After advice please ...

[minkymonkeymoo]

Hi

This is such a sad but necessary section and I feel for you all when I read any of the messages here. I would really like your advice please as to how to treat this situation sensitively.

I have just received an email from a good friend in Australia to say that she has just lost a baby at 20 weeks due to a genetic problem. She lost her first baby the same way and then went on to have a healthy baby a few months after me last year.

The thing is, I was going to write her an email to tell her my sad news. My dad - who she knows well - is dying. He lives abroad and I have been out there for the past 6 weeks as he was given 4-6 weeks to live at the beginning of May but is lingering.

Should I just send her an email for now sympathising with her loss and leave out my news? I don't want to add to her grief but do want her to know ...

Thank you for any advice that you can give me. I really do not want to make her feel worse. It is bad enough that I live so far away and can only offer virtual hugs!

That's terribly sad news about your friend, I feel for you making this sort of decision.

That said, if it was me I'd still want to know. If she does know your dad well I'm sure she would be concerned. You could support each other, no one is saying your news or hers is worse - just that at this terrible time you can lean on each other. That's what friends are for.

Take care both of you x

Thanks lm72. It's a really tough time. I have another friend who just lost her baby at 8 months and another whose newborn has a heart defect.

2011 has to be better ...

Thanks again!

if your friend knows your dad then i would tell her, if she doesnt i would keep things to myself unless i felt i needed her to talk to. true friends are here for us throu everything not matter what problems they have themselves. when i miscarried i felt better helping my friends out even if it was just silly little things like shopping advice or relationship advice.

just take a few mins and think what advice you would give if some one had said this to you..and there your answer will be. im sure you'll know what to do.

xxx sorry for the news of your friend and your dad's illness xxx

Thanks welshmummy. She knows him well - she used to live at our house (almost literally!) for a few years when I was at uni. She was the first to call him and wish him well when he moved. There is nothing that she can do but I don't want to say later - he died and I spent most of the summer there.

Thanks for the reply

Hello minkymonkeymoo,

I'm sorry to hear about your dad. I agree with the other posts on here that you should talk to your friend about it.

I certainly didn't want people to treat me differently because of my miscarriage, and I wouldn't have wanted people to keep news from me for fear of upsetting me. What I wanted most of all, and what your friend will probably appreciate is a friendly ear to listen to my problems, and that is something you can give her no matter how far away you are. In fact doing by email is sometimes better than being there because you it can be very cathartic to write it all down.

I wish you all the best,

xxxxxx

Thanks MummyAbroad. I have written the email and will wait and hear. I know she will reply and genuinely be sorry - I just didn't want to make her feel worse or make her think that I am belittling her feelings. I appreciate that they are completely different. But, keeping it from her would just mean telling her when he died that he had been ill for a while and she would have put 2 and 2 together. Friendship is helping each other through things, isn't it?

Thanks for your reply. I have told her AGAIN (and she knows, believe me) that she can contact me whenever. I agree that being so far away does make some things easier for her. We have known each other so well for so long ... and I am not involved in her 'everyday' life.

Hope that makes sense. And thanks again :)