Losing baby at 14 weeks - how can I help?

[sadsister]

My sister in law lost her baby at 14 weeks. I am very fond of her but not very close to her and I would like to acknowledge that it's happened without making her feel awkward. Can anyone advise me as to whether it would be a good idea to send a card / present / letter or just to phone her?

Just phone her, tell her you're thinking of her. Or even email if she uses email regularly - I've recently miscarried and my sil sent an email - and that meant a lot to me. It must be hard to miscarry at 14 weeks.

very sad
I would phone her - tell her you're there for her if she needs you.

Please send a card saying you are there, tell her you will call on x day and then follow up with call. She may or may not take the call but will feel comforted to know she is in your thoughts. If she chooses not to take call, please don't take offence.

Thanks everybody. yes I think very hard at 14 weeks, they had just announced before Christmas. I feel terrible for them and just don't want to make it worse by doing the wrong thing. Poor girl, I think I might do what KD says, send a card saying I'm thinking of her & that I will ring. Then I will ring from mobile so she'll know it's me and can ignore if she feels like it.

belgo I am so sorry to hear that this happened to you too. I hope you are getting back to ok now.

thanks, it was a very early m/c and we hadn't told anyone. It must be so hard for your sil - 14 weeks is very late to lose a baby.

It does seem very late. I mean by that stage you have really thought yourself into the baby, you've discussed telling people, you think you're out of the danger zone. It just seems so cruel. she had planned when to leave work, how to reorganise the house, who would mind her dd while she had the new lo, all of that. I imagine it's easier if you haven't told people because you don't have to break the news unless you want to share it.

I would recommend that you send a card with a lovely message in it. That way she can keep it as part of her memories about her loss.

Sorry to hear that your SIL is going through this. I had to have a termination at 13 weeks last summer (I also had to be induced as I was two days too late for a D+C) so I can very much sympathise. When it happened to me I was very grateful for any contact my friends made, as a lot of people don't really know what to say to you. A card with a simple "thinking of you", e.g., can do wonders. A present isn't really necessary though of course a bunch of flowers is always a really sweet perk-up. If people rang me up out of the blue and I didn't feel like talking then I felt well within my "rights" just to say so iyswim, but just being able to talk about it was a really important part of the bereavement process so I was on the phone a lot!

Hope this helps. And IME you DO get over it all in time. She won't believe this at the moment but as long as she keeps on talking about it and her partner (your brother?) is supportive then she'll pull through, I'm sure of it.

(Sorry bit of an essay.)

(I should have added that it was a termination of a very much wanted pregnancy, for genetic reasons, sorry if it sounded as if I was claiming to understand what your SIL is going through after having a simple (late) abortion, as it was far from being that)

I think you sound very considerate. I would deffintaley send her a card, I really apprecieted the ones I received after my m/c.

I would also make a note of her due date, that will be a very hard time for her and it would be nice for you to acknowledge that date too.

Speaking from personal experience ( I lost my son at 22 weeks) I would say that it doesn't matter how you get in touch, the important thing is that you do. There's nothing worse that saying nothing.
I kept all the letters and cards that were sent to me, they were a real source of comfort and strength.

A card is always nice - have to say that I hated getting flowers after I lost my daughter, but know many people appreciate them. Other things - give her time and space - think the idea of mobile calling was really sweet of you. If you're the kind of person who thinks like that you won't go far wrong. And later talk about the baby - he or she will always be part of the family.

Thanks everybody. It was a miscarriage at 14 weeks and a very much wanted baby. My brother - someone mentioned - is super & very supportive & loving so he will be taking good care of her. Any support that comes from me will be very peripheral but I wanted it to be right. Somehow although I first thought, oh, flowers, afterwards I wondered was there something funereal about them. A card at least you can put in a drawer till you are ready to look at it, and people coming to the house won't comment on it. I've left it for the moment but Monday or Tuesday I will post a card.

I hadn't thought about the acknowledgment of the due date. Actually I feel very guilty because I am expecting a baby myself a month behind her but hadn't announced it yet. Now dread announcing it in case it upsets her. But perhaps other people's babies seem irrelevant, it's only yours that counts? I am not sure.

What a thoughtful bunch you are.

Other people's babies - really complicated. I lost my daughter at 21 weeks in June 2005. My sister's baby was born in August of that year. I found this incredibly difficult - I hope this isn't too hard for you to read - and found it hard to talk to my sister at all for a while. I wasn't angry with her, just couldn't cope with my grief. I talked through my mum for a few months, and my sister did, I know, find this so so hard. But she accepted it for me, and I'll be always grateful to her for it. We're closer than ever now, and I'm really close to my beautiful, wonderful niece. I saw her for the first time in the November after she was born, and she really did help the healing process. Once I could cope with the idea of holding a baby, it was so nice to cuddle my very own niece. Sadsister - you sound wonderful, and you will all get through this. But it does take a lot of time, and a lot of patience. SANDS www.uk-sand.org really helped me (esp. the forum), and it's there for families too. Thinking of you all.

www.uk-sands.org

a card and a little 'something' - for one of mine i had a small beatrix potter figure, mrs tittlemouse with a new baby mouse (obv this wouldn't work for everyone) but definitely something to keep. not flowers,imo - they die and it brings the whole thing back again. a special box to put her scan pics and cards in?

the other thing is don't avoid her / them and don't dodge the subject of the baby if or when it crops up. life is hard enough after something like this without people avoiding you and pretending it never happened.

You're all absolutely right on the flowers thing - I think I've been converted to Dutch ways since living over here (people give each other flowers at every opportunity here) and had forgotten the more funereal aspect of them back in the UK. Sorry.

As Gigglewitch says, it's good not to avoid the subject of the baby and I would even go as far as to say make sure that you make a point of regularly asking how she and your brother are doing so that they have to talk about it and get it out of their systems. But perhaps that's a bit too Dutch as well? What do others think?

I miscarried at 12 weeks in Jan 2006 and the morning after discovering i had miscarried while getting ready to go for my D&C I had a beautiful bunch of flowers delivered from my best friend. It really was the nicest thing - considering we only called to let her know at about 4pm the previous day and this was at 7.30am - she must have ordered them right away and arranged a very early morning delivery before we left for the hospital. IMO that was such a lovely thought. Also cards are lovely. And they really must be allowed to speak about it - far too many people think it should be easy to get over because the baby was never actually here, didnt kick in the womb ect - but to your SIL and DB it was their baby.

just let them know you are there if they want to talk but understand if it is difficult esp as you are also pregnant.

I agree about the flowers. It is a personal thing but after experiencing the loss of my baby just before Christmas I must admit I didn't really like getting flowers.

Firstly they reminded me of getting flowers when I had my previous babies and also the funeral aspect. I have also found it upsetting when they have died and I have had to put them on the compost heap.

I have found great comfort in a little teddy that I was given and one friend gave me a little angel in a pouch with my baby's name on. Although I cried when I got it and haven't been able to look at it again so far I know it is something that I will treasure.

Habbi - I appreciate the honesty of your post. Do you mind my asking if the daughter you so sadly lost was your first baby? I just wondered if this makes a difference. I can imagine the difficulty for you in holding a baby, and in having your sister's due date so close to your own.

The most important thing seems to be acknowledgment, as gigglewitch, yelnat & others say. I remember hearing a man on the radio saying when his wife miscarried (at so late a stage in pregnancy that he was able to hold the baby in his hand) the difficult part was people not acknowledging it to HIM (esp work colleagues etc) while everyone made a big fuss of his wife. My brother and I have a good relationship I would say and are fond of one another - well of course I love him - but it's pretty much banter-based. We pretty much NEVER discuss feelings.

I changed my name for this post by the way just in case slight chance SIL happened by. Just in spirit of honesty thought had better admit.

Sadsister, yes, littleP was my first baby. Her sister is now with us safe and sound (asleep, hurrah!). I have a tendency to withdraw into myself at tough times, and I have to say I was overwhelmed by just how angry I felt for a long time - at the world, really.

I think it was really hard for my husband, as his friends didn't know what to say, and many didn't understand. They thought it was just like an early miscarriage (which is not to say that that isn't really awful, just different), and didn't understand that I'd gone through labour and delivered the baby. One of the things which still makes me so sad is that the first baby my husband ever held was the dead body of his own daughter, and it still breaks my heart when I think about that.

One of his friends came to visit us a few months after P died, and he and my husband went to the pub. S came back so happy as his friend had asked him about what had happened, and he'd been able to talk to someone other than me about it. Friend later told me he felt really bad that he hadn't realised sooner, but I'll always be grateful to him - the smile on S's face when he came through the door was wonderful - like a weight had been lifted.

You maybe don't need to try to discuss feelings with your brother, but talk about facts - what happened, what they called the baby, whether they chose to hold him/her or not, etc. As for your SIL - when my sister was due, I really liked that she asked me about what labour had felt like, and pain relief and stuff - it made P's birth feel "normal" and concrete and not secret. This will vary from person to person, though, and was much helped in my case by the amazing treatment we had in hospital.

Sorry for rambling. You will do the right thing, because you clearly are a kind, thoughtful and sensitive person, and that's really all you need to be.