It Won't Go Away

[LouisaJF]

Last May I suffered an MMC with my first pregnancy. I handled this pretty badly and only started to improve when I got pregnant again. I am incredibly lucky and have since had a beautiful baby boy. He is perfect in every way and I love him so much I feel like I could burst, but I can't stop thinking about that first baby.

I am going through a stressful time at work and am feeling very guilty about putting my baby into nursery next week. With this stress I have started dreaming about the loss again, being taken right back to the moment they told us the news and waking in tears.

It feels like the grieving process is beginning all over again but this time I feel worse because I should be enjoying my baby and being totally happy. Why won't it go away? I have what I dreamed of, so why I am still focusing on what I lost? I don't know what to do, and my husband is struggling to understand.

I feel for you. You don't ever forget and feeling sad is normal. I too had a mmc and still think of the baby 7 years on. You aree feeling stressed and guilty too so you are vulnerable. Talk it through with someone, even your GP, may be you have pnd. Or contact SANDS who provide phone counselling for women who have losg babies. There will be one local to you if you google.

Don't worry about feeling sad. It is still quite recent.

Sorry I don't mean Sands. Miscarriage helpline. Miscarriageassociation.org.uk.

Sands is something else completely but they did offer mc support in my area hence the confusion.

Hi Louisa. I'm so sorry you're going through this. I am in a similar position. I had a mc last July. It was my second pregnancy, we already have a DD. We've been trying since then but I've not conceived again, and the anniversary was about a week ago. I have found it very hard that it's a year now, although a lot of that is because of not getting pg again. Like you, we have other stressful things going on, DH has uncertainty over his job, DD is going to start school soon, and I just feel very sad about the mc at the moment. I don't even really think about it as a baby because it was a blighted ovum, so the baby never really developed. But I just seem to go over the trauma of it again and again. I had to go to the hospital for some admin thing yesterday and it was grim, walking past the entrance and remembering coming out after two nights in there, all weak and empty.

I've found the grief comes and goes in waves. It helps if I tell people what's going on with it, and don't try to fight it. I was doing pretty well with it all until a few weeks ago, and I think I just have to accept that this will happen, especially when other things are going on. Maybe that's the same for you. I hope that the nursery transition goes well - it is a really difficult time but I know lots of children who absolutely love their nursery even if they took a while to settle in. Take care of yourself, let yourself grieve if that's what you need.