What did you tell your children about your miscarriage?

[CuppaTeaJanice]

I had a mmc in November 2010. It was at 10 weeks, I opted to let it happen naturally, but unfortunately I had a big bleed, passed out on the toilet, was blue lighted to hospital where I stayed for 2 nights before having an erpc. All's fine now, I have a new baby DD, and the mc has just become part of my past iyswim, I don't find it upsetting to think or talk about it.

DS was 2 and a half when it happened, and even though he was in another room at the time and shielded from seeing anything too gory, he obviously saw me being wheeled out by the paramedics, and then I disappeared for 2 days (must seem like a long time when you're 2) then return home only to spend the next few days recovering in bed.

He's approaching 4 now but from time to time he still asks me 'Mummy, what happened that day when you were in the bathroom and the ambulance came?' He knows I went to hospital (we made a point of calling it a 'baby hospital' when I had DD so he wouldn't associate the two and get scared) and I have told him that I had an egg inside me which was broken so the doctors had to take it out. He's at the age where he asks endless questions so then we get 'What type of egg? Why was it broken? How did they get it out?' etc and at that point I usually tell him I'll explain it all to him when he's a bit older and distract him with a book/toy/cbeebies.

He's going to keep asking though, until he gets a proper explanation, and I don't really know what to say. Is he old enough to know the truth? He's quite bright so I think he'd understand but he doesn't yet know appropriate times to talk or not talk about stuff (pointed out a lady's large breasts very loudly in front of her the other day ) and I don't really want the subject brought up in public or at nursery 'news time' etc.

What did you tell your children?

i would tell him the truth in a sensitive, not scary way BUT if you don't want him to talk about it at nursery/public then you can't really be truthful as it is highly likely he will talk about at. I'd think about why you want to keep it private- and that's completely up to you if that's how you want it, as the desire for privacy has to be weighed up with what you tell your child and the long term implications of what you say. To be honest if you've told him about eggs then its highly likely if he talks about it that adults will put two and two together anyway. For him the ambulance and you being away is what is keeping it so fixed in his mind. I didn't want my boss at work to know but it came out and she was great, however i did ask it was kept private as I didn't want everyone to know. As time goes by though I'm not sure how important that privacy will be for me anymore.
I have an adult child whom i didn't tell anything about the pregnancy or the MMC. I may talk about it in due course but didn't want to mention pregnancy until after NT scan.

I'm not worried about it being private like some sort of taboo or secret - I'm quite happy to talk about my experience with my friends or anyone who's interested. I can just see it being a little awkward if he announces to a random stranger at a cafe, or Mrs Smith at the bakery that 'Mummy had a miscarriage and had to go to hospital'.

I don't know whether I should just explain it in a medical way, as I would have if, for example, I'd broken my ankle. Would that satisfy his curiosity? It's the other stuff, the fact we lost what would have been his sibling. I don't think he has the emotional capacity to understand the implications of that, so might just blurt it out in a matter-of-fact way.

I also don't want him to worry it will happen again, because we're not having any more DCs, so it's unlikely.

i agree he won't understand the concept that it would have been a sibling, or if he understand part of it he won't fully comprehend.
Everyone will have different answers to this but given you've talked about eggs already I would say something along the lines of "mummy had an egg inside her tummy that was going to grow into a baby, but the egg stopped growing because there was something wrong with it", if he asks what i'd just answer truthfully "no one knows what was wrong ". " When the egg stopped growing Mummy got ill and had to into hospital to get better". I don't know how inquisitive your child is but that would do as a starter for me.

Also you don't have to tell him everything. I personally wouldn't use the word miscarriage yet and also I would not want to answer endless questions . Its perfectly ok to say to him " Mummy was sad about it and she doesn't like talking about it", you may not feel that way , as I said we are all different, I personally would not want to keep talking about it to my child, but neither would i want there to be complete silence or misunderstanding . I hope you get more replies over the coming days to help as it is a difficult subject.

I think if he's asking about it and you are ok to talk to him about it then you should explain it. I had a very similar mc, started naturally but I ended up two nights in hospital from the blood loss. Luckily DD was asleep while I was on the toilet all that time, and didn't see paramedics or anything, but when she woke up I wasn't there, which doesn't happen normally, and she was shipped off to grandparents for the two days while DH came to see me in hospital.
Lately she's been talking a lot about babies and how I'm going to start a baby in my tummy, and I'm kind of preparing myself to talk about it if it seems relevant. I think I'd probably say that a baby started to grow in my tummy but something went wrong and it made me poorly and I had to go to the hospital. I probably wouldn't use the word miscarriage, but then I probably wouldn't use technical words for medical things anyway, so it's not particularly from that.

I feel like you, I don't mind talking about it, and I've told most people, but I need to feel in control of th conversation, and I don't like it being sprung on me, which I think DD might do. One of my relatives died recently and she's very curious about that (she didn't know her) and finds it hard to understand what might be difficult for people in talking about it. So I guess I feel that the discussion is probably good if your DS is asking about it, but you need to be sure that you are up to talking about it repeatedly, or that if you say it makes you sad that he will be ok with not talking about it. Also, you aren't obliged to tell him, you can make something up and thats fine IMO. You are still allowed to have personal things as a parent and it's not something he needs to know about for his general awareness of the world. I described my mc as having a 'poorly tummy', so I feel l can tell the truth or make it into food poisoning or similar if I don't feel up to it becoming a family discussion.

How old is your DD philbee?

It's difficult isn't it? Do you tell them all the facts in a simple way, and risk the subject being brought up at random, or gloss over it in vague terms so they worry it might happen again, or that they might end up in hospital when they have a tummyache.

Children's memories are too good sometimes!!

She's 3.5. She's not mentioned it since it happened, although she was pretty shaken by having to suddenly go to grandparents (the suddenness, not the grandparents). It's still an issue for me really, as it's only been seven months and I'm not pg again and feeling the strain of that too, so I think unless she asks directly about it I won't talk about it. When she says about growing the baby in my tummy I say we'll see and that it doesn't always happen and not everyone can grow a baby easily, which I hope prepares her a bit. I think with my DD a lot of it is also trying out words and concepts, so she's just learnt about babies and conception and likes talking about it, but there's not much more to it than that. It does sound like you DS is directly asking about you going to hospital though, and I guess he may be worries it will happen again. But maybe you could make something up that would make it clear that it won't, or that it won't happen to him?