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

*linked, not led!

I had two missed miscarriages last year and the grief I felt was immeasurable so I’m a little dismayed at people on here minimising what people feel following a miscarriage. I almost lost my life during the first miscarriage and suffered PTSD as a result.

To me this pregnancy is our rainbow. We actually call him our ray of sunshine. I’m not usually the sentimental or twee type at all but it’s important for me to acknowledge what we lost as well as what we are now incredibly fortunate to have now.

I don’t use it but didnhqve a journey to get our child.

What I did do and have always done is said that we had a bit of a journey and bar a miracle he’s a one and only when people ask about more
I also add it’s nice to plan but life doesn’t work that way xx

I'm sorry for your loss.

Slightly different perspective here - I'm an adoptive parent, and have never been pregnant or lost a baby. But your story brought to mind the amount of projecting that other people do onto adoption.

The most common thing people say about DD is 'isn't she lucky?' Lots of adopters really hate that because we think, actually, she had a really shitty start in life. That is not lucky!

The other thing people say is 'aren't you amazing?', like adoptive parents are heroes, when we're just very ordinary people muddling through, having chosen to make a family this way.

My point is that people will always project their own interpretations onto your situation, no matter what it is. They mostly mean well - everyone who's made those comments above has definitely meant well. It's just not how I choose to define our lives so I don't buy into their interpretation.

Depending on my mood, I either smile and nod, or else politely demur and say, 'oh, we don't really see it like that'.

Like you, I often feel the need to be honest about our journey at baby groups etc, but as a PP has said, all that will recede as our DC get older and how we got here becomes less prominent.

However, IMO I would personally dislike to be defined as a surviving sibling. No one asks to be born and to be constantly reminded that you are the precious survivor, might be an unwelcome burden?
This ^^. My sister was technically a rainbow baby, and then when she died (as an adult) I got the 'you're all we've got' comments. I hated it because it left me feeling like I was only worth something because they'd lost her and not in my own right. It sucks. (though equally it sucks more to have lost a child)

I dislike the term rainbow baby. All babies are unique & special.
Adults talking about their own feelings, fine. Giving babies special labels because of nothing to do with them as an individual = weird.

It's entirely up to you whether and how you tell anyone about your miscarriage.

There's no need at all to associate that with your baby. Of course it's all part of your journey but your it's nothing to do with her. Your life and experiences are yours, hers are hers.

Not read all the replies.

I really dislike the term RB. If you have had a miscarriage and you want to mention it then by all means do. Ive had a miscarriage and told a few people straight afterwards and everyone was lovely and supportive. I'm not sure why I dislike the term RB quite so much. I dislike the cutesy'ness of it but I think the main thing is that you are linking the miscarriage/death of the first baby with the second.

If other people wish to use it for themselves I obviously wouldn't mind.

I don't like the term at all. I corrected the one person who used it politely but firmly.

If others choose to use it that's their choice but I won't have it imposed on me.

I don't get why people are so passionately against it, I really don't. Step - you most probably offended someone who meant well when you "politely but firmly" corrected them.

This thread is making me feel uncomfortable. Some quite harsh opinions on very sensitive issues.

I had three miscarriages over a number of years - two of them were particularly traumatic - to me and my family anyway.

We eventually got our longed for child when I was 39. The years before that did feel dark and dominated by loss, longing and grief.

When we did have our baby, we got a few cards featuring rainbows and a rainbow babygro and a wooden toy. I was nothing but touched because what the rainbow symbolises did feel pretty aligned to our experience. DS isn’t necessarily ‘the rainbow’ and I don’t refer to him as that. But he is the bright colours at the end of a dark period. He is the hope that we kept hold of.

For his first birthday I ordered a huge rainbow cake to celebrate.

He will not grow up bearing the weight of any burden. He is not attached to our losses - in fact we say, we went through those to get ‘him’. He was the child we were meant to have.

I really think people shouldn’t judge others’ losses and how they deal with/talk about them - it’s so much about context too.

And I feel sad to see miscarriage being minimised on this thread. Why even compare it to other types of losses. They’re all different and require understanding , and sensitivity in their own right.

I have 2 “rainbow babies” who are aged 10 1/2 and 7. Honestly, as they’re now older, the term isn’t used or even thought of because life has moved away from that stage and is now history. You may well do the same as your daughter grows and isn’t a baby any longer.

I had three early miscarriages before my current pregnancy, and also would feel really uncomfortable using the term rainbow baby, especially without explanation, as it would feel like I was appropriating or almost pretending that I'd had much bigger griefs. But then I have a lot of issues around guilt over 'making such a fuss' over early losses in general (have had some counselling for this, it helped!).

I'm going to try and tread really carefully here, because the last thing I want to do is to try and suggest there should be a taboo against talking about miscarriage, but if you're finding the responses difficult and even maybe upsetting I wonder if it's helpful to you to talk in detail about your 'pregnancy journey' in the circumstances you describe? Since telling people about this pregnancy (I'm 35 weeks now) I have been much more open about it being a struggle, but I've only done that in a very few cases by actually saying I had miscarriages, I've normally opted for 'we had a hard time getting here' - I feel more comfortable with that, and it means people accept, for instance, why I'm more anxious and less excited than usual without knowing the details. This is partially because, like you, I haven't always liked the responses I got (no one has said 'rainbow baby', but a few people have asked how far along I was with the miscarriages and then implied that they were too early to matter, which bothers me).

Obviously totally ignore this if you're finding it useful/cathartic to talk about it - but just wanted to point out that there is a middle ground between sharing your losses completely and so opening yourself up to conversations you don't like, and pretending that nothing ever happened and all was rosy.

I don't think 'rainbow' child is the correct term to use in your situation, not unless your child fits this description

www.starchildren.info/rainbow.html

I'd probably use the term 'miracle' to describe the journey to get to where you are today.

I'm lucky enough to have never experienced a loss.

When DS2 was a newborn he needed surgery and was in NICU critically ill for a month. He was in the room with another baby whose parents had decorated her incubators with rainbows. She was their second DC and the first had been a stillborn. Unfortunately this DC also passed away and now I can't hear the term 'rainbow baby' without feeling awful.

I had a miscarriage at 15 weeks and refer to my 5 year old as my "rainbow baby". Because they are. I understand that miscarriage is a different pain to still birth and infant death but part of me died the day my unborn baby died. Rainbow baby is pretty universally known, I can use that term and people understand I have a child I carry in my heart as well as the one in my hands. I sometimes call him Oliver but not many people know his name so I just say rainbow baby instead. It is a bit twee but so are many things in life. 🌈

I thought it was for stillborn. I don't think it should be used for mc. I've had 2, one quiet late, and still would never say dd2 is a rainbow child.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I hadn't heard the term Rainbow baby in that context. A lot of LGBT families call their kids rainbow babies too.

I'm sorry about your loss.

Use the term or not, whatever works for you. Pain as it is experienced is not a compition - do what you need to do, without hurting others, to bring yourself comfort.

I am sorry for your loss and congrats on your daughter.

I also find the term discomfiting. Possibly for different reasons to you. Mine are it links something very sad and potentially tragic to another child. So no I wouldn't use it, I'm sorry. I understand why people do, but I am uncomfortable with linking something as sad as a miscarriage or still birth to a Seperate child.

I can't understand why people minimise the loss of a child through misscarriage.

I can't understand why people think everyone needs to deal with miscarriage in the same way that they would. Everyone is different. Some people treat it as a bereavement in the same way as if they lost a child and some people dont. I was really ok when I had a miscarriage. I felt it was just one of those things. I was 14 weeks at the time (I undwrstand that I might feel differently if it was later on) I told my coworkers and friends and family and everyone was lovely. I did cry at the time and had a few days off work but that was it. I was disappointed but I wasn't 'grieving', I didn't give it much thought after a while and I certainly don't remember dates or anything like that. For me it was a failed pregnancy not a bereavement. I would be insulted if someone told me I was 'minimising' my experience. It was what it was. My feelings are mine and are just as valid as someone who feels traumatised over their miscarriage.

Telling other people how they should behave and what they should be feeling is not ok.

This thread is directly asking what people think of the term RB so people are giving their personal views. No one is suggesting (I don't think!) that they would tell someone in real life that they didn't like the term RB if the other person was using it.

(Sorry if crappy English - I'm on a small phone on a bumpy road. Not the driver obviously 😬)