I am a rainbow baby and I really dislike that term.

[GapMindTheGap]

I expect I may get slated for this post but if it resonates with one person then it is worth the post.

I am a ‘rainbow’ baby, although thankfully old enough that the term was not in existence then.

It’s not a cutesy term. It’s a term that defines a child as being the one who came after a bereavement, the next child, the ‘replacement’ child (I fully well KNOW that there is no such thing as a replacement child but if by the very name you give them, you are putting their life into relation to a child lost before them, it’s telling and it may well weigh on that child who will be too immature to understand that there can never be a replacement child).

My mum was mired in grief when she had me, something which has had a long term impact on me, thank heavens I wasn’t also stuck with that awful label of being a ‘rainbow baby’.

Child bereavement is such a devastating, emotive topic that I know as someone who has not suffered it, I am ill-equipped to even touch on it but I am a ‘rainbow’ baby and I ask please, on behalf of us rainbow babies, don’t start your child’s life by giving them that grief engulfed title.

A friend of mine uses the term rainbow baby.

She had a little boy who was still born on his due date. She was devastated, and I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.

She conceived again 2 years later and was told (I don't know all the medical details) that the same thing could happen again. Thankfully it didn't but I know how worrying her pregnancy and birth was.

Now she has a much loved baby, not a replacement in anyway. She has used the term rainbow baby to describe them.

It's not a term I would use myself, but you know what, I've (thankfully) never experienced what she has, so whatever gets you through.

@Charmlight could you explain why?

I'm a rainbow baby and have never heard that expression before. I've known as long as I can remember that my parents has a baby who was still born, and I know what they called him. But it never occurs to me to think I need a label and no-one in my family treats me differently or has a special name for me connected to their loss.

I find it crass too, makes me think of something hallmark would produce.

33, perfectly said. Dd is old enough to know my story, the losses are part of my life story, not hers as far as I am concerned.

I also think that this thread is not nice, kind or fair.

This is how I understand the term ‘rainbow baby’ - as a synthesis of the storm that has passed and the new hope. It acknowledges that both things coexist and that the arrival of a new baby doesn’t lessen the loss but brings its own joy.

I think that’s profound and beautiful.

I don’t think it’s ok to dictate what terms parents can use to describe their experience of birth after child loss. Or to read into it that the subsequent child’s identity is being forced on them in an unhealthy way.

I’m sorry for your experiences OP but I think that you need to allow people to express their love for their children, both the lost and the living, in the way they choose. There is enough judgement.

I can't think of anything crasser than judging whether or not other people are grieving to your taste

Thank you @LisaSimpsonsbff your point is perfect.

To those saying they find my use of 'rainbow baby' crass...I'd imagine a lot of things other people do would probably be baffling or crass to me but what business is it of mine to police how they express their feelings.

I'm a bit disappointed in this thread...think it's a bit nasty and massively judgmental.

My dd is not changed or different because I had a baby that died. She doesn't need a special label. She is her own, wonderful self.

I’m a rainbow baby but I had no idea until I was a teenager when one of my mums friends drunkenly let slip not realising I didn’t know. As I had no idea growing up that my mum had another one (possibly 2 but I’m not totally sure) before me that had complications that were incompatible with life (she had a late abortion but had to give birth so basically an induced miscarriage). It was clearly traumatic but my parents dealt with it by never talking about it. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do and I don’t know if it would have affected me growing up, the term wasn’t even in use when I was a kid. I don’t know if I feel like I have another older sibling (I’m the eldest) because they weren’t full term and my parents chose not to know the gender, so it feels more like ‘a baby they nearly had’ rather than a brother/sister son/daughter.

I’m just talking out loud now. I think as long as it doesn’t put added pressure and expectations on the child then I see no harm, but I think telling a child they’re a ‘rainbow baby’ specifically could be a bit confusing for them.

The final I agree. I think a lot of the attitudes on this thread show why people feel the need for a private space with other grieving women and a language of their own.

This thread is horribly crass and judgemental. You have completely misinterpreted the phrase into something selfabsorbed and negative which it is not. I appreciate some people go overboard with it but to the vast majority of us, it's a way of telling people how incredibly precious the baby is to us and how truly grateful we are.
Women feel all kinds of dreadful emotions when grieving the loss of a child, guilt is one of them, don't aggravate that with your warped views on the term 'Rainbow Baby' being all about a 'replacement' for the one that was lost. For goodness sake.

My dm always used to go on about the baby she lost before me, even going into graphic details, which for a young girl wasn't pleasant to hear. I also had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy and never told my dd, she only recently learnt about it (shes 20) when I was having a general conversation,

I think everyone grieves differently.

I would also like to say that I hope we can respect different types of loss without feeling the need to weigh them and deem some to be undeserving of support and sympathy.

There is a huge tendency in society to minimise the experience of first trimester miscarriage

it's a way of telling people how incredibly precious the baby is to us and how truly grateful we are.

why ,do you think a baby born when there was no loss first is any less special, and we are any less grateful?

I have experienced baby loss so I do know how it felt for me. I still disagree about any of my children being any more or less special than the other and any of them being born for any other reason that because we wanted him/her.

Everybody handle tragedy and loss in different way, but telling people about an extra-precious baby - when it's just a baby, no more no less - is very crass.

Technically my DS2 is a 'rainbow baby', although I have never referred to him as such and am personally not keen on the term myself.

In fact, I wouldn't ever have mentioned to my DC that I'd had a miscarriage between DS1 & DS2 but DH told them. Not sure why but he did.
DS1 casually remarked that DS2 'probably wouldn't have been born' if I hadn't miscarried and poor DS2's face... 😥

I believe and told him this: that knowing him and his tenacious character he'd have found a way to get here. 🙂

In fact he was most definitely planned (as was DS1), and I told him this, so I hope that went some way to making him feel better.

Will never forget his face though. ☹️

thatold, everyone feels differently

I know that the joy I felt when I finally found I was going to be having a loving child was different to how I felt when I was having my next dc. Both were totally planned and loved but the relief and the feeling that I was finally going to be a mother was definitely different.

I love both my two equally of course and have never mentioned my history of pg loss to them. I also don’t use the term rainbow baby as it doesn’t resonate with me personally. But I can totally understand why some people would use it.

A living child (loving was a spelling mistake)

@thatoldpinkumbrella I don't think it's that I think my son is more precious than any other child i could/will have in the future. That's not what the term means. Its more that I didn't think I'd ever have children after multiple losses, and if I'm honest every time I got pregnant felt a little bit like oh here we go again with what will inevitably be a sad outcome. He is my rainbow because he gave me hope every day he grew that I would one day hold him and love him and cherish him, he gave me the relief that here was my baby and that happiness was possible for us.

Pps calling it crass seem to have an idea in their head of what the term means and how people will allow it to affect other children without actually realising how judgemental they are being. My son won't be affected by my losses, they are mine and his fathers not his. As I have said I doubt he will ever know, the only thing he will have differently is that every now and then I think of the babies I lost and it makes me give him an extra squeeze!

Mumsnet was such a support to me during my problems, I'm going to choose to believe that's the real mumsnet not this thread where pp think I should probably forget my lost babies as they weren't big enough, or ignore my grief because the way I express it is crass to some people.

I find this thread really sad. Pregnancy loss is deeply heartbreaking and for people to be told they aren't grieving in the correct way is just awful.

I finally conceived after 16 months ttc and starting fertility investigations. I was so elated and not concerned about losing my much wanted baby, until I started bleeding at nearly 7 weeks and a scan showed the baby was small for my dates with no heartbeat. I miscarried just over 2 weeks later at nearly 10 weeks. The devastation and grief that followed is like nothing I have ever known. What got me through was seeking out others who were in a similar position to me, who had experienced loss and were desperately trying again. Yes, I've used the term rainbow baby on here as it helps me feel hope, hope after a shitty storm.

I miraculously concieved relatively quickly with my 'rainbow', 3 months later. Fleetingly when I saw the positive test I thought, we did it but didn't define my baby as a rainbow. Sadly, I miscarried my second pregnancy at a similar gestation and have no living children and cannot ttc for an unknown time. I will apologise to no one for seeking hope where I can because at the moment I feel very little hope, so I'll take it where I can.

I find it incredibly sad that those on this thread, who have been through the immense pain of pregnancy loss, feel they have the right to tell someone they are grieving incorrectly because they lost a baby too and didn't do that. It's of no consequence to anyone how anyone else grieves but the mother who lost her child, doing what she needs to to get by, to get up each day and carry on.

Venus, I am so so sorry to hear about why you’ve been through

OP
The issue isn’t the term. It’s the fact that your mother has you whilst she was still “mired in grief”

You have attached a hatred for the term but actually it’s a hatred for how you have been made to feel by your mother

I lost a child, couldn't have any more but have been in a lot of support groups where people had "rainbow babies". Some of the responses on this thread are nothing short of horrible.
People STILL mourn the loss of the first child after the "rainbow baby" is born. Nobody thinks of the subsequent child as a replacement and the term "rainbow" is used to denote hope after loss, not some magical being that makes the hurt go away because the hurt never goes away.
The subsequent children are of course seen as their own person and loved as individuals much as I love the children I had before my child died. And I don't think they are told all day every day that they are rainbow babies. They are told about their siblings who died and of course that does affect them but not talking about the child who passed is worse. A child who passed before a sibling is born affects a family in a similar way to a child whose siblings remember him/her though probably not in exactly the same way. Let people cope with child loss any way they can. It's the most awful, crippling type of grief and we're all just trying to push our way through life in spite of it.

I had a first trimester missed miscarriage in January but if I do ever manage to get pregnant again and carry the baby to term I won't be calling it a rainbow baby.
The hospital I had my daughter at runs a rainbow clinic from woman that have had a stillbirth or neonatal death.
I do follow people on social media who dress their rainbow babies in lots of rainbow and I do wonder how these children will feel when they are older growing up in the shadow of their dead sibling.

It's not for me Essex but can you not interpret the wearing of rainbows as they're intended: a positive, a celebration of their lives and not as a mark of being in the shadow' of a dead sibling? Who knew that wearing rainbows or talking of a rainbow after a storm could be seen as something so twisted and negative? That seems like a stretch to me, by people who only like to see the bad in everything.