If you had a miscarriage 1/2/5/10/20+ years ago... (TW for the obvious reason)

[EssentialHummus]

If you had a miscarriage some time ago, how do you feel about it now? How often if at all do you think about the child you would have had, or the circumstances around your loss?

I suffered a loss last year, around the time that covid hit the UK. So we're now just over a year on. I'm pregnant again and touch wood this time things are progressing well, and tbh I feel very lucky as I'm expecting twins. But I still think about my loss quite a bit - sometimes with sadness, sometimes (especially lately) in a more pragmatic/constructive way, ie it led to my current circumstances. For fullness, my MC led to my marriage going into a tailspin that took a long time (and therapy) to resolve, and it destroyed a close friendship (because my friend was so foul and lacking in empathy about it all that I couldn't continue). But it also allowed me to build a stronger marriage, and to create and run a really interesting small charity that is going well and helping a lot of people.

I feel that my feelings are normal, if maybe a bit on the emotional side, especially as I know women who have had many losses and had to endure far worse. But I'm interested - if you've had a MC however long ago, how do you feel about it now?

(And no, it's not really AIBU, but I'm very much "the more this topic is talked about/out in the open, the better") - so here it is on the busiest bit of MN.

My 2 losses were 16 and 9 years ago. I've got 5 living dc and the miscarried babies were my 1st and 5th pregnancies. After my first loss I got pregnant again 3 months later. After my 2nd loss I got pregnant again 10 months later.

My 2 miscarriages were the worst things I have been through, with my dc2's attempted suicide as a close second and my dad dying being 3rd.

I had three miscarriages between dd1 and dd2. (DD2 is 15) Whilst I do think about the babies that might have been, I always come back to the fact that dd2 wouldn't be here had the miscarriages not happened. She couldn't be a better daughter.

Obviously, everyone has different life experiences and circumstances, so I am just talking about my perspective. The m/cs were all quite early (around 8-11 weeks), and I think that helped.

I don't see them as the worse thing that ever happened to me, in fact I don't think about them all that much these days. But, as I say, everyone is different and I mean no criticism of anyone who was affected differently. It's a horrible thing to happen.

I had two MC, each between DC births (have three kids)
At the time I was devastated, but I now look back with a 'that was hard' but I don't have strong feelings about them now, can't remember the due dates (which I thought would be seered on my memory).
Sometimes idle curiosity about how life could have been so different as we wouldn't have the same dc as we have now - but passing thoughts, no distress.
Everyone is different, but it is definitely possible to 'get over it' in time, does take time.

I had a miscarriage 43 years ago, I still think about the child I would have had occasionally, I have an older son of 45 and had a younger son who died at 26. I must say that at the time of the miscarriage, I was devastated, but couldn't really express that, as the general attitude was, that it was just one of those things and quite common, but not to be talked about. In comparison, when my son died, I was also devastated, had 6 weeks off work, a funeral to arrange, lots of sympathy, people asked about my feelings, my son is mentioned in conversations, and remembered by others in the family and friendship circle
.The miscarriage, by its very nature can only really be remembered by me, and I don't know what the solution would be, except for women to talk about these things and acknowledge, that there wa a chils, which would help in the short term grieving.

I had an early miscarriage - about 6 weeks - nearly 7 years ago (I actually had to pause to work out how long ago it was). I don’t think about it at all, & I don’t feel distress if I am reminded of it. But I got pregnant again about one cycle later, & it was my third child. I can imagine scenarios in which it could have caused lasting distress, just didn’t happen to be one of those scenarios for me.

I had a MC in 2012, it was at 7 weeks and I do still think about it a couple of times a week. I think that it was very badly dealt with it at the time. I had a 6-month-old and due to childcare had to go through the process on my own. Most people's attitude (medical staff and family) was 'oh well, you've already got a baby, it was only 7 weeks so hardly a thing at all.' Completely dismissive of the whole situation. To me, it was a child and I'm not sure I'll actually ever completely get over it. Eeek.

There's no right or wrong here. I had a MMC about a year and a half ago, I didn't find it traumatic at the time, although obviously very sad, and quickly conceived DD2 afterwards who was born happy and healthy after a straightforward pregnancy just as lockdown was easing last summer. For me, my MMC was the only bump on the road to two healthy children born with no issues after easy pregnancies. I am more than happy if that's the price I had to pay to the universe, if that makes any sense. I feel I've been unusually lucky.

On the other hand, a friend had a miscarriage between her second and third children and still struggles with it, and my aunt still talks about hers close to 50 years later.

No one gets to decide how you feel about yours, and of course it will weigh heavily if it caused problems in your marriage.

All the best with your twins

I had a miscarriage 14 years ago. I was heartbroken when it happened. I was very lucky to get pregnant again quickly so when I look back now I know that I wouldn't have my daughter that I have now if I hadn't had the miscarriage.

It helps to to think of it as "what was meant to be" if that makes sense.

I don't really think about it much at all. I'm conscious it was a hard time for me at the time. It was 4 years ago. But it wasn't meant to be.

I got pregnant the month after and have an amazing 3 year old now. If I hadn't had that mc, I never would have had him and he is exactly the baby I was meant to have. I don't really think of the mc as a loss, like it wasn't to me a baby that I could have had that I lost. It just wasn't meant to be and I've never mourned that loss since the initial mc and recovery time after.

I generally feel happy with how things turned out and feel really grateful for the children I have. I do feel sad for myself at the time, because I really struggled. I wish I could have known how happy things would be now and not have been so hard on myself.

I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks in 2014 and still think of that baby. Though I struggle much more regularly with the loss of our son in 2018 (TFMR)
Feels harsh to say that but with my miscarriage things hadn't developed so we're not even sure a baby was growing yet with my tfmr I was 22 weeks and we held him for a while.

I had 2 in late 2019, one late 2020 and now currently on my 4th pregnancy at 27 weeks. I think about it every day tbh, I have ever since the first one in 2019. It's taken over my life, that and TTC, and trying to hold onto a pregnancy. I'm sure there'll come a time when I don't think about it as much, but that's not yet. I guess that's only natural while you're still in the TTC/pregnancy pit hole! Hope everything works out for you x

I had one 7 years ago. I think about it in a pragmatic way as it led to me having my son 18 months later but I mentally acknowledge it in a kind of neutral way around the anniversary of the miscarriage and the time it would have been born. To be honest, it reminds me more of a difficult time as I was being horribly bullied at work at the time, the stress of which would not have helped. Also it reminds me of the fact that I had 2 of my friends who were terribly insensitive at the time, they aren't friends now.

I had a late loss 6 years ago. I still think about my baby a lot, not daily but weekly I would say. I always think of how old she would be now and what she might be like around the anniversary of her delivery and her due date. I can't get into details her stillbirth in conversation face to face without welling up. I had a fair bit of therapy afterwards but that's where I'm at 6 years down the line. Feels pretty normal to me and was definitely the hardest and worst thing I've been through.

I conceived dd2 (now aged 5) 3 months after I lost her, she was my first baby and I had a textbook pregnancy with DD2, although was very anxious throughout of history repeating itself.

I had 2 missed miscarriages in 2017 so 4 years ago now which is crazy to think. I was far more traumatised by them than my early ‘natural’ miscarriage because I thought everything was ok for so long only to discover it wasn’t at the 12 week scan. The first one was the hardest because I just didn’t see it coming. I’d never heard of missed miscarriages so I thought everything would be ok because I didn’t bleed or have cramps at all. It totally threw me and I almost died during the medical management process because I had a huge haemorrhage and went into septic shock. It took me a very long time to move forward after those miscarriages.

I had my 2.5 year old just short of a year after the second MMC but the effects of the miscarriages ruined the pregnancy for me. I was nervous and anxious throughout, constantly convinced myself I was going to lose him and I didn’t believe he’d ever make it out of me alive. I honestly thought right up until he was born crying that he was going to be stillborn. I also then convinced myself he would die of SIDS and became transfixed on statistics. I’d wake up to check on him multiple times a night, sometimes wake up panicking that he was dead.

The anxiety never really left me. I worry about my 9 month old not breathing quite often too, sometimes stop the car to double check he’s definitely still breathing which sounds neurotic really.

I had the early miscarriage between my 2.5 year old and 9 month old but it didn’t bother me too much. Sounds awful but I sometimes forget it happened. It felt more like a heavy late period than anything else.

I’m sorry for your loss.
I had one 17 years ago and I do think about my baby, not every day but on what would have been his birthday, when I had my mc etc.
You never forget but it gets easier.
I think the hardest bit is that everyone else seems to have forgotten about him, even DH. There is an expectation that you should just “get over it” and people say a lot of platitudes such as it’s natures way and other shit that frankly just annoyed me then and still annoys me now.
I am sorry for your loss, we had a tree planted for our baby in a National Forest and also donate each year to a children’s hospice where they light a candle for him, so you might want to consider something like that.

I'm 11 years on and obviously I know I went through it and still think of it but I can speak about it very easily and openly. I don't feel sad anymore. I think partly because we were so young and we were renting in lowish paying jobs so we would have struggled financially. Hindsight has helped.

Don't get me wrong, at the time I was very very low, I don't know how I came out of it alive to be honest, but I am incredibly lucky that we went on to have two children, the oldest came along almost 3 years to the day and absolutely saved me.

I’ve had two losses. One at 6 weeks which just manifested as a late period really. It didn’t upset me at all and I hadn’t felt happy to be pregnant so it felt like a blessing in disguise really - I hope it’s not insensitive to say that. In the days and weeks after the mc I wondered if I had wished it away.

My second was an ectopic pregnancy. I was more upset by the medical drama surrounding it - it had ruptured, there was internal bleeding and I had emergency surgery to remove the clot, the embryo and the fallopian tube. There were follow-up appointments and medication and I think I was distracted by all of that and didn’t actually stop and think about the loss of an actual baby until some time later. I processed it as a pregnancy that didn’t work out. It was about 8 years ago and I do think about it quite often but it doesn’t upset me. I just wonder.

2 early miscarriages and I think about it everyday because I am unable to fall pregnant. No kids for me it seems.

I think that makes the difference tbh, whether you go on to conceive and have have a healthy baby... otherwise its a life of childlessness and thats probably what the all consuming thoughts are about.

I had a miscarriage about two years ago (and also a termination about 25 years ago).

I don't really dwell on it at all.

But I was only around 8 or 9 weeks pregnant so it really wasn't like a late miscarriage or stillbirth, which I can see would be absolutely devastating. my heart goes out to all women who've been through that.

I think about the termination more often just in a 'what if' sort of way, even though it was longer ago (and i am 100% sure it was the right decision). I guess because if I hadn't terminated that pregnancy I would probably have ended up with a child. Whereas a miscarriage was never going to be

P.s. I meant to say that the OP's phrase "the child I would have had" doesn't chime with me at all as a description of a miscarriage. Unless it was caused by an accident/blow to the stomach etc, there was never a 'child that would have been'.

Guess that's why my termination feels slightly different to me, though no regrets - but there would in fact have been a child if nature had taken its course.

I had 4 MC between 17 and 12 years ago. At the time, I was very sad and probably a little bit traumatized. I had an underlying anxiety/ dread that lasted throughout all my pregnancies and until dc3 was a few months old, so probably for about 7 years. I'm not a particular anxious person. I think the repeated MCs made me painfully aware that bad things could happen to me.

I would say with time, things really do heal. I consider myself very lucky to have 3 healthy kids. I do occasionally think about the MC, but as someone above said, I have the DC I have now because of the MCs and I wouldn't want to change them for anything. I think it also made me more compassionate for others going through similar things. The experience also made me re-evaluate my priorities and I became a sahm for a long time, which is a decision I am pleased I made. (Completely appreciate this would be a decision others may not want or be able to make). Sometimes when bad things happen, I think it's helpful to think about whether any positives can be found in the situation.

I lost twins in 2015 at 12 weeks, and a singleton early 2020 at 11 weeks, both pregnancies which were seemingly going well and I'd had a few early and promising scans. Both awful experiences and I still think about them at least a few times a week and wonder who they would have been

However, I know that I wouldn't have had my DC (2018) if the first pregnancy had worked out, and I wouldn't be expecting twins now had my 2020 pregnancy worked out. I hold on to some shred of hope that everything happens for a reason, or something along those lines. I can't imagine my life without my DC in it so it's very bittersweet.

My first miscarriage was 12 years ago and my second was 7 years ago. I also had an abortion 19 years ago.

I often think about the children that they would have become and it's still sad, but if I hadn't had the miscarriages, I wouldn't have had my lovely DC in my life. I was very young when I had my abortion and I wouldn't have been able to give the child a good upbringing. I remember all my little angels, at least once a week.

I m a bit older than some of you at 53 and had a miscarriage at 16 weeks in 1988, my ds was 8 months old at the time and we were young parents.
I dont think about it much now. At the time it was "just one of those things " and a nurse said "at least you ve got your little lad, you're young, you ll have others".
I felt everything come away and know there would have been a baby but was too terrified to look and they took it away without me seeing. I dont know if it was a boy or a girl.
I was back at work 2 days later and it was never mentioned.
I had dd 6 years later.
I think that was just the times we lived in then that we did our crying alone.

I had a miscarriage when I was 18, this was over 30 years ago. I had to have a D&C under general anaesthetic . I was around 11 weeks. I was not trying to get pregnant I only took a test because I was bleeding on and off for weeks and had no proper period and I had gone off chocolate.

Honestly, hand on heart, it really did not bother me. I was back at work the day after and getting on with my life. I have never shed any tears over it but sometimes I do wonder about how things might have worked out if it didn't happen.

I feel no sadness and just think of it as one of those things that happen.

I see a lot nowadays of people taking MONTHs off work because of one but honestly to me it was really not a big deal.