal way for you as a mom. They are at: http://www.empty-cradles.com/ 

  

Two other helpful sites are: 

http://www.babylosskit.com/resources.html 

http://www.griefwatch.com/ 

  

Tiffany, I wish you whatever peace and comfort you can find today and in the days to come. I know you are hurting.  

Thank you for the response. im not to  sure how this works and if you'll get this message but thank you. I live in a small town and have never met anyone that this has happpened to before.i feel like no one could possibly in this world know how i feel and what i think about everyday of my life.i have a hard time seeing someone pregnant. Envious in the biggest way imaginable. M y 2 girls friends had there babies the same time as me. now they are both getting ready to walk. I'm fine when im there with them but its when i get home my world crumbles.

Hello everyone. I know only too well how hard the holidays can be - especially the first Christmas. I found a website that specifically talks about Christmas on one of its pages. Just click on "coping with the Christmas season"  Here's the link: 

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Flats/1449/ 

  

  

THANKS FOR  ALL YOUR HELP!!!!  I will be going to OGBYN as soon as i get back into town. I am stil having days where i feel like its my fault. I am craving the feeling of being pregrant did you feel this way also C??  I am having days where i really want to have another baby and i wanted to know how soon is to soon and how when u know if im emotional recovered enought to have another one.