TW sensitive topic. Do you ever think about your miscarried baby

[K2012]

Posting here for more traffic.

I had a MMC last year and I think about the miscarried baby every day. I had my rainbow baby 8 weeks ago but still can’t stop thinking about my miscarried baby who would turn 1 next month. I don’t know if it’s postpartum
hormones or what it is, but is this normal?

Do you ever think about your miscarried baby?

Not really. I've had 2 and an ectopic.. l do think though.. if l hadn't have had them.. then l wouldn't have had my wonderful daughter who l love with all my soul and heart ( she's 32 now).

I’ve only had three but they were all prior to 12 weeks. I never thought of them as babies so although I felt a bit sad at the time about the idea of what they could be, I knew they would not have been compatible with life outside the womb.

I didn’t think of them as babies until they arrived in the world, I never felt connected during pregnancy but it hit me as soon as I saw them.

If my miscarriages had been further along or even still births, I honestly don’t know how I’d feel.

My rainbow baby is 17 this summer and strange as it sounds i know that baby was meant to come to me.
My miscarried baby would have been 18 this November and i think about them once in a while now as so much time has passed, at the time of that pregnancy i knew i would not have that baby ,it was my 3rd pregnancy after 2 live births and it was planned but i just knew, and i also knew that i would have my 3rd live baby.
I think my 'lost' baby was a boy ,it was to early to tell but i have only ever thought that.
Until reading this thread and someones comments about dna/cells of a baby always being part of you i had forgotten that i had read that in the past and have found that thought quite comforting.
This is a really special thread and there is so much emotion, love and kindness .
My thoughts go out to all of us mothers and all those precious little lives we never got to hold.

My MC was 30 years ago now; it no longer hurts and I made my peace with it a long time ago.

i did give that little soul a name - Grace or Gregor, but for some reason I truly feel it was Grace.

Yes. Not all the time, but when I see a baby in public or there’s a miscarriage story on tv. As pp said, it probably makes a difference that this was the only pregnancy I ever had, but also my mother miscarried very late, at almost 5 months, and she talked about that baby a lot. I’m glad I know about her. Even though I know if she’d been born, I wouldn’t exist. So maybe that’s the trade-off? I don’t get to have a baby but I get to exist because that first baby of my mum’s died.

Same. My oldest would not be here if I had had that baby.

I think about that time occasionally, but never about what that baby would be doing now. She'd be 7 in November, though if that pregnancy went the same way the subsequent two did she'd be a late October baby. I say she, as while I have no proof, I had an extraordinarily vivid dream a few weeks after the MC where I was holding a beautiful baby girl. I don't want to go into details, but it gave me a huge amount of closure.

Yes because my DS is a constant reminder of his twin(VTS) but i'm so grateful to have him in my life. When i found out i was pregnant i always felt that i was carrying twins and when i went to my 12 week scan, they were 2 in there but sadly the other twin had stopped growing a few weeks backs. The sonographer tried to distract me saying i should atleast try to focus on the baby with a heart beat. However since that day i have never stopped thinking about her (in my mind i always thought it was a girl) especially during their birthday. So i think its understandable to always think about them and what could have been if they had made it.

I try not to because I’ve had 4 miscarriages now and never managed to have a child. If I think about it too much I don’t think I’d get out of bed.

Yes. Mine were after dd so obviously I sometimes think about how it would have been if she had a younger sibling. It’s still quite painful sometimes, 15 years on.

OP I had counselling with a baby loss charity when I finally had my "rainbow" baby - even though I was so happy to have her I had a lot of stuff I'd never talked through and it helped me resolve my feelings.
(edited for typos)

No. I see the child I miscarried as most likely incompatible with life, so there is no child to miss, so to speak.
If it does pop into my mind I feel grateful for the healthy thriving children I do have.
Think I'm a bit unusual to have such a cold, detached attitude to it.
Hope you're OK and have someone to talk to irl about it.

@K2012 A lot atm - I'm now 39 weeks and this baby is due a year to the day I got a positive test for my last pregnancy.

That said, as soon as I found out it was a MMC I pretty much detached in a similar way to @dairydebris. I think it was a self-preservation thing. DH was more emotional about it and wanted to acknowledge the loss somehow so we planted a rose in the garden and it's flowering beautifully now. It doesn't remind me of a person we lost, it just reminds me that life doesn't always go to plan and a lot can change in a year. ❤️

I’m exactly the same. As soon as I got over the anxiety of being pregnant again I didn’t think of the miscarriage at all

I’ve also had an ectopic since and even as I was going through the loss I wasn’t upset about the baby at all. I do sometimes feel like I’m the minority because I’m not upset about it even though it was a much wanted pregnancy

I’ve had 4 losses. The first 2 were not planned and I was very young. If I’m honest, I think of them as a ‘it wasn’t the right time’. The later 2 were much wanted pregnancies and their losses devastated me. We had genetic testing and so I know they were both boys, despite being pre 12 weeks. We have all girls, so I cant help but wonder what might have been if my lost ones had grown and lived.

I'm hoping that the variety of responses here have been helpful op? xx

I think for many it's not just the loss of the baby but what you went through at the time - I've heard that it can be like ptsd for some - the scans and the bad news and the watching for blood and the pain.

I think about him/her sometimes just as a horrible time more than anything. I wouldn’t have DS2 though.

The only time I might if if I know someone who has miscarried and I empathise. I sometimes answer threads here when people are looking for experience or reassurance. But I don't ever think of the miscarriages I had otherwise (it's been 20 years) or mention them at all. I have 2 adult children, miscarried before each of them were conceived. 2nd miscarriage was mega-early (6 weeks).

Yes I do, I wonder what he/she would have looked like. I wonder what they would have been like as a sibling xx

Yes and no. I've had 4 losses (no children) and they've definitely affected me. I have some PTSD style reactions to things like scans now, I get shaky and sick beforehand, can't get out of a doom mindset etc.

I also often wonder what my life would be life with a child of X age. This is amplified because 2 of my pregnancies aligned with family members so there is a living child basically the exact age I could have had a child had some of my pregnancies worked out.

Generally I don't grieve the individual loss as a baby, but I grieve the loss of what could have been, the time lost, and the main impact is the sadness I've gone through and just not wanting to go through that experience again. I also suffer in the first trimester so to have done 40+ weeks of those symptoms with nothing to show for it...that sucks, and definitely makes me angry as well.

I had a miscarriage between my second and third DC.
It was fairly early-in first trimester which I think is relevant as the longer it goes the more attached you become (hoping that doesn't come across as insensitive-just how I felt but maybe my way of protecting myself)

There was another Nursery Mum who was due on almost exactly the same day and for years I looked at that little girl and thought of the baby I lost.

However I would not have my wonderful DD and I sort of rationalise it as it all turned out how it was meant to.

It was a long long time ago now and although I do think of it occasionally its is more in the appreciation of what I have versus what I lost.

Honestly, no. I don't think of them as 'babies', I think of them as embryos that didn't develop because they were never genetically viable and never had the potential to become a baby. I'm not saying that everyone can or should think that way; that's just how I feel.

I was very upset at the time, obviously, especially when I miscarried my first ever pregnancy because I really wanted to be pregnant and wanted a baby. But I love the DC I have and I don't have regrets.

My miscarriage was over 25 years ago and I think of ‘him’ often. I always thought he’d have been a boy but I don’t actually know that.
I’ve had two children since but yes, I still think of him/her

Congratulations!

No, never - but I had 5 MCs before DD and 2 after. I regard them not as lost babies because they weren’t (all very early) - they were lost hope that they would become a baby.