To think referring to your toddler as a rainbow baby is strange?

[catsears1]

I have a Facebook friend who constantly calls her child her Rainbow Baby. Every time she posts a picture of him, she said 'my rainbow baby' 'my little rainbow' etc etc. The child is a around 2-3.

I get it, having a MC is devastating and having a baby after that will feel extra special. Maybe the term rainbow baby is appropriate during pregnancy but I find calling a toddler a rainbow baby a bit ... strange. I would hate it if that was my identity - I would want to be known as an individual IYSWIM.

@peperethecat - YY, it's more prevalent in the US, I know, but still there is a long way to go in the UK. In medical literature everywhere, there's a massive gap.

And I don't know of any version of English (or other languages?) that has a term for a woman who was pregnant but never had a living baby. I do hope there is such a term somewhere.

@Alb1 - please don't apologise! I do know it's a term used in pregnancy loss settings and I'm absolutely not trying to police the way it's used. I just wanted to respond to the idea that it was a term everyone would recognise in medicine, which it isn't.

I think we just don't have enough recognition of pregnancy loss in general, and that's what makes the terminology so fraught. Most people don't realise how common it is, so it's almost impossible to find a way to talk about it.

@FrancisCrawford I've heard a lot of women say they've been described on their medical notes as having had a spontaneous or missed abortion and found it upsetting.

I'm in France and in a medical context they tend to say "fausse couche" in conversation (which is pretty much equivalent to the word miscarriage) and in the notes they use a term which translates as "stopped pregnancy". They seem to have stopped using the word abortion in favour of "voluntary interruption of pregnancy".

It's all very fraught. 'Voluntary interruption of pregnancy' will be incredibly painful as a term applied to women who wanted anything but an abortion. I have a friend whose pregnancy was terminated medically in her second trimester because her baby had died. It was in no way a 'voluntary interruption'.

I really wish we could develop a better way of talking about these experiences across the board.

To be fair, I'm not sure whether there is a different term when it's a termination for medical reasons. There might be.

It's not the point, though. The point is that there is a lack of sensitive language across the board. This thread demonstrates that, when there is a term that has some currency in non-medical, grassroots contexts, it's often denigrated. But medical language doesn't seem to make much allowance at all. So we're at an impasse, where many women will not find that the terms used by medics compound their hurt, and the terms used in places like MN, are controversial and often get shot down.

We just need to stop seeing pregnancy loss as something so impossible to talk about, IMO.

Totally agree with that.

My child is a “rainbow baby” (17 months). I never knew about the whole rainbow thing until after he was born but he’s my baby- nothing else. I had 2 miscarriages before him and while I understand it when they’re newborn, I think it’s unfair to keep looking back. I was so resentful of my pregnancy with my son because I felt so guilty about the babies I’d lost, but once he was born, thankfully, I was smitten.

I don’t judge people anyway because I think the experience is individual experience.

As I read it, the OP was about the child. The impact of the term on him and his future.

But it seems we can't discuss that.

Let me see, what could be more distasteful than criticising someone for how they choose to grieve the loss of their baby? Oh yes. Implying that they are a bad parent who is damaging their living child because of how they choose to grieve the loss of their baby, when you know nothing else about their circumstances or their parenting.

It's only for social media. It's heading off criticism for being happy again by saying 'I haven't forgotten my first child' but it seems you can't win. Someone will always criticise.

I agree that it's one thing for the mother to spend time, even every day, thinking about her loss. (Personally as someone who has had a miscarriage but not the pain of a stillbirth, I find it emotionally excessive to refer to a first-trimester miscarriage in that way at all, though would feel differently about a baby dying later in pregnancy.) Either way, it's terribly weird and unfair to use those terms around a child who is speaking. My son is going to be three soon and he has quite an acute understanding of adult language.

Do you still think it is emotionally excessive if someone has had multiple first trimester losses and no living child?

There are a couple of people on the miscarriage/TTC boards here who have had eight or nine early losses and no baby. I honestly don't know how they find the strength to carry on.

I find it emotionally excessive to refer to a first-trimester miscarriage in that way at all,

Well that's up to you and how you deal with your experiences

Or is that that because a lot of people are under the misconception that a first trimester isn't a baby at all and is just a collection of cells which I see is often the case on these boards?

The heart starts beating at 6 weeks pregnancy.....but that's an uncomfortable truth for many

I saw the heart beating in all 7 of my losses - 2 were ruptured ectopics where it was a case of stopping a perfectly healthy babies heart or me dying - I don't think about what I've lost every day but If I did it certainly wouldn't be "emotionally excessive"

@peperethecat

Isn't the french for "I miss you" "tu me manques" meaning "you are missing from me" - I've always loved that when thinking about my lost pregnancies x

@ivfgottostaypositive Yes it is. I've never thought about that in the context of miscarriages before but I will now. That's a lovely thought.

Much depends on how the hospital deals with it. I dealt particularly with my mmc at 12 week scan because:
a) the sonograapher exclaimed "oh did you really want it" when I cried and sent me back out to the waiting room.
b) the Dr said an option was an ERPC and when I asked what that was trotted out The Remaining Product of Conception - "Oh my baby"
c) grief overwhelmed me as I went into theatre and I woke in great distress and the nurse in recovery told me to pull myself together and think of the other patients who didn't need to hear such a fuss.

Some things the hospital did well but the combination of the above did not help me come to terms with what happened. I left feeling there was no cognizance that some women actually planned their babies and really wanted them.

London teaching hospital 1996.

@OhTheRoses

Much depends on how the hospital deals with it

Sadly very true. The babies I lost in hospital - mainly the ectopics - were offered a full funeral service with hearse and coffins and they sent midwives to sit with us during the service even though they were only 7-8 weeks gestation (hospital policy but I could have chosen to take the remains home) and the ashes were spread on their baby loss garden.

It felt like that these babies were acknowledged as being important to me even if they didn't matter to anyone else just because they were first trimester. It helped me feel that the grief I was feeling was normal and reflect on the fact that no matter how short they existed they had made an impact on my life, and actually gave me more closure than the babies I miscarried at home. I don't visit the cemetery garden often - maybe once a year - it's close to my IVF clinic so often after a transfer I'll go there to think about how far I've come and how much stronger I am.

Every hospital should be able to offer this service x

It’s such a tricky one. My DS is/was a rainbow baby after two incredibly painful missed miscarriages, we went through an awful ordeal to have him so he was even more precious to us as a result. I don’t think I’ll ever go into great detail with him about this though, maybe when he’s a lot older if it’s ever appropriate to tell him.

I know a woman who sadly had a stillbirth at 36 weeks, hugely traumatic all round. She was pregnant within three months though which was almost definitely too soon because the next baby was born less than a year after the stillborn baby. He’s a toddler now and he still seems to live in the shadows of the stillborn baby. They’ve vowed never to forget the first born and carry a bear around everywhere they go so he can join in. It’s very sweet in a way but I do feel a bit sorry for the living child. Every time they talk about the living child, the stillborn baby is also mentioned.

@OhTheRoses they still deal with miscarriages like this now. Mine were in 2017 and it was never once referred to as a baby, just ‘products of conception’. I wasn’t offered a funeral or anything of the sort, it was never even mentioned and I was sent home without any sort of emotional support. The first missed miscarriage almost killed me which just made it so much more traumatic and I had a consultant visit the next morning with a parade of students, she told me to ‘make sure I take contraception so this didn’t happen again’. I was so shocked, I cried for an hour solid when she left.

I had to visit the GP more than once and beg for help because I was so very depressed. I was told it was something that would pass in time and basically sent on my way. One GP just told me to try again. Awful.

DD was born 51 weeks after DS2 died at 27 weeks (congenital heart malformation identified at 20 week scan). The hospital did deal with that well but contact was principally with the specialist consultants (heart and obstetrics) and the midwives who worked with them with high risk patients.

However, I'm not sure if I'd have coped with not being pg and dd's birth was a significant catalyst in recovery. One thing that terrified me was having a girl because I needed my boy(s) replaced. We didn't find out the sex and had we I think it might have pushed me over the edge but finding out after a very easy birth and seeing ratjer than being told that the perfect baby girl was a girl served as immediate resolution.

DS2 would be almost 23 now. My darker, quieter child, more musical than sporty, a deeper more creative soul. I don't think about him every day now and time does heal but never the scar. I still visit at Christmas and on his birthday and refuswd to relocate far away from him.

I never thought of DS1 or DD as rainbow babies, only as my DC after two losses for each not counting the 5/6 week ones.

Lately though DD has said "oh we were rainbow babies" because whay wasn't a thing then is now.

It is good now that there are fora such as this to share. There weren't then. DH still doesn't like to talk about it.

I know a woman who sadly had a stillbirth at 36 weeks, hugely traumatic all round. She was pregnant within three months though which was almost definitely too soon because the next baby was born less than a year after the stillborn baby.

@Maybelatte has your friend actually said this? That she got pregnant too soon? If not, who are you to make that judgement?

I'm 14 weeks pregnant again having lost my daughter last year at 41 weeks. I fell pregnant about three months after losing her. I cannot explain the indescribable pain of not having your baby with you when you are so close to the end. The feeling of empty arms is a tangible agony. For someone to say that I fell pregnant too soon would be beyond insulting. I'm stunned at the insensitivity on this thread.

Let me see, what could be more distasteful than criticising someone for how they choose to grieve the loss of their baby? Oh yes. Implying that they are a bad parent who is damaging their living child because of how they choose to grieve the loss of their baby, when you know nothing else about their circumstances or their parenting.

@peperethecat, your posts, but particularly the above have said exactly what I wanted but in a much more eloquent way than I could, so thank you very much.