Is having a funeral too much

[Boymum2256]

I lost my baby girl at almost 17 weeks my waters broke and I give birth to her I held her and loved her so much.

I posted her little memorial with a candle etc on my facebook and I had both my parents tell me I shouldn’t be posting my personal stuff and that I’m disgusting for doing so and they made me feel horrible and like I shouldn’t be grieving my daughter.

I don’t speak to them now but baby’s funeral is this Friday and I can’t help but feel like it’s all too much and stupid for having a funeral for my baby who was only the size of my hand. I want the funeral and I want to say my last goodbye to the baby I would have had but I don’t want to tell anyone incase they think I’m being stupid.

i know me feeling this way is down to my parents, did anyone have a funeral for their baby that they lost at 17 weeks?

I'm so sorry you're going through this, and I would say do whatever feels right for you. It is absolutely nobodies right to tell you how to grieve for your child

I'm sorry for your loss. Your parents sound horrible*.

You should do whatever feels right to you, including a funeral. Having a ceremony to acknowledge the loss can help the grieving process. What other people would choose to do is up to them.

(*I think previous generations can sometimes find this sort of thing difficult because it can trigger past trauma- 30 years ago miscarriage and stillbirth weren't spoken about so openly and there are lots of older women around now who had to repress their own grief at losing a baby and who therefore find this all very hard- no idea whether this is true for your parents.)

I'm so sorry for your loss. A funeral is not too much at all. You do what you need to and want to, to say goodbye to your precious baby.
I'm sorry your parents are being so unsupportive too, that's so horrible for you to have to deal with. Remember this is your life and your loss, and you have the right to cope however works for you. Their opinion is just that, an opinion. It's so sad they can't just be there for you at such a difficult time xx

I'm so sorry for your loss OP. Shame on your parents for doing that to you.

Everyone deals with grief the way they feel helps them come.to terms. Your baby was a part of you, you're her mother. No matter how brief her visit was.

Little steps and I think I'd be telling parents, or even better your partner tells your parents to keep their opinions to themselves. After limiting access to your SM.

They don't have the right. Shame on them.

I’m so sorry for your loss. Of course you can have a funeral for your little one. A friend lost her baby at 20 weeks and the funeral was so important - to say goodbye, to recognise that for too short a time she was a mum, to grieve the loss of their baby and the future she had planned.

Your parents may be of a time when baby loss was a very private thing not to be spoken about, hence their comments. At this point in time though you do whatever brings you comfort. I hope you have support this week and that Friday goes as well as possible for you.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Do what you need to do to give you comfort.

I am so sorry for your loss. I had similar and my parents were terrible as well. Give yourself space. What they said to you is so devoid of compassion, no matter their opinion.

16-17 weeks is the quickening, when you can feel baby move, and historically is recognised as the baby having a soul in the UK. I’ve seen it’s quite normal to have a funeral at that gestation. You shouldn’t feel it’s unusual at all.

I am so sorry for your loss.

We were in a similar situation, I was 17 weeks when our baby boy stopped growing. The funeral was a special way to say goodbye and honour him. It was beautifully handled, and I couldn’t believe how supportive and kind the charity was that helped organise everything.

I’ll be honest, I did have doubts at first and worried people might think we were being silly or over the top. Looking back now, I don’t care at all. We kept it private, just us, our parents and siblings. We never asked them to come; they insisted.

The crematorium was holding baby loss funerals all morning, so it really isn’t as rare as it can feel.

I wouldn’t change a thing. It helped us immensely.

I am so sorry for your loss.

I'm so very sorry.

You should absolutely do what feels right for you. FWIW, I do research on pregnancy loss, and there are studies that suggest the level of trauma is not very different from what soldiers experience in war zones. Losing a baby you hoped for and had carried for nearly half of a pregnancy is a huge deal. Don't let anyone make you feel it is not.

By the way, if it helps, we are a real anomaly in modern society that we treat pregnancy loss the way we do. In many times in the past, everyone would have understood your feelings and thought it was a totally normal thing to talk about the grief you feel. Your parents are being very cruel.

It's not too much and my deepest condolences to you 💐

I say the following not to be cruel but to give an alternative perspective.

How you choose to mourn your baby’s death is a very individual thing, however if you post it on social media you are inviting people to comment and have an opinion. Not all of those opinions will align with yours and some maybe upsetting at a time when you are already emotional.

I have had two miscarriages and the last thing I would have thought to do would be post anything online. Grief has to be worked through individually or as a couple and should not be done via social media in my opinion. I loathe the way society seems to have moved towards sharing every intimate detail of lives lived. I am a believer in some things particularly health related matters being kept private.

With regards to having a funeral, there is a significant cost implication, maybe something to commerate your child would be a better alternative such as a tree planted in your garden which will be an evolving reminder over the years

I’m sorry you’re going through this, I get it as I’ve been through late MC myself.

To be honest I’m not sure what you’re hoping to achieve by posting on FB, other than hope others send you sympathy wishes, but your parents are out of order for being so cruel in a time when you’re grieving.
If you want to have a funeral as that will help you grieve then that is entirely your decision and you should do whatever will help you.

So sorry for your loss. I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks. We were told we could organise our own funeral or have our baby be buried with other babies in a group funeral. We chose the group funeral and it was very hard but also lovely. The undertaker brought out a tiny coffin a bit bigger than a shoebox and there was as much ceremony and respect as there would be with an adult.

It's not too much to have a funeral for your baby. You are the mum so you get to decide. Baby loss would have been treated very differently when your parents were having children. I remember being told a friend's mum had thought she was pregnant but made a mistake, which would have been a miscarriage. Also another friend's mum who I only used to see every few months or so suddenly having a 1 year old. It was years before I worked out he was adopted. People tended not to talk about things like they do now.

Totally agree!

So sorry this has happened, OP. I hope the funeral gives you a little comfort.

It's really natural to want people to see and recognise the reality of a loss like this. Loads of people find they have a real need to talk about it and find recognition that their baby was real, even if most people didn't know that baby. (Again, there is a ton of research on this - Linda Layne is the person you want to read - and it's very well understood).

I would assume most people's facebook contacts are friends and family, who are the people you usually want to hear from when you're dealing with a loss.

I am sorry for your loss.

A funeral is not too much, a headstone or other memorial perfectly appropriate. In the cemetery where my parents are, there are a number of memorials to children who died at a similar time or were stillborn.

Whyever not?

My friend's 18yo died very suddenly and unexpectedly and she posted it on FB, presumably after telling close family and friends. It is an easy way to let many people know at once. She also put the funeral details there.

I’m sorry your parents are being so awful. Your opinion about the funeral is what matters, not what they think.

The funeral is for you OP, not your parents or anyone else that thinks it's unnecessary. You want it so it's important and necessary.

SM is a funny thing, some people feel it really helps to share, other people think personal things should be kept private. It's fine for your parents to have different views but not to make you feel horrible because of that, especially when you've just lost your precious baby.

For those wondering why posting on social media....perhaps because she wants to recognise the short life of her child? And also inform her friends/contacts so they can recognise she might be going through something very traumatic at the moment? I think it's fine to say you wouldn't do that- as you say people grieve differently but I don't think it's right to judge the poster as someone posting for sympathy- and flippin heck, I think in this case she deserves some sympathy. Often our "villages" who in the past would have heard on the grapevine that something awful had happened to someone are now very spread out- so social media is often the way people who care about us find out about something like this giving them the chance to reach out and support their friend whether practically or emotionally.

To the original poster I'm so sorry - we lost our baby at full term though we knew from 20 weeks she wouldn't survive. Whilst I had many people who were supportive, others made it clear they'd rather I'd have had a termination and talked no more about it. One family member- the day after my baby's diagnosis phoned to ask when I was going to have "it" dealt with (despite by then knowing the gender of the baby). The same family member when invited to the funeral was very angry we decided to have a funeral and felt it was a private matter. I was so hurt at the time but I've learnt that often this is more about them than me...sometimes there's something more behind the scenes and sometimes it's just people not coping very well with something that seems so odds with how life "should" go.

Even those who supported us generally were skeptical of our decisions through our pregnancy, but we did what we needed to do throughout to cope- including holding a pretty big funeral for our baby. I can honestly say many years on by doing so it's helped us to really process the grief. Indeed two people in the congregation who'd led churches for many years so seen a lot of funerals said it was one of the most beautiful funerals they'd ever been to- it didn't matter our baby's life was so short.

Finally lots of people also think a funeral is about the person who has died....I'd argue it's actually much more for those left behind and a way of us starting to process that our loved one has died so do what you need to do and focus on yourselves for the time being.

So very sorry for the loss of your precious baby. I think a funeral is a really important way to recognise your child and your love for them.

I'm sorry for your loss. I attended a funeral for my dear friend's stillborn daughter. I was glad that we (friends and family) were able to give her and her husband some support in their time of grief, and I hope you get the same

Surely posting on Facebook is also a good way to avoid people asking about the pregnancy when you next see them & a way to.avoid having to tell.people face to face