to be infuriated by how the press discuss Lily Allen?

[ThisTimeNextWeek]

I can't help but feel angry, hurt and frustrated about the way the media talks about Lily Allen and her losses. I was pissed off last year when they reported on her 'second miscarriage'. They've have just compounded their insensitivity by reporting on how she has given birth to her 'first child'. No! It's not her first child! She's lost two children before! Just because they died, it doesn't mean they no longer count! I can't remember the details of her first loss but her second was at 6 months (absolutely not a miscarriage).
AM I too close to the issue to look at this objectively? I Dora little inside when anyone refers to my daughter as my 'first' or 'only' child. How must Lily be feeling?
Am I being unreasonable?

Dh has four dsc, but i have none of my own after years of ivf, mc and one death of dd at 3 weeks, there is always an awkward pause after i tell my story about how many "children", so i just say "none" now. but as some curious souls start asking if i never wanted to have one (i am 39), i am reassessing...

Cybbo, speaking for myself, it is harder to say "yes, she's my first/only child" and to leave, filled with guilt for 'denying' my son than it is to simply say "no, she's my second. I lost my first". If the person wants to move on, they are welcome to. If they want to ask about my first, I relish the opportunity to do so as I have so few.

LunaticFringe, (and others) in some UK hospitals and in some countries (Sweden is one) 23 week gestation babies have the same survivial rate (around 50%) as 24 weekers. They also have the same sort of outcomes in regard to disabilities etc. The survivial rate of 23 weekers is increasing all the time.

OP you are not BU at all. I don't know anyone who has lost a baby, stillborn or otherwise, at 6 months, who does not count that as one of their children and I hope Lily Allen's joy is not clouded by the fact that people may feel she can 'forget' about her losses now she has a living child.

Having given birth to twin girls, Megan and Imogen, at 23 + 5 weeks, both of whom were born alive, who we have birth and death certificates for, one of whom lived for 9 days, I utterly resent that anyone might refer to them as a 'miscarriage'. I have had early miscarriages too, before 12 weeks, which I refer to as miscarriages and 'pregnancies', not babies, but my daughters were babies in every single way, perfect, just tiny and born too soon.

HackMum and ThisTime thank you.

GreyGardens - I'm sorry for yours too. I'm glad you've found a way of thinking of it that helps you.

The way people who have experienced baby loss deal with it is very personal and there is no right or wrong for us. We do the best we can and cope in the best way we can find.

From my own point of view, it tears me apart to know that to have just one of my children the other two either had to die or never exist at all. I feel a massive amount of guilt and pain when I think about it and I know in my heart that I wouldn't change anything. I love my son and I could never imagine life without him. The guilt I feel towards my first son and my daughter when I admit this to myself is massive. I wonder if it would almost be easier to bear if I could think of them as miscarriages rather than actual babies, but I can't. They are my babies, my first son, my only daughter and my second, much adored son. If I don't feel up to explaining to strangers I will sometimes say "Yes he's our first" but I feel guilt and pain every time. I feel better when I say "We had a son who was stillborn and a premature daughter who died before we were lucky enough to have DS." And I feel better again if other people can say that about me too, "she had two babies who died and now has her DS." That's the thing that sits right with me about us.

But this issue is so sensitive and that's the problem. For the press to refer to a stillborn baby of 24+ weeks as a miscarriage is wrong and for them to call her third child her first is very insensitive. Lily Allen made no secret of her pregnancies or her losses, she announced her first pregnancy almost from the moment it happened and spoke of her joy at being pregnant again following a miscarriage in her second pregnancy. I think the safe assumption in her case would be that she would like her first two children to be acknowledged rather than disregarded, even if they were lost or born before 24 weeks, and that's why the press getting it wrong has provoked such a reaction from a lot of people, even though we don't know Lily personally.

And as I said, in my case I have had many insensitive comments from people who have no idea what a loss at 20+ weeks involves. It really would hurt me to also see that in print if I were newsworthy enough to be reported on.

Cybbo - "is it not dreadfully hard always explaining your situation to anyone who asks how many children you have?"

Yes. Its now my least favourite question. If I acknowledge DD2 then I have to explain, and then I have to deal with the shock of other people and wind up trying to make them feel better. If I discount her then it feels like I'm betraying the fact I carried her for 8 months and gave birth to her. Neither's a great option.

The terminology used and the way we react is so mixed up. After DD2 I was given to understand that if a baby dies after the first trimester then you have to give birth - a surgical ERPC is only performed before this point. The act of "giving birth" does not denote a stillbirth

Either way, I also find it hurtful that the press are describing LA's 6 month loss as a miscarriage and that she has "given birth to her first child". My guess is that she is on a complete emotional roller coaster at the moment (I certainly expect to be if I manage to bring DC3 into the world alive in the near future), but hope that some of those emotions are joy and delight in her new daughter :)

Lily's first pregnancy ended at 16 weeks.
The second at 26 weeks.
After 15 weeks you have to labour, so she gave birth to both.

Different case, but I always feel sad on behalf of David and Samantha Cameron when the press say they have 3 children

Sorry for everyone on this thread who has been through stillbirth. It's not at all a hierarchy of grief but I do believe that women who carried babies longer than me will have been through more emotional pain, which is kind of why I view myself as lucky, if that makes a crazy kind of sense? And lucky that I have my adored dd.

PeneloPeePitstop, maybe I misunderstand your point, but what do you mean by 'labour' in this instance? I physically gave birth (don't want to be too graphic) at 20 weeks, but there were no labour pains (except on that dreadful drip afterwards). Sorry for the dumb question...

Well I laboured at 22 weeks, I was induced and very much went through full labour.

I was told that was what happened as soon as you hit 15 weeks.

I would guess PeneloPee means she birthed the child. Splitting hairs here but you don't have to labour and give birth between 16 and 24 weeks; it is possible to go private and have a surgical termination (which is no longer available after 24 weeks). It doesn't require labour or birth, but it is not commonly opted for past 20 weeks.

At 22 weeks I had labour, with pains, with gas and air, with a nurse checking how dilated my cervix was and eventually telling me when to push, everything. I was on the labour ward at the hospital each and all three times there were only minor differences to the labours themselves, which of course can be true of anyone who gives birth three times in any circumstances.

I also always include my twin girls when people ask how many children I have. I don't want to make anyone feel awkward, or bad, but I feel aknowledging all of my DC is important, they existed too. For the same reason I have included photos of the twins in the photo frame of our children which is up in the living room.

When you can't afford private there's no option though. That's NHS policy.

Very true, labour and birth is the only option in an NHS hospital after 15/16 weeks, which is why the alternative is a rare occurrence.

YANBU. It makes me cringe when I hear her stillbirth described as a miscarriage and the idea that she has not previously given birth is to me offensive.

The babies she lost didn't vanish in a puff of smoke, although I understand that it a popular misconception.

Fair enough, thanks for clarifying. I had a slightly different situation but I really don't want to be graphic, it was just very quick and then I had a drip afterwards with some kind of artificial hormone (?) which gave me very painful contractions. I had a c/s with DD so am clueless about birth terminology!
Hope I haven't upset anyone with my comments, I know I seem blase, but I really am only talking about myself and have every sympathy for you all.

We weren't told about the options for going private.

I don't know if we could have done things differently at 22 weeks.

When we were told by the nurse that our son had no heartbeat I realised straight away that I would have to give birth.

But DH couldn't seem to take it in and he kept asking them what they could do about it, would I need an operation or a c-section. When they said birth was the only option he took it very badly, he just kept saying over and over "She can't do that, you can't make her do that..."

They just kept insisting that they couldn't do a c-section or an operation and that it would be physically better for me to give birth naturally.

It was awful. I had to tell him that it was okay but it wasn't. I was terrified. But it was all in the shock of finding out at the scan that our son was dead, neither of us had expected it, there were no signs that anything was wrong, and I think DH thought that to have me give birth was just cruel beyond words. He couldn't understand how it could be better. I was having trouble understanding why they couldn't just restart the baby's heart since he was still inside me. I convinced myself that if they did something to 'wake him up' so to speak then the pregnancy could continue as if nothing had happened because he was still inside me.

If they had given us the option to go private and have some kind of intervention I think we would have taken it.

And now I'm glad they/we didn't. I think it would have added to my sense of guilt and made it much harder for me to deal with my grief afterwards if I had had some kind of clinical intervention of that type.

sorry, that should say "when they said labour and vaginal birth was the only option" not just 'birth was the only option'.

GreyGardens, I'm certainly not offended at all by any of your comments or questions.

NoOnes, we also weren't given the option to go private. I only discovered it was an option on a support forum, some time afterwards. I think they choose not to mention it as an option as it usually is much harder to recover from (both physically and emotionally) and they probably couldn't really 'advise' of it. Does that make sense?
I too am glad I didn't go down that route and cherish my memories of giving birth to him.

ThisTime - yes it does make sense, that's pretty much what they did say to DH, the recovery would be much quicker and easier for me if I gave birth to him myself, although at the time it didn't make any sense to us at all as we were still in the raw shock.

Now I am glad. Our son has so little that belongs to him and we have almost no memories that aren't about the hospital and being scared and devastated. But the one thing we do have, the same as any 'normal' parent, is that we can say "our son was born at this time on this date and his name is X" and nothing can take that away from him or us. Like any other child, he has a birthday and a time of birth. I can remember being a child and loving the stories my Mum told about when we were born and knowing what day of the week it was and what time of day etc.

It means a lot to me that I can tell myself those 'normal' things about each of the births of my children and it's another reason why having them properly acknowledged is so important to me.

I'm amazed that it is an option to have a surgical termination post 16 weeks, privately (or otherwise). My understanding is that such a procedure carries a significant risk to the mother of serious complications such as perforated bowel and damage to the cervix which would prevent carrying a future baby.

Queen, there are also risks to vaginal birth and there will be exceptional circumstances that make a surgical termination of pregnancy safer than an induction of labour. The reasons you stated will be why it is not offered as a matter of course, but the option must be there in those very rare cases.

I generally don't tell people. Obviously all my friends who knew me then, know. When I meet people if they ask me how many children I have I say three but if I were to get to know someone and the subject came up I would have the "Well actually...." conversation.

I sort of feel that I am disrespecting my first babies name by not including him in the numbers but then I think retelling the story of his life/birth to people who i may never see again would also be disrespectful.

We all view things differently and everyones loss is individual to them, their families and the babies themselves so, obviously, I am only speaking personally.