Baby loss awareness week is giving me rage!

[BlueCarRedCar]

Yes I know I am being completely unreasonable.

I’ve seen a few social media posts of friends and a cousin talking about baby loss awareness week because they once had a miscarriage. They all also have at least 2 children each. Then there are all the comments of rainbow babies always come after the dark blah blah blah.

I KNOW I am being completely unreasonable but as a childless person who had 6 miscarriages I want to scream FUCK OFF WITH YOUR BULLSHIT RAINBOW SHIT!!! I hate the term rainbow baby any way, far too twee, but I find it hard to resist commenting that actually some of us never get that happy ending so stop talking bullshit.

yes I know I’m going to get a lot of hate now but I needed to rant somewhere where at least someone might understand how I’m feeling.

I know miscarriages are upsetting for everyone, but not everyone get to go on and have successful pregnancies. Rant over.

Im sorry life is just shit sometimes. Sending you a virtual hug. You have every right to be angry.

OP, I'm really sorry and I totally understand why you feel this way. I avoid social media on Mother's Day because I have never got over losing my mum when I was young. Perhaps keep social media use to a minimum during this time. I know you shouldn't have to.

I hear you, OP.

I agree. It was really hard having a miscarriage before 12 weeks but it was the possibility of a child I was upset about. Once I had live children the pain isn’t the same as someone who never got a happy ending or who had a stillbirth. I think some people dwell…

Yes they have suffered less, of course they have. I had 2 miscarriages then a baby, I would never say that my suffering was equal to that of a woman who had 2 miscarriage and no child. How callous.

Their babies will have eased their suffering. Your reply is so tone deaf. The OP mentioned the word twee, offering patronising sympathy and virtual hugs is just that. Nothing on MN has annoyed me more.

I get that, I was in rant mode when I wrote the op hence why I went on to try and clarify it’s the ‘it will happen for you one day’ posts of hope that I find frustrating. I absolutely don’t mean to minimise it for those that have children sorry.

I agree with everything you've said. I'm living it myself. You're not alone x

I hear you OP, I’m in the same position as you and completely agree that the ‘miracle baby’ comment from people, who typically are people who either have kids or had that miracle baby aren’t supportive in the way people think they are.

I know fully well what the future holds, at 47 with failed ivf and multiple miscarriages behind me, it’s incredibly naive and patronising for anyone to suggest otherwise.

It’s not a competition for who is the most hard done by. It might be “bullshit” to you, in the same way that someone referring to their own baby as a rainbow baby may be comforting to them. BLAW isn’t just about miscarriage, it’s about still birth etc too. You can’t possibly think going on to have a live baby just fixes the pain of still birth. Please also think before YOU post too.

*edited to fix spelling error

With kindness, please do not ever say, ‘you don’t know what the future holds’ to someone dealing with infertility.

Often, they, like me will for many reasons know, and be trying to come to terms with that knowledge that they will never have children.

I think it's strange, and frankly a bit dramatic, when people call a baby after miscarriage a rainbow baby and make something of it on social media. I don't have an issue with the term when applied to a baby after still birth or the death of a baby.

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you OP.

Noone in their right mind would be angry with you or give you hate my love. Rant away. It’s all bull.

I have had four losses and have one child and I find the social media posts absolutely awful. People love a bandwagon.

Gosh that is so painful for you OP. I can feel your hurt in your words and what you are feeling is entirely reasonable, as let's be honest, what happened to you has no 'reason'. It's just shite.
Be kid to yourself, and stay away from these posts.

Not necessarily. That depends surely on when the loss occurs.

If a woman has two miscarriages at 6 and 7 weeks then IMO those aren’t so much a loss because they’re so common that in fact one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage before twelve weeks. It’s not a baby then, it’s still forming. people feel the loss, of course, but it’s not the loss of a child in the same way as say, a stillbirth is.

To say that a woman who e.g. has suffered a stillbirth at term has had that suffering eased y the ability to have a live baby is crass in the extreme, whereas to say it about a woman who suffered a miscarriage at 6 weeks isn’t.

With respect I have purposely posted on the mumsnetters without children forum as I knew there would be other childless people who would understand (of which you will have seen many posts on this thread), this is the exact space I should be able to post. If you are fortunate enough to have a child please don’t come on this thread and tell me I shouldn’t post about my childless experience on a board that is a place for me to post exactly that.

I didn’t say at any point you couldn’t post about your experiences. But to call other people’s experience as “bullshit” is vulgar. You come across like you’re the only person allowed to have feelings

You determine what is crass then do you? Please share your scale of suffering.

I agree and after a stillbirth and 5 miscarriages I will post on social media what ever the hell I like.
Just scroll by, people can deal however they like.
But the one thing I hated was people saying at least you can get pregnant.

A miscarriage isn’t the same as a stillbirth. It just isn’t.

To have had a stillbirth you will have carried an actual child, a baby which at some point will have been viable had they not been stillborn. At 5/7 weeks it doesn’t even look like a baby. It’s a group of cells. It’s the loss of a possibility not the loss of a child.

Personally I think that pregnancy tests are the worst things to have ever been invented, and that we should go ack to the days where pregnancy was confirmed at three months.

Now we have companies raking in the profits at the expense of desperate women who just want to see that second line, and who test earlier and earlier, imagining that there’s a line, and when there is but they have a period as normal then they call it a chemical pregnancy and class it as if they’ve lost a child.

When in actual fact it is quite usual for an egg to be fertilised and to then pass through without implanting. It was never a pregnancy or a child, or a loss.

Women have always suffered miscarriages, yes they will have known a few weeks in even before there were home pregnancy kits, but all this talk of chemical pregnancy and obsessively spending the earth on home pregnancy tests which does no-one’s mental state any good just didn’t exist. And women who had a period maybe a day late or whose period came as normal weren’t there imagining babies which never were.

The upset is potentially at not being able to conceive, and that’s perfectly understandable. But let’s not compare the loss of a full-term baby with a fertilised embryo which just didn’t implant. Because it just isn’t the same.

Absolute rubbish. No one is saying she won't have suffered greatly, just as a woman who has had multiple early miscarriages would have suffered greatly, but their suffering would have been much more intense and heartfelt than if they hadn't ever had a life birth. If 2 women have exactly the same miscarriage history as one another, yet one has a baby, the suffering will be infinitely worse for the woman who doesn't have a child. That's not to say they both didn't suffer equally, but one is continuing to suffer in ways that those of us who do have children can not comprehend.

How does that affect you? And to call people's feelings 'dramatic' is appalling.
Cannot believe we're at a stage where people think they can police/judge people's reaction to losing a child.

Really???? This is what you got from her post?

Some people are well
aware of “ what the future holds.”

Op, I am so sorry for all you have been through.

For those saying having a baby doesn’t make it easier, I disagree.

I’ve had many losses. I also have a beautiful boy through adoption.

My pain is not the same as someone who will never be a mom. I am one of the lucky ones.

Never being a mom is very different from struggling along the journey.

You just cannot make sweeping generalisations like that when it comes to grief. Having seen close hand the trauma and grief that a relative suffered for many years following a miscarriage, I can say with certainty that the fact that she had living children did not diminish that grief.

Lots of people on this thread could stand to be more empathetic and less judgemental. What a shame that some people will even use baby loss as a competitive arena.

Yes, I find it hard to believe that some people will say they've had a miscarriage and it's no big deal to a woman who has nearly lost her life while miscarrying-and will never be able to have any more. But I have heard them say it to a woman in that situation, and from what some of you are saying, you've experienced people belittling you. And I'm not saying, not for one minute, that ANYONE who has lost a baby doesn't have the right to mourn even if they go on to have a baby-I'm just saying that it's not ok to tell another person they shouldn't be upset.
Another one is people saying it's so common-even if it's not as rare as some think, they'd never say this to people with "common" serious illnesses, as if it's not a big deal unless it's rare.
And I do appreciate Jools Oliver talking about how physically serious it can be, and discussing how she thinks midwives should be calling and checking on blood loss etc. When giving birth to my babies that lived, I had a private delivery room, a midwife checking on me often and offering pain relief-with miscarriage, left in far worse pain without a midwife, and if you go to hospital there's no private room. No one does checks on you after, and there's no 6 week GP check, or not in my area anyway.

You are policing another woman's emotional experience of a part of her fertility based on the biological and/or viability development of her child.

I'll be sure to tell people who miscarry that their experience is in no way as bad as people who deliver a still birth. Important that they know that I guess.

Fuck me.