to get cross that people ignore emails telling them about my MMC?

[Thandeka]

A few people (good friends or so I thought) who I have decided to tell via email about my recent MMC at 10 weeks pregnant have just COMPLETELY ignored email/text about it, yet since they are fannying about on facebook etc I know they have probably got it.

I know sometimes people don't know what to say but I think leaving it longer than 24hours for a response (once you recieved email/text obv.) is just cruel. Or am I being unreasonable?

Hi thandeka no I don't think you ABUN at all but sadly it does seem to be the way it goes. When I had a MMC it took over 5 months for one of my close 'friends' to get in touch as "she didn't know what to say". It was upsetting as she was one of my bridesmaids at our wedding so she was a close friend to us. Needless to say I wouldn't regard her as such a close friend now. The ironic think was that I fell preg again quickly and was going through another mc when she did finally call, I do know she felt pretty guilty. I know I could have called her but felt that for at that time she should have been there for me.

So sorry about you MMC, hope you are coping xxx.

Dont be cross yet please!
I've had people email me bad news before and I cant just reply straight away, I need a day or two to really think what I want to say. I hope that when I do send a reply it comes across as more thoughtful than a quickly emailed off 'so sorry, dont know what else to say' iyswim.
If you get NO response at all, thats utterly shit of them. But if you get a thought out response after a few days then I think yabu to be cross they didnt reply sooner.
I hope you get lots of replies soon and I'm sorry about your sad news x

When I had my MCs ( in the days before e-mail etc!)we only told a few people who were very close to us. And, other than our own siblings, we didn't tell anyone who hadn't already got children. Not because we were nasty, or thought they would be, but purely because we felt that not having children of their own, they would not understand our devastation. In fact, if I am honest, I would say that it wasn't until after safe arrival of DS1, that DH and I really understood our earlier losses and began to truly grieve for them. MC no 3 was different because that was between DS1 and DS2 so we did our grieving at the time.

So, no, I don't think YABU to feel sad that they haven't contacted you, but you do need to understand it is difficult for them too and they may genuinely not know how to, or even whether, to broach the subject with you.

At least nobody has said to you, as they did to me, 'oh well, at you're still young enough to have another one!'. I didn't want another one. I wanted the one(s) I had just lost! ( And that was said to me by people who should have known better, eg MIL)

So sorry about your MMC

But ......

I think you are being a little bit unreasonable. email and text is just not the way to tell your friends about these things. It is a personal matter and so should be shared in person.

Hi, I really feel for you. Especially because I too have just suffered a slow/mmc at 11 weeks, which happened a week ago.

However, I haven't even told my mum about it. I have only told people that I felt I needed to know and only when I have seen them face to face. I'm not saying you are BU to have emailed people, of course not, but I think that I wouldn't know how to respond to this type of email immediately either. I think you need to give your friends time.

I do understand the unhelpful comments, I have had 'you're still young', 'it's really very common' and the best, ironically from my BF, 'well you hate being pregnant anyway!'

Could someone please tell me what the best thing to say in these situations are. I wouldn't have a clue

I am so sorry about your MMC. I think your friends are trying to think of what to say. I didn't tell many of my friends when it happened to me, and I was disappointed as a couple of people I thought of as really close friends didn't get in touch with me in the following weeks to see how I was. I know it was probably because they felt uncomfortable, but I have to say for me this did have the effect of sorting my friends into those I feel I can rely on now, and those that I have become more distant from.

Similarly I found when meeting up with some people, they just didn't let me talk about it and would change the subject. Which didn't help me at all.

But having said all that, you need to give them time. Some people will just want to think carefully before they respond, and that's fine.

Pembslass- how about, 'I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine how upsetting and confusing this must be for you. I've no idea if I can make this any easier for you, but if there is anything I can do, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm a good listener and have a kettle ready to boil for a cup of tea any time of day. I'm thinking of you.'

That's what I would have liked to hear

Please just don't say, 'it's common. You can have another one. It probably wasn't the right time. It might have been disabled anyway. There was obviously something wrong with it and you wouldn't have wanted that. Your other chn are so young- a bigger age gap would be much better. There's probably a really good reason. It's not a real baby before 12 weeks. You don't like being pregnant anyway. At least now you can have a drink at [insert any uniportant function here]'

Can you tell I heard a whole range of 'helpful' comments after my first mc? Glad I've hardly told anyone this time.

thank you cupoftea x

I agree with Sullwah - it's an awful thing to have happened to you, and I am so sorry

But it sounds as though you have thrown out quite a lot of anger regarding your MMC towards your friends - and people DO find anger hard to deal with, and angry people even harder -

what I am trying, badly, to say, is that on some level perhaps you realised that many of your friends might find an email containing shocking news like that very difficult to respond correctly to, and therefore demanding that they do respond to such is in a way giving yourself a reason to feel angry with them rather than with God/nature/ whomever you might wish to blame inwardly for the tragic thing that happened to you.

I don't think it is fair to expect people to know how to answer you. I would have NO idea, despite having friends who have had miscarriages and so on. In person I would find it far easier.

Finally I very much doubt there was anything conscious about your motivations or indeed theirs. And I could be utterly wrong about it, in which case I am even sorrier

Cupoftea, add to that 'are you sure you were pregnant?'. A class response I had to my 9 week mc.

I guess there are so many people who are worried about saying the wrong thing that they say nothing.

I also think there are plenty of people who really do think it's 'for the best' etc, and just don't understand the sorrow.

Sorry, Thandeka, clicked before I meant to, I'm sorry for your loss, hope you are doing ok.

Thandeka, so sorry about your mmc

I agree, it is rubbish when people can't even say anything - even a crass comment is sometimes better than none at all. It's the acknowledgement that is important.

I do think the older and wiser people get (sadly, sometimes through sad events of their own) the better people get realising this.

The more I think about it the more insensitive and unnecessary my post was. So sorry xx

Thandeka - I am so sorry for your loss. I think an MMC is unbearably cruel - I didn't find out about mine until I went for my scan.

You asked if anyone had fallen out with friends over their responses. I did. I had a friend who I fell out with at the time (my best friend) who didn't reply to my text saying I'd miscarried and she said she didn't think I was expecting a reply. We did make up though and are friends now.

Two other friends told me six months later than they thought I should be over it, that I shouldn't TTC again until I'd come to terms with it and that my reaction was really over the top. I am no longer friends with them.

For the people on this thread who have said the OP shouldn't have told people by facebook - she didn't, she sent an email. And if you have to tell a lot of people some bad news, email or text is often an easier way of doing it. That's how my friend told me her DD was stillborn. I would never dream of giving her a hard time for not calling me personally. FFS.

Thandeka, sorry for your loss.

If you said 'MMC' (thanks Duchesse for decoding the acronym) or 'missed miscarriage' in your email, I think people may not know what that meant. They would understand 'miscarriage' but not necessarily know what is meant by a 'missed' one. Perhaps they are confused and don't know what to say and too shy to ask for details?

However, even if I understand what a missed miscarriage was, I would still reply. So you are not unreasonable.

I meant that it wasn't like she posted it on her wall - she sent individual private messages. I don't consider messages sent on facebook any different than any other email personally.

I couldn't face talking to anyone - I was waiting at home for my ERPC or miscarriage (whichever came sooner), still feeling pregnant, hoping they'd made a mistake. I was grieving, in shock, devastated.

I'm probably quite sensitive about it because I know how bloody awful it is.

before kids I certainly didn't give it much thought...had a mc before es....was very upset...had a suspected mc with es....seriously freaked out....( Obsgyn wasn't trained well in scanning equipment)....than had mc after es....but tbh...it didn't even touch me....so different skituation, etc...had effect on my coping and emotions...
however...all in all I see earlier m/c's (before 12 weeks) as part of the normal cxourse...because early m/c's often seem to point to problems....
so...I don't tend to ponder to much, and certainly would not be one of the people setting up a memorial site, etc....
however, no idea how I would feel after say around 20 weeks, because by then I always considered the being in me a little Baby

Not insensitive at all. I meant that I couldn't bear having face to face/phone conversations with people about it for a while. I just wanted to curl up on my own. But I had to tell people because everyone knew that I'd been for the scan. I think there is an assumption that everything is going to be alright - I'd never heard of a missed miscarriage and I was still getting loads of pregnancy symptoms so it was a huge shock.

Oooh crumbs this thread has moved on quite a bit!

Just to clarify I did say Missed Miscarriage in my emails only use the acronym on Mumsnet as a lot of posters know what it means and is faster.

In my emails I also wrote that I wasn't up to talking to anyone about it just yet but texts and emails were fine and I made it clear I wanted to hear from them. I did this because I know some friends would automatically call and at the time I couldn't face it. Although I suppose there is a lesson in that- if I wanted a response by email so I could have time to consider my response, then to be fair perhaps I should have given my friends the same time. (although me being me usually writes a reply within 10secs of reading an email!)

I use FB private messaging as an extension of email as I don't have email addresses for some people. Is funny because I have ended up telling more people about the MMC than about the pregnancy. We were waiting for the 12 week scan before we told all and sundry but since it happened some of my close friends who I was desperate to tell about the pregnancy I just had to tell them where I was at now. Then some other people have been inviting us to stuff and I am a terrible one for not making up rubbish excuses as they always bite me on the bum so depending on who they are I have told them so they get why I am being unsociable.

Anyhow since my last posts my friend who hadn't repsonded on facebook was instant messaging me last night and we had a long chat and she apologised for not replying she had been doing flying visits onto facebook and wanted to sit and write a proper response. (she still came out with some clangers but am getting used to it). So I am less bitter now and possibly was being unreasonable

The best clangers have been from my M-I-L who told me she knew exactly how I was feeling as she also had had a MMC at 10 weeks (erm NO! Her MMC was her 5th pregnancy at 45 after 4 successful pregnancies and her 1st pregnancy resulted in my lovely DH and didnt end up down the toilet like mine did! Oh and she also told me her termination at 17 weeks for downs with her 6th pregnancy was much worse than what I was going through- don't get me wrong the things that happened to her are terrible and traumatic and probably are worse than what I went through but I don't need a one-upmanship on grief and loss right now! Oh and then she told me I could use the experience of the miscarriage to help my teaching (I teach pregnancy and childcare!)

Oh and to Banned International Flight- I just get angry on mumsnet to annonymous people. I'm a horror for hiding my bile against my RL friends so have been nice as pie to people even the useless ones! (P.s thankyou for your second post about your first- I appreciate that- I was skim reading so I hadn't taken it in- so I actually read your second post first then went back to first- which was a great way to do it as that way it was a fine post!

Thankyou to all MNetters for all the support on this thread. It does make such a difference having people who understand. In RL I only have one friend who has had an MMC and hers was with her first at 16weeks (so probably a whole heap more horrible than mine) and she went on to have two gorgeous kids so that gives me hope. But knowing people get through it and supporting people makes all the difference.

I am sorry for your loss but think you are being unreasonable.

A friend recently sent me an email telling me she'd just terminated a pregnancy as the baby had anacephaly (and hence no prospect of life outside the womb). I didn't just fling her back an email but waited a week then phoned her. Maybe I was wrong to wait but it gave me a chance to think about what I wanted to say and to try and minimize the chance of her being inundated with 'sorry' calls all in the first 48 hours (happened to a friend of mine and it was grim).

Of course your friends should acknowledge your loss but I think it is reasonable to give them a bit of space to think how best to do this.