Due date of miscarried baby on Christmas Day, struggling with grief again

[MrsGiraffe12]

So basically the title says it all really.

Basic history - mmc in May, was 9 weeks by my dates but a scan at both week 8 and week 9 showed baby miscarried at week 5 but my body hadn't passed it/absorbed it. So had ERPC, then an infection.

Was pretty down and depressed for months, till about early August I'd say, then the fog started to lift. Life has been ok since then, a bit up and down emotionally but on the whole I've coped pretty well.

Now I'm 16 days away from what would have been my due date and I'm crumbling again. Feel pretty much on the verge of tears and very emotionally over sensitive. I'm dreading Christmas Day, which on the flip side makes me feel even worse as I have a 5 year old who deserves so much better than a mummy who cries all the time.

Has anyone else been through this around due dates? How can I cope with this grief? Am I abnormal? Does it get easier after the due date or will it always be this hard on miscarriage date and due date? x

I'm so sorry you have been through this.

I was due on 20 Dec this year and lost the baby in May at around 9 weeks. It was my fifth miscarriage and, to compound the grief, I had my sixth the week before last. In an odd way, this latest mc is distracting me a little from the grief about the due date, which had been promising to be very difficult indeed - the baby would have been conceived around Easter and that seemed to add to the bitter irony. So no, you are not alone in this.

I have children, aged 8 and 6, and focusing on their Christmas is helping. The last mc was physically traumatic and I want very much to just curl up and sleep, but I have quite a few challenges of various kinds this week and next, which is very hard but also, I suspect, keeping me going a bit. I also remind myself that Christmas isn't all saccharine. Some of the darker hymns and carols, like Bethlehem Down and the Coventry Carol, remind me that Christmas is also about those who are suffering and grieving. I plan to remember my Christmas baby, whom we lost after seeing a heartbeat and who is the only lost baby we know the sex of (boy), on Holy Innocents day.

It does get easier. You feel able to live again, for want of a better expression. But yes, it is normal for due dates to hurt terribly, especially the first time they come around.

Thank you both for your kind words and I'm so sorry you have had to go through this too. It hurts like hell and I just want to sleep until the due date is over. It's just so cruel that it would have been due Christmas Day which makes it so much harder I think as I have to be happy and excited for my lovely little boy. My husband was over it before I even had my ERPC which doesn't help so all my grieving has been private x

EDD is always difficult, to have it on what should be a day of happiness and celebration is cruel. EDD of my first MC was my birthday which ever since (4 years now) has been bittersweet, but it does get easier and less raw as time goes on. I agree with katatonic that the grief seems to lessen once you are through that milestone, I hope that's the same for you.
I think a special bauble or decoration is a lovely idea.

Hi Giraffe,

I could have written your post. I'm on the Infertility section as well...17 years & 8mths of TTC.

Egg collection for IVF took place on Good Friday and the transfer was done (so technically I was pregnant for the first time ever) on my 38th birthday, which was Easter Monday.

Those dates will stay with me, in the same way yours will stay with you

I was due on Christmas Day too...it hurts really badly, doesn't it? It's clear from most family members by the wording of their cards that they have forgotten and that just adds further insult to it.

The only thing I can suggest is what the counsellor told me...

Give time time.

Xx

I so sorry you went through this

EDDs are always hard. I miscarried (20wks- but gave birth at 21wks) with the EDD four months back and it was a very bittersweet occasion- I thought I would be happy and having/had a baby, but I didn't. It hurts a lot. It helped for me to mark the occasion and the loss by having a little remembrance object, which I currently have on the tree (but at the time, I just had it to hold)- in my case, a small decorative brooch like thing with his name on.

So sorry for your loss. And everyone else on this thread.

My DS2 was stillborn at 36 weeks and his due date was also Christmas Day. Once that day passed something changed a little and it was a little easier (but not easy obviously, but I'm sure ykwim).

It was the build up when I should have still been pg that was so hard. Knowing I should have had a massive bump. But once my due day had passed it was as if my body was saying 'well you wouldn't be pg now anyway (as the baby would have been born' and it just really helped somehow.

Much love to you. Xxx

Thinking of you today MrsGiraffe x

Be kind to yourself today OP.

I'm sorry.

Last Christmas I was in pieces. I barely made it through. I had an edd due the weekend before, and was miscarrying again with a mmc discovered just before Christmas. I felt so much better once we hit the new year and Christmas was over.

Please be kind to yourself. It's not something you can control feelings about and you will be sad. It's ok to be sad sometimes.