Though she already had other children, Monna was eagerly looking forward to the birth of her next child. Even before the birth, it was a baby she "played with, talked to, and dreamed of."
The bonding process between mother and unborn child was powerful. She continues: "Rachel Anne was a baby who kicked books off my belly, kept me awake at night. I can still remember the first little kicks, like gentle, loving nudges. Every time she moved, I was filled with such a love. I knew her so well that I knew when she was in pain, when she was sick."
Monna continues her account: "The doctor wouldn't believe me until it was too late. He told me to stop worrying. I believe I felt her die. She just suddenly turned over violently. The next day she was dead."
Monna's experience is no isolated event. According to authors Friedman and Gradstein, in their book Surviving Pregnancy Loss, about one million women a year in the United States alone suffer an unsuccessful pregnancy. Of course, the figure worldwide is much greater.
People often fail to realize that a miscarriage or a stillbirth is a tragedy for a woman and one she remembers—perhaps all her life. For example, Veronica, now up in years, recalls her miscarriages and especially remembers the stillborn baby that was alive into the ninth month and was born weighing 13 pounds [6 kg]. She carried it dead inside her for the last two weeks. She said: "To give birth to a dead baby is a terrible thing for a mother."
The reactions of these frustrated mothers is not always understood, even by other women. A woman who lost her child by miscarriage wrote: "What I have learned in a most painful way was that before this happened to me, I really had no idea of what my friends had to bear. I had been as insensitive and ignorant toward them as I now feel people are to me."
Another problem for the grieving mother is the impression that her husband may not feel the loss as she does. One wife expressed it this way: "I was totally disappointed in my husband at the time. As far as he was concerned, there really was no pregnancy. He could not experience the grief that I was going through. He was very sympathetic to my fears but not to my grief."
This reaction is perhaps natural for a husband—he does not undergo the same physical and emotional bonding that his pregnant wife does. Nevertheless, he suffers a loss. And it is vital that husband and wife realize that they are suffering together, although in different ways. They should share their grief. If the husband hides it, his wife may think he is insensitive. So share your tears, thoughts, and embraces. Show you need each other as never before. Yes, husbands, show your empathy.
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