Healing After Pregnancy Loss

When the Pregnancy Ends, but the Love Does Not

There is the physical experience of a pregnancy loss, and then there is everything that comes after.

The bleeding eventually stops. The body slowly begins finding its rhythm again. Hormones settle. Sleep may return. At some point, you put on ordinary clothes and leave the house and buy groceries and answer emails.

From the outside, life can begin to look normal surprisingly quickly.

But you may not feel normal at all.

As a midwife, I have walked alongside families through pregnancy loss for many years, and one of the things I wish we spoke about more openly is how profoundly lonely the time after a loss can be.

We have very few cultural rituals for pregnancy loss. There may be no funeral. No gathering of people bringing food. No universally understood period of mourning. Sometimes very few people even knew there was a baby.

And yet, there was.

There was a pregnancy. There was an imagined future. There may have been a due date already etched into your mind, a name whispered between you, a place you imagined a crib would go, or simply the quiet knowledge that your life had changed.

Then suddenly, it changed again.

And the world kept moving.

Grief Has Its Own Geography

Grief after pregnancy loss rarely travels in a straight line.

There can be tremendous sadness, but sadness is only one of its languages.

There can be anger.

Jealousy.

Numbness.

Relief followed immediately by guilt for feeling relieved.

Fear.

Disbelief.

A desperate need to understand why.

There can even be moments of genuine happiness followed by the startling realization that you had forgotten your grief for an hour.

None of these experiences tells us how much you loved or wanted your baby.

Grief comes in waves. At first, those waves may feel enormous and impossibly close together. Later, there may be long stretches of calm between them.

And then something happens.

A pregnancy announcement.

A baby shower invitation.

The first menstrual period.

Someone asking when you're going to have children.

Walking past the baby section at a store.

The month you were supposed to give birth.

A friend complaining about her pregnancy.

And suddenly the wave is there again.

Healing does not mean these waves never return. It means that, eventually, you begin learning that you can survive them when they do.

You May Be Grieving More Than the Pregnancy

One of the complexities of loss is that we aren't only grieving what happened.

We are often grieving what would have happened.

Pregnancy immediately begins creating a future in our minds.

You calculate the month the baby will arrive. You imagine the season. You think about maternity leave, siblings, grandparents, holidays and birthdays.

Perhaps you had been trying for years.

Perhaps you had already experienced infertility or another loss.

Perhaps this pregnancy represented hope after a very long road.

Or perhaps it happened unexpectedly and you were only beginning to understand how you felt about becoming a parent when suddenly the choice was taken away.

There is no required length of pregnancy that makes grief legitimate.

You are allowed to mourn the future you had already begun imagining.

Two People Can Lose the Same Baby Differently

Pregnancy loss happens within a body, but its grief often happens within a relationship.

And this can become one of the most difficult parts.

You and your partner may have experienced the same loss, but you did not necessarily experience the same event.

One person experienced pregnancy physically—the hormonal changes, perhaps nausea and breast tenderness, the awareness of a changing body, and then the bleeding, contractions and physical passing of the pregnancy.

The other may have experienced the pregnancy largely through imagination, anticipation and through witnessing their partner.

Both can grieve profoundly.

But they may grieve very differently.

One partner may need to talk about the baby every day.

The other may need to work.

One may cry openly.

The other may become extraordinarily practical.

One may desperately want intimacy and closeness.

The other may not want to be touched.

One may begin talking about trying again.

The other may feel horrified by the idea.

This difference can be frightening.

Sometimes it is interpreted as:

You don't care as much as I do.

Or:

Why can't you move forward?

Neither may be true.

You may simply be standing in different places inside the same grief.

When Grief Has Two Different Timelines

There is another painful phenomenon I have watched happen between couples.

One partner begins to emerge before the other.

They laugh again. They make plans. They return to work. Perhaps they begin feeling hopeful.

And the person who is still deeply grieving can feel abandoned.

How can you be laughing?

How can you be thinking about vacation?

How can you possibly be ready to try again?

Conversely, the partner who has begun moving forward may feel helpless watching the person they love remain immersed in sorrow.

They may desperately want to fix it.

They cannot.

This is where pregnancy loss can either deepen a relationship or create enormous distance within it.

The work is not to grieve identically.

It is to learn how to remain connected while grieving differently.

Sometimes that sounds like:

Where are you with this today?

Do you want me to listen, or do you want help?

I know I'm having an easier day today. That doesn't mean I've forgotten.

I'm not ready to talk about trying again yet.

I don't need you to make this better. I just need you beside me.

And sometimes the most loving thing two people can do is recognize that neither of them can be the other's only source of support.

Your Partner Cannot Hold All of This

There are experiences in life that are simply too large to be held entirely within a marriage or partnership.

Pregnancy loss can be one of them.

Your partner is grieving too.

They may be trying to hold you while simultaneously having nowhere to put their own fear, sadness or helplessness.

This is where outside support can become profoundly important.

A trusted friend.

A midwife.

A grief counselor.

A therapist experienced in pregnancy and infant loss.

A spiritual counselor.

A pregnancy-loss support group.

Another woman who has miscarried.

Another father or partner who understands what it is like to stand beside someone you love while losing the baby you were expecting together.

There is something uniquely comforting about speaking with someone who does not require an explanation of why this hurts so much.

Because one of the loneliest discoveries after a loss can be realizing that people who haven't experienced pregnancy loss often simply do not understand it.

That doesn't mean they don't love you.

They may desperately want to understand.

But there are certain landscapes that are difficult to comprehend until you have walked through them yourself.

When Other People Don't Know What to Say

Pregnancy loss makes people uncomfortable.

Not because they don't care, but because most of us have never been taught how to sit beside grief.

So people reach for something reassuring.

Unfortunately, reassurance can hurt.

“At least you know you can get pregnant.”

“You can always try again.”

“Everything happens for a reason.”

“At least it happened early.”

“Maybe something was wrong with the baby.”

“God has a plan.”

There may be truth or sincere intention somewhere behind some of these words.

But grief is rarely asking to be reasoned with.

A future baby does not replace this baby.

An explanation does not erase longing.

And telling someone why their loss may ultimately be acceptable can feel very different from simply acknowledging that something heartbreaking happened.

So what can we say?

Perhaps much less.

I am so sorry.

I know how much this baby was wanted.

I don't know what to say, but I'm here.

You don't have to be okay with me.

Would you like to tell me about your baby?

I'm thinking about you today.

And weeks or months later:

I haven't forgotten.

Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can offer is our willingness not to fill the silence.

Sit down.

Bring soup.

Wash the dishes.

Take the older children for an afternoon.

Remember the due date.

Send a message without requiring an answer.

Allow someone to cry without immediately trying to make the crying stop.

Grief does not always need words.

It needs witnesses.

The Strange Guilt of Having a Normal Day

After loss, normal life can feel almost offensive.

People are drinking coffee.

Someone is annoyed about traffic.

Friends are talking about dinner reservations.

The grocery store is playing cheerful music.

And you may find yourself wondering:

How can all of this still be happening?

Sometimes you don't want to see anyone.

Sometimes you don't want to explain.

Sometimes being around happy people feels exhausting.

And sometimes you may isolate yourself because participating in ordinary life feels somehow disloyal to what happened.

Then one day you laugh.

Really laugh.

And perhaps for a moment you feel guilty.

How could I possibly be happy?

Because you are still alive.

Healing does not require maintaining a constant state of sorrow as proof that your baby mattered.

You are allowed to have a beautiful afternoon.

You are allowed to enjoy dinner.

You are allowed to make love.

You are allowed to travel.

You are allowed to feel joy before you have finished grieving.

Grief and joy are not mutually exclusive. Eventually, most of us learn to carry both.

Find Someone Who Can Hold the Whole Story

There is a difference between talking to someone who loves you and talking to someone who knows how to hold grief.

A skilled therapist or counselor—particularly someone experienced in reproductive loss, infertility, trauma or perinatal mental health—can offer something enormously valuable:

A place where you do not have to protect anyone else.

You don't have to worry that your sadness is becoming tiresome.

You don't have to reassure your partner.

You don't have to make your mother feel better.

You don't have to explain why you're still upset.

You don't have to be grateful.

You don't have to find meaning yet.

You can simply tell the truth.

Sometimes healing requires a place where the darkest, strangest and most contradictory thoughts can be spoken aloud without anyone rushing to correct them.

If your grief is making it difficult to function, if you feel persistently hopeless or frightened, if your relationship is unraveling beneath the weight of the loss, or if you simply feel that you cannot carry this alone anymore, please reach for professional support.

You do not have to wait until you are falling apart to deserve help.

There May Also Be Ritual

As a midwife, I have come to believe deeply in marking life's passages.

Pregnancy loss is a passage.

For some families, ceremony can provide something our culture has failed to provide: a tangible acknowledgement that someone was here, however briefly, and that something meaningful occurred.

You might plant a tree.

Write a letter to your baby.

Light a candle.

Create an altar.

Choose a name.

Return something to the earth or ocean.

Gather a few trusted people.

Say a prayer.

Keep a small object that represents the pregnancy.

Or do absolutely nothing until months later when you suddenly know what you need.

There is no correct ritual.

The purpose is simply to give form to something that otherwise has very little form.

To say:

This happened.

You existed.

You changed me.

I loved you.

And Then, Perhaps, Another Pregnancy

For many families, eventually there is the question of trying again.

It is worth understanding that pregnancy after loss may not feel like pregnancy before loss.

The innocence may be gone.

A positive pregnancy test can bring tremendous joy and immediate terror.

Every trip to the bathroom can become a search for blood.

Every symptom can be analyzed.

And the disappearance of a symptom can feel equally frightening.

You may hesitate to tell people.

You may not want to calculate the due date.

You may find yourself withholding excitement because some part of you believes loving this baby less will make losing them hurt less.

This is another place where a compassionate midwife, therapist or pregnancy-after-loss support community can be invaluable.

The goal is not to promise yourself that everything will be fine.

None of us gets that promise.

The work is slowly learning that loving again is worth the vulnerability of not knowing. And then, when you feel ready, invite in the experience of loss to sit at the table with you during the new pregnancy. For the experience forever has changed you and by welcoming all of you, your fears and your dreams, the part of you that grieved (and may still be grieving) all of you can be present in this new experience.

You Do Not Have to “Get Over” This

I don't particularly love the language of getting over pregnancy loss.

I am not sure we get over the things that profoundly change us.

We integrate them.

The experience becomes part of our story without remaining the entirety of our story.

Eventually, for most people, grief changes shape.

You can remember without collapsing.

You can speak the baby's name without losing your breath.

You can see another pregnant woman without needing to leave the room.

You can imagine the future again.

And perhaps healing isn't measured by how completely we stop grieving.

Perhaps it is measured by how fully we begin living again while allowing what happened to remain sacred.

There is no deadline for that.

There is no correct way to arrive there.

Take the time you need.

Find the people who can sit beside you without trying to hurry you toward the other side.

And when the waves come again—and sometimes they will—remember that the return of grief does not mean you have gone backward.

It simply means that something mattered.

And it still does.