Feel weird about using the term rainbow baby

[crumble9]

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

lisaSimpsonbff

OP is clear that she isn't using the term herself - other people are - so she's not going to confuse anyone.

Your response to my post suggests I was referring to the OP when I wasn't. Another poster was saying she uses the term as a subtle way to refer to a miscarriage I didn't want to mention someone by name but wanted to make a general point about being straightforward if you want to acknowledge a loss

“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.”

No, see this pisses me off. Miscarriage and stillbirth are NOT completely different things. I’m not comparing the feelings surrounding either because you can not compare things like that. You might be comparing your loss to your friends’ - whatever, I suppose that is your right. But like I said on page one, the different between a miscarriage and a stillbirth can be one breath (if baby is born living) or one day (there is a cut off date when miscarriage technically becomes stillbirth). I’m not going to tell anyone how to react to either and what is right or wrong but to stand there saying they are massively different - much of the time they are not.

I’ve had two miscarriages, I held my babies, I wrapped them in blankets, I looked at their faces, I know their sex, I have scan pictures and a tiny footprint in a book, I made milk for them. I kept thei post mortem paperwork because it was the only thing I had with their names on, because didn’t get birth certificates, death certificates or funeral services so never officially existed, and I was back at work each time 5-7 days later. Because they were just miscarriages.

Agree with all that dandelion has said.

My DD1 died when she was a baby. I haven’t used the term rainbow baby for any of my subsequent children but I think it is a good ‘short hand’ for expressing that you have lost a child.

crumble I am so sorry for the loss of your little one. My advice would be not to feel you have to ‘take a line’ on using this term. Sometimes you might want to, at other times you might not. Do what feels right for you and your babies. It isn’t a betrayal of your first if you don’t want to mention it, equally I don’t feel there is any reason not to talk about your first baby if you want to.

I don’t tend to talk about DD1 very much but, when I have, I often find that the person I am talking to has also lost a baby too. My advice would be to play it by ear.

all

I think it's really dangerous to associate one child with the death of another.

My parents had a baby before me that was born alive and died a few days after birth. Growing up I was well aware of said baby and my mum in particular used to say if baby hadn't have died I wouldn't be here (in an I'm blessed/everything happens for a reason way) but it was still quite damaging to me.

I've had a baby after a miscarriage and Rainbow Baby is certainly not a term I will associate with.

I dislike the term. To me it sounds like, "This baby is only here because my last pregnancy isn't".
What a heavy weight to lay on small shoulders.

I dont like the term.

I also know there is a difference between stillbirth and miscarraige. Ive had two miscarraiges one that stopped developing ar 5 weeks. One whos hb stopped at 14 wks and inbetween those a stillbirth at 27 weeks. There is a huge difference in my opinion. That being said i am not disagreeing with how traumatic miscarraiges are and i definitely think early miscarraiges are very different to late ones.

I have a friend who 'technically' miscarried at 19weeks although i know it wasnt a miscarraige like the two i had. Its a really horrible situation and i dont know where the line should be but i do know that stillbirth is very different to early mc.

I also hate people mourning chemical pregnancies. I can imagine a bit of upset thinking youre pregnant then getting a period a couple of days later but i see lots of posts on here that say ive had 3 chemical pregnancies like they're miscarraiges. It really really grates on me. I get though that this is ny issue and likely because of the losses i have had.

Anyway to the point -no i dont like the term rainbow baby. Im not quite sure why. My first thought is it trivialises previous loss. If i am ever lucky enough to have a child they certainly wont be my rainbow baby.

Gosh, to read some of these comments you'd think that compassion and sympathy are scarce and limited resources - that if we accidentally give any to the 'wrong' people they'll be all used up. That's not how it works. Telling women who had early miscarriages to shut up about their trivial loss doesn't actually do anything to help those with later losses, it just makes the world a slightly less kind place.

I dont think anyone should tell people not to talk about miscarraiges or any other loss. I actually think that when you go through a loss at the time that is the worst thing because people dont talk about it or dont want to its like you should just move on and its not as easy as that. You will have always had that loss. It will have always affected you like it did at the time. Hopefully it will get better though. From my experience miscarraige does.

I dont say that lightly either. My first mmc was traumatic and affected me massively psychologically. I had ptsd and nearly died. My stillbirth in comparison was very straight forward. I found out he died on wednesday was induced and delivered him friday and physically recovered very easily from a straight forward birth.

I will never move on from that though. It will stay with me for the rest of my life. I have a grave to tend. Family it affected and so on.

Just don't use it, why do people need to know? Is nothing personal any more?

I had loads of miscarriages, some worse than others. I don’t think about them as babies at all. I have 3 children now I don’t think of as rainbow kids.
I understand that another person might want to remember things in a different way and use the term online to express a situation, but that’s all.
I totally think a woman that has had a still birth or a baby die after birth has probably more need for the term than I do with miscarriages.
I’m sorry for anyone that has gone through any such losses, it’s all heartbreaking.
But people deal with things differently. If you don’t want to say she’s a rainbow baby, just say “I don’t like using that term” and get on with it xx

I just read my post, of course I thought of them as babies while pregnant but not in the same sense as a baby born xx

I think what we need now are people who have lost children coming on to say that’s worse than neo-natal death which is worse than stillbirth which is worse than miscarriage which is worse than having all the babies you conceive. Presumably mums are worse than dads, but are mils worse than fils? We need to know, our grief hierarchy is not up to date without this knowledge.
There also needs to be a special formula to calculate multiple losses against age of time it happens and time period it happens in.

This is exactly why I am circumspect about my miscarriages in real life - even though I try really hard to be measured about them, to talk about it as disappointing and sad not devastating, never talk of them (or think of them as) babies, people seem to want to tell me whether or not I'm allowed to be sad, and whether I'm pathetic for being a bit messed up about it all. Screw that.

Whatshallidonowpeople although it is not a term I use, why should pregnancy loss be kept hidden?

@DBoo the chemical pregnancy thing annoys me too tbh, but I think it's maybe from hanging out on the TTC board where women study and post pictures of (often dubious) positive pregnancy tests well before their period is due and are encouraged by other women to consider themselves as having an early miscarriage when their period comes. It does no one any favours.

Women who get very upset about chemical pregnancies have often been trying for a long time and feeling increasingly desperate. A friend of mine recently had one with an IVF pregnancy - is she allowed to feel sad? I have never, ever seen a woman compare a chemical pregnancy to a later miscarriage, just to say they feel sad in their own right. I don't see what's so awful about that. Plus it's not a clearly defined term - some people say it's a chemical up to six weeks, in which case I had two chemicals (at 5.5 weeks) and one 'real' miscarriage. But that isn't how any of my doctors have described it, and it feels like more splitting of pointless hairs.

I think of mine as a rainbow baby, as she is such a lovely, happy, caring toddler who was very much longed for after a MC.

I don't call her it though, and nobody else knows that I think of her as a rainbow.

I do dress her in some bright rainbow colours as she looks lovely in them and it makes me happy!

"Women who get very upset about chemical pregnancies have often been trying for a long time and feeling increasingly desperate."

Yes and when you have to have ivf to have a baby if there is any sort of pregnancy loss you can feel like you have lost the only chance you will have of a child.

I dont know the exact definition of a chemical but it seems to be people who test early and get a faint positive then get their af the day their period is due or around about.

As far as i know the pregnancy never gets off the ground. You dont have to go through anything different to a normal period and had you not tested earlier you would be none the wiser.

I dont class it as a loss although i appreciate for a few days you might have got your hopes up and yes i am guilty of it myself but would not class it as a loss.

People seem to love pointing out that in the past, with no testing, I'd have never known about my first two miscarriages, as they'd just have been late and really bad periods. I never know what I'm supposed to do with that thought. It makes it sound like it's my fault for testing, and I do know, I can't unknow. Also, then I would have thought I had unexplained infertility rather than miscarriages, which wouldn't have done a lot to help me.

Sorry, I think I'm in danger of derailing this thread by talking about me too much, which really wasn't my intention. But these sorts of threads always seem to turn into discussions of who is and isn't 'worthy' of feeling sad, and I just don't know why women are so determined to do this to each other - as I said, compassion isn't (or shouldn't be, at least) a finite resource, and someone else's pain or upset doesn't take away from your own grief even if they're on very different scales.

I don't think it's about telling women they can't be sad, so much as recognising that a woman who goes through a full term stillbirth has had a different experience to a woman who has had a late miscarriage, which is different from an early miscarriage, which is different from a false positive test.

People also react with different degrees of resilience and stoicism to these events, depending on personality and context.

I had an early MC. It should really have been a chemical because nothing ever developed but it turned into a MMC because my body just didn’t do what it was supposed to. I almost got to my 12 week scan before I started miscarrying but luckily I’d had an early scan and knew.
Yes it was quite shit but I’ve actually avoided telling a friend of mine who had repeated MCs about it because I am worried my reaction to it will make her feel that I’m devaluing her experience which was much MUCH worse than mine. I don’t consider that the failed pregnancy was a baby and I won’t consider any future child to be a “rainbow”.

When you’re on TTC forums you do see people with early losses and even blighted ovums (like me) refer to them as angels and babies in the sky and it does make me a bit uncomfortable. At the same time, I can see why if you’ve a number of losses it would be extremely upsetting so it’s not that that I find uncomfortable, but really the idea of a blighted ovum (something that was never ever going to become a baby) being referred to as an angel.

But does anyone really not recognise that? Again, I've never, ever heard a woman who had an early miscarriage compare it to a full term stillbirth or a late miscarriage. The comparison seems to be solely used by other people to tell women who had early miscarriages that they're overreacting (a bit like your nice little jab about 'resilience and stoicism'). I have never seen anything, anywhere suggesting that all pregnancy losses are equal.

"But does anyone really not recognise that?"

Yes, I think there are plenty who do. In the same way that people will reply to someone who is grieving a partner or parent's loss with a tale about how bad they felt when their cat died. Or Diana. And in the same way that people will respond to primary fertility with a tale of how much they struggled to get pregnant with their third, but thank heavens they had a 'miracle baby', and have they tried Manuka honey?

I thought a rainbow baby was the term for a baby with gay parents.