Feel weird about using the term rainbow baby

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Just as the title says I guess, my DD is a rainbow baby, but I find it hard to say for two reasons

It makes me sad to think she could always going to be associated with that loss. She's only 5 months but IMO frigging awesome. I want her to be special because she is special in her self.

Secondly, while what we went through was so tough for us (ovary removal, miscarriage and ectopic scare) I almost feel like there are people that go through so much more heart ache. And that me using the term undermines what they're experiencing/experienced.

But on the other hand, I don't want to airbrush out our miscarriage. It's a part of our journey, I would feel guilty not to remember.

Would you use the term? I obviously don't go round telling people, but trying for another DC often comes up at baby groups and I feel I have to explain as to why I'm nervous of trying again - when I explain they then call her a rainbow baby.

I'm going on a big holiday with the family soon, and they don't know about the miscarriage, I want to tell them but don't know how to tell them without affecting the way they see DD or feel sorry for us..

Or am I completely over thinking things

Use whatever seems right to you.
I don't often refer to my dd as my rainbow, however she really is a ray of sunshine to my life and the rainbow after the darkness following the death of my eldest dd (the darkness is still there)
I think the rainbow analogy is there because they break up the darkness of storms, bad times. With the hope of brighter times ahead.
I'm so sorry for your loss.

I don’t like it either tbh, nor do I like Angel baby or Angel in the name because of a previous loss. I don’t like people putting photos of dead babies on FB.

Buts it’s not my choice or my business how other people grieve - they don’t get to choose how anyone else grieves either.

But a rainbow baby isn't a baby born to help someone get over their loss.

A rainbow baby is a positive, not a negative. Going on to have another baby is a wonderful indescribably happy event, which sadly not everyone gets to experience. It's not about the baby but the experience and the positivity in your life as the parent because they are there. My boy is not any less of a person because of his birth order.

I also feel that people who use the term 'rainbow baby' sometimes do it to acknowledge their baby that died, and it helps them to be included as part of their family - but it's completely your choice, you don't need to!
My DD is my rainbow (in many ways!), but she is also very much her own person and never 'in the shadow' of the death of her older sister.
Everyone who has suffered loss needs to find their own way of coping - there is absolutely no right way or wrong way.

a 'rainbow baby' sometimes means the child of someone in a same-sex relationship. I have family who're German and initially thought of that.

When I first heard the term I thought it was a baby with same sex parents.

It's just a shorthand way to describe the experience of having a baby after loss, with all the different hopes and fears that brings compared to having a baby when you've never had a loss.
Rainbows are about hope not sadness. Some people dont like the phrase "born sleeping" either, others do. I don't think we can decide for someone else what's twee or not. Well I suppose you can but it's very judgy!

I hate that term, it sounds like it was thought up by Hallmark cards.

Miscarriage and stillbirth are completely different things and anyone who experiences either has my absolute sympathy. I experienced a miscarriage however that was nothing like the trauma two of my friends went through - one had to deliver her stillborn child, and the other had a child who died during the birth process. I would never in a million years compare my loss to theirs.

I went on to have a baby girl 2 years after my miscarriage. I consider her to be my first child. She's a wonderful, amazing, loving and cherished child and I know that if I hadn't had that miscarriage, I wouldn't have had her, so whilst going through the miscarriage was awful at the time, I wouldn't change a thing.

Again just to address a few points -

If someone wishes to use the term for their own DC I don't have an issue with that at all. I completely respect we all deal with a loss differently.
Personally for me, our grief over our loss and our joy at having her are two vary different things.

And Yes, I had only heard of it being used online perviously too until recently. I'm not sure if it's because there's a big push in our area to discuss pregnancy loss more.

I'm not introducing her as a rainbow baby. I get that if I was I would then need to go in to the details. But I'm explaining the journey to a few people IRL I choose to explain to and they are then choosing to use the term to describe her. Which makes me uncomfortable.

I'm now at a point where I am ready to talk to family about it but am nervous of the same response.

However, from the comments maybe the reaction by the other mums is the exception rather than the rule, so wouldn't even cross my families minds to say.

So I think yes, I'm over thinking it!

Its not a term I use. But, im grateful for tge awareness it brings. I was pregnant for 3 months before I lost my baby. Having dd2 didnt/doesnt erase the pain of that loss or memory of that baby. Im so grateful for her, but I do still mourn the baby I lost.

And I talk about my second pregnancy too. I feel lime there is an expectation that I keep quiet from family and friends sometimes. I dont.

I had never hears the term til I joined Mumsnet - I don't think most people who know what it means in real life. It is not a term I would ever use - too twee and simplistic for me, plus a bit insulting to the child born after loss. I fell pregnant after my daughter died. My son is now a stroppy teen, not a 'rainbow' not a 'baby' - a full human being in their own right. For me it is a shallow hallmark term that actually diminishs the real rawness of human life and loss.

zzzz I would be furious too - for me it belittles both the reality of my child born after loss and my ongoing raw bereavement. Ain't no rainbows here.

To be honest if the worst thing someone says to you when you tell them you’ve had a miscarriage is that your next dc is a rainbow baby, you’ve got off very lightly compared to most of us.

It's an awful term. I don't feel the need to advertise my various losses by using the term RB. Three of my 6 dc are RB I suppose but honestly I don't obsess over it so would be hard pushed top tell you which ones they are.

This is not a term I use as I have always thought it applies to parents who’d experienced stillbirths, whereas I have “only” had recurrent miscarriages. However can we take a moment to think about how some of the responses on this thread may make women who do use the term and take some comfort in it, feel? They don’t need to hear over and over again how twee and offensive it is to the child in question.

It must be a fairly recent term because I never heard it used even on line when I had a stillbirth and subsequent baby. I never used born sleeping or angel baby about my own child either as I prefer the standard language. I wasn't keen on others using those words about my child but I never said anything.

People should be guided by the language the berieved parent uses.

I don't like the term. Especially for miscarriage. It's a bit needy and invites people to offer sympathy, sorry.

@Mistressiggi, thank you.

People should be guided by the language the berieved parent uses.

Absolutely.

I’m not keen on the phrase as to me it puts expectations on the child. That doesn’t matter though because my opinion doesn’t count in that kind of situation. If it gives the parents comfort in any way then who cares? This equally applies to parents who don’t want to use it.

I think it is ok to be "needy" if you are going through pregnancy and birth after the loss of a child.

Another POV to the debate, this article from Tommys on childlessness after miscarriage or stillbirth within the narrative of the 'rainbow baby'

Yet missing from the miscarriage narrative is something so huge, but still so taboo, that many people don’t even realise it’s missing: the stories of those women and couples for whom things didn’t end with a ‘rainbow baby’; the stories of those for whom miscarriage, early-term loss or stillbirth marked the end of their hopes for a family.

I thought a rainbow baby, was a stillborn, baby. I didn't realise that it is a baby born after the terrible loss. The baby is a baby in its own right, they do not need to be labelled. I've had five pregnancies and three living children. Sorry for your loss, speak to your family/friends to help you through.

His existence being led to the death of an older sibling soon after birth had burdened by OH for most of his life. Although I understand how different families handle it differently, my MIL has implied, at points in his life where he hasn't chosen to do what she wanted, that he is an additional child who would not have existed unless his brother had died.
He is a person in his own right (unique and perfect!). (My MIL would like to control his life but doesn't)