Would you mourn a baby that was never born?
 

Is it just a pro-life thing?

Would you mourn a baby that never lived?

-Rudey

Simple answer, yes.

For real? So if you had a miscarriage ages ago you would refer to your daughter's death to this day?

-Rudey

Ummm, no. That's a bit morbid, lol. I actually did miscarry a few years ago, and I mourned then, but I have no idea what date it was, lol.

Yeah that's what I was getting at. I just didn't know if that was a normal thing to refer to a miscarried baby as your daughter after so many years. You girls are so complex.

-Rudey

We are, aren't we? :D

If the baby was stillborn, or died right before it would have been born then, yes...for a little bit. But for a miscarriage, probably not 15-20 years later.

After all, I couldn't mourn for too long--I'd still want to tell dead baby jokes.

^^LMAO!!!

I like it when people think they had a miscarriage but aren't sure because it's entirely possible it was just a really bad period, and then continue to talk about the trauma of the miscarriage and how it supports their rabid pro-life-osity because OMG how could ANYONE ever possibly want to GIVE UP A CHILD because this is very painful for me!

If I actually knew I was pregnant and had a miscarriage, I would mourn for a little while, and then get over it. If I had a stillborn, I think I would be more likely to remember the date and all, but I still don't think I could refer to it as a son or daughter.

i think it depends on the person - i have a cousin who has miscarried twice and doesn't refer at all to those experiences but i also know a woman who is adamanent that she has 7 children just that four of them are already in heaven (ala miscarring also).

i think for some people it would also depend on how far along they were in the pregnancy - a month, five month, complications during childbirth/stillborn? i think that would make a big difference for me as to how long i carried that experience with me.

- marissa

In all seriousness, I agree with squirrely girl. I know someone whose baby died RIGHT before her due date, and she had to go through labor and give birth to a dead baby. I can't even imagine how awful that would be.

I know a woman who has six children and miscarried two. Whenever anybody asks, she simply says she has six children.

I don't think anyone could know how they'd react to this unless it happened to them. I never gave miscarriages a thought until it happened to me during my 4th pregnancy. My sister-in-law miscarried the same month and we had both seen our babies alive on ultrasound and then a week later.....

If it hasn't happened to you, you have no right to criticize the mourning of someone who's miscarried. Everyone's mourning is different. I have no right to say, for instance, that a widow is overdoing it with her reactions or that someone who lost a relative on 9-11 really ought to get over it.

So a person you've known for so long is akin to a baby you might have had but didn't come to fruition past a couple months?

If forced to choose between their husbands and a miscarriage, most women would choose the latter I would think, no?

-Rudey

Nobody said a thing about choosing. Why would anyone have to choose?:confused:

But unless someone has died inside you, you could never know how intense the emotional pain is.

I know a woman who had 18 miscarriages (yeah you read that right) and now has 3 kids. She does not continue to dwell on what she lost. She is more than thankful for the children that she has now.

I also think it depends on the person and the situation.

I've been pregnant three times, but only have had one live birth. I don't think of my miscarriages as "angel babies" or "children lost" (the angel babies thing kind of freaks me out, personally). I am cognizant of the fact I have had two miscarriages (I had to list them on medical paperwork, my son's birth certificate paperwork, etc...) and I will worry about it the next time I get pregnant, but it's not in the forefront of my mind anymore. There are so many emotions involved with pregnancy and childbirth, it's never just a black and white thing.

I think that how much a woman mourns may have to do with if they actually had to deliver a baby and their milk came in. I think that would be horrific to have to deliver a dead baby.

Ditto. I know people that have mourn their miscarriages (regardless of the length of pregnancy) and some that do not for reasons similiar to what smiley21 posted. Its all ok.

I am just saying that for most, a husband you've known for some time is quite different from the result of a miscarriage.

That's all :)

-Rudey

I see what you're saying Rudey, but it's difficult because while you may love your husband, a miscarriage means you had something living and dying inside you. That's a different type of thing.

You're right. You really don't know how intense that can be until it actually happens to you.

We had two miscarriages and then three live births.

The miscarriages were tough at the time -- and I would say we did mourn -- but we don't dwell on it, although I think both of us do think about it sometimes.

We're just thankful now for the three wonderful kids.

Losing a small part of being is not easy.

I think DeltAlum said it best, be thankful for what You have.

After each birth (i'm one of 3 daughters), my parents suffered a miscarriage. The last, mom's 6th pregnancy, was carried well into her second trimester & had a lot of complications. She was on bed-rest and admitted to the hospital a few times. She ended up delivering the baby and he did not survive. My parents decided to have him buried on our family plot & had a small service with just my 2 sisters & I and the pastor.

I think this was the most emotional for my parents because of the complications...and that fact that if he had lived he would have not only been the only brother in our family but the only boy in my dad's family to carry on the last name. We use to come home from school ( i was in 8th grade and my sisters were in 1st grade and Pre-K) and sit on the bed with mom doing our homework. Sometimes we'd bring her dinner on the good plates to cheer her up. We bonded as mother & daughters and felt attached to the baby as well.

At the same time, we know life has to go on and I'm blessed with 2 healthy sisters. I think the grief process is on-going, depending on the circumstance & accepting what happened is different for everyone.

I have a friend who miscarried 2 weeks before her due date. She had to deliver the dead baby (imagine going through the pain of childbirth knowing that after the horrific experience there isn't going to be the joy of the live child). They did name the baby, although I'm not sure if they had to for a death certificate, and they had her cremated. My friend has since gone on to a have a live birth, a beautiful baby boy, but it was definitely a tragic experience for all involved. I don't think she dwells on it, but I do know they both think about her.

I had a co-worker who had to deliver her stillborn baby on mothers day last year:(

Talk about tough. She will have that reminder every year, and it will be stronger because of the day it happened.

It's definitely a very personal experience for anybody that's been through it but I have always thought that the hardest part of a miscarriage is the loss of the unknown. You'll always wonder what kind of person the child would have been, what he/she would have looked like, etc. I think it compounds the emotions.

I think it greatly depends on the circumstances. I had a miscarriage after just a few weeks, after getting pregnant while on the pill. I was more stressed than happy about that pregnancy, so I didn't mourn. Had I been trying for years to get pregnant and gone through all kinds of fertility steps to get pregnant, then I would have felt differently, I'm sure. With my two healthy pregnancies, I can honestly say that I didn't really feel connected to those babies until I started feeling them move.. around 22 or 23 weeks. That's when I felt like there were living things inside of me and started really interacting with them. Before that point, I pretty much just felt like I had the flu. It's impossible to figure out how I would have reacted if I had miscarried either of them. They weren't planned, but they were very wanted, so my mind set was definitely different with them than with the first pregnancy.

I've had 3 miscarriages, all within the first trimester. I mourned all 3 of them when they happened, and since they've been rather recent, I still remember the time of year (though I can't recall the exact dates) that they occurred. The only time I mention my miscarriages is when discussion calls for it (much to the dismay of some people who apparently prefer to keep pregnancy loss a secret).

IMO, what adds to the emotions is the d&c procedure - done @ a hospital, under anesthesia... I can only describe it as very sorrowful. I don't like to think about those times..waking up after it's all over, it's very devastating.

Anyway, I've had friends who have miscarried AFTER the first trimester (around 20 weeks) and had to go through labor. (When this happens, usually the parents have a burial, as did my friends.) I can't imagine the emotional rollercoaster they went through.

The way people choose to mourn is very personal. Why criticize them?

It's disgusting to make fun of someone for something like this.

No matter what your problem with someone on this board is, it's sick. All over something on a FRIGGIN' INTERNET MESSAGE BOARD.

This is such a personal and tragic thing. I hope that it never happens to any of you that are making fun of this sort of situation.

If my wife were to have a miscarriage, there would be a mourning period immediately after it happened. I'm sure it would continue to be a sad memory after that, but I wouldn't necessarily say we'd continue to mourn.

To me, it depends on how late in the pregnancy was the baby miscarried.

Make fun of who?? What even suggests that the discussion is about making fun of someone.

You need to stop harassing us Dani. It's so sickening.

Let's turn it up a notch...

1000's may be millions of cryo-preserved embryos will have to thrown away as human biohazard medical waste this year because they've been frozen for too long...

If you all know what "blastula stage" is, and the size of it is 1/100th of that of a head of pin under an electron microscope, then should be mourn the clidoxing, autoclaved thawed out human biohazard wasted blastulas because they never got implanted into a uterus?

Mind you, only a few actually do become implanted into the uterine horn if injected properly...

True. It's like whenever guys shake hands with the unemployed, you know you should be mourning a loss right there.

-Rudey