Waste of a name?! *(TW - miscarriage)

... 15 weeks pregnancy is not the same as losing a 2 year old, because a 2 years old is as valuable as a 17 years old.

Just like losing your mother at 92 isn't the same as losing her at 32.

And it is obvious that, if you express the sentiment that they are the same, most people might not be so crass as to say it to you that that is over the top/ridiculous/outrageous to the mother who lost her child, as opposed to a pregnancy..., but a majority will be thinking it.

The friend is being VU.

I named my baby but lost him to a miscarriage. When I eventually gave birth, I still gave my DS the same name as the one I lost. I loved the name and it felt like the baby who had gone had come back but at the right time.

Absolutely this

I agree with her, I often think this myself but would NEVER say it out loud to anybody.

I don't think your friend is wrong to think this way. I have a similar opinion. I realise that people feel differently though and perhaps wouldn't have verbalise my thoughts, but I don't think there's anything outrageous about what she said. A lot of people would view a 15 week miscarriage very differently to the loss of a born child and its very early to be naming a baby.

She shouldn't have said that, but tbh, I understand why she might feel that way... Using a name that's particularly important to you when you know you won't be using it in the same way that you would if your child had survived... There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, if it's what feels right to you—every baby 'deserves' a name, and you can't really 'waste' a name, as such—but I can imagine it might cause hurt feelings if, for instance, it were a special family name, such as a name honouring a father, grandmother, favourite aunt, etc. If someone else might have wanted to use that name, now they may feel that it's been taken and 'wasted', since it won't be used in the same way that it could/would have been.

But it's a very tricky one, imo, and I wouldn't presume to comment on someone's choice, either way!

This made me well up. Such a beautiful sentiment.

There is something wrong with the wording when a number of posters think it's a 15 week old baby and not a 15 week old pregnancy which are, respectfully, entirely different.

I agree, I based my post on thinking it was the loss of a 15-week-old baby. I still think it was a crass thing to say though.

Yes- I agree with the friend too. I wouldn’t say it but I would think it.

I would never have said what your friend did , however I wouldn’t have named a pregnancy so early on , so if I felt the need to at miscarriage I would have used a name I loved but would not have been used for a living child .

However if your sister had thought of the baby as Milo from day one , I can quite understand she wouldn’t have been able to use that name for another baby later on .

I would suggest that as we all deal with miscarriages in our own ways , possibly your friend hasn’t had that experience and as such just thought more pragmatically that if the name was your sister’s favourite she would have wanted to use it another time .

Same here. I'm not sure some here quite understand what's involved in a 2nd trimester loss. Women absolutely would know the sex of the baby when they're holding them in their hands!

At 15 weeks an unborn baby is around the size of a pear (see pic). Their eyes are sensitive to light and they can start to hear too. They have eyebrows and eyelashes. The bones in their skeleton are hardening and they can kick, wave arms and legs and curl toes. By the end of the 1st trimester (12 weeks) all the organs, muscles, limbs and bones are in place, and the sex organs are well developed. The baby mostly just gets bigger and fatter after that point. This is not just a "bunch of cells".

I for one am sorry for your sister's loss.

Me too. My second son was stillborn at 34 weeks, this is trivial compared with some of the crass things people said to me.

I am so sorry ❤️

I just admit that I find it very odd when people “name” an unborn child - but it would be crass beyond measure to say so out loud in the circumstances you describe. If she’s a good friend, it may just have been an “engaged mouth before brain” moment. We have all had those and would want the benefit of the doubt ourselves; if she’s usually a good friend, I’d just put it down to that.

So she miscarried at 15 weeks? She didn't loose a 15 week old baby!

A cruel thing to say although I have know someone who changed the name she was going to use for her DD (who sadly she miscarried ) as she wanted the name to carry on in the family.
sometimes in life, even if we think it , we shouldn’t say it.

But if the baby lived to 15 weeks of course it deserved a name. So sad to lose a child so young.

I can see where she is coming from but I think it was insensitive to voice her thoughts out loud. I had a private gender scan at 16 weeks with my son and whilst I had a list of names didn't name him until he was born but many mums do decide on a name whilst pregnant and call their unborn baby by it. At 15 weeks though most wouldn't know the gender. Also depends on how you view miscarriages, I haven't had one so wouldn't judge but they are common.

In short I think your friend was insensitive and when you remarked as much should have apologised for hurting your feelings and changed the subject. I probably wouldn't end the friendship over it though.

It didn’t. It was a miscarriage at 15 weeks’ gestation, not 15 weeks after being born.

Poor DS didn’t have a name at all until 6 weeks post-partum, and part of that was not wanting to jinx things by picking out a name too early (first successful live birth after a string of losses). We also didn’t buy any baby stuff in advance, because I couldn’t bear the idea of coming home to an empty nursery and packing it all back up again - it would have broken me.

I wouldn’t it was a “waste” though, what a weird thing to say.

I agree with her, but like pp wouldn't say it out loud. Perhaps because she was a friend, she thought she could? I don't think that early pregnancy testing and scans are helpful tbh. We'd just think that we were late and then having a heavy period. I'd always keep my thoughts to myself.

I haven't experienced miscarriage personally, but someone close to me has, and she and her DH named the child.

I'm sorry to hear of everyone's losses. ❤

I can see her point, although she should have said it more tactfully. If your sister loves the name Milo she now probably won’t feel comfortable to use it for a future baby. 15 weeks is a bit early for people to name the baby - most people who miscarry don’t, in my experience, especially as early as 15 weeks. Maybe the friend has experienced this too and just thought it was unusual, although like I said, she should have said it in a nicer way.

I don't think a miscarriage at 15 weeks would be just like a heavy period.

Early pregnancy testing is useful for people with medical issues to find out what's going on or if they lose pregnancies at a certain gestation.
I think it's a good thing that it exists, I remember my mum saying she had to leave her urine sample at the chemist and come back the next day to find out if she was pregnant.

There was a thread recently about how a foetus is viewed differently depending on whether or not the pregnancy is wanted (which seems logical to me). I can see that the OP viewed this as a wanted baby and shared her sister's grief. I don't know what to think of the friend's comments people have very different perspectives, but it's not something many people would express to anyone close to the woman who lost her pregnancy