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Stillbirth and neonatal death

Here you can find stillborn bereavement support and stillbirth stories from other Mumsnet users, plus legal rights and support information.

Friends don’t acknowledge anniversary of loss

32 replies

MummaJ201 · 22/03/2024 21:00

Hi
Just after a bit of advice.
We lost a baby at 22 weeks and on the anniversary some friends and family members will send a text etc but my best friend never mentions it.
she may text me on the day but it will be about something completely different.
im not sure if she remembers but just doesn’t want to bring it up or not but it makes me feel like she doesn’t remember at all. It hurts my feelings a lot as she came to the hospital to meet him when he was born and she can’t even tell me she’s thinking of me.
am I mad for feeling this way?
would you bother to reply to the messages? I don’t feel like making small talk

OP posts:
Station11 · 22/03/2024 22:39

I lost a foetus at the same gestation about 25 years ago. It was very sad and I would not like to be reminded of it. As @greenerthanroses it was an unviable baby and not the same as losing my dad or my first husband. (But I wouldn’t have wanted my friends to text on either of those dates either.)

MummaJ201 · 22/03/2024 22:46

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all of your thoughts on this.
i think the reason it hurts my feelings is that it was incredibly traumatic, without delving into it I didn’t have a miscarriage or a still birth so my experience was probably different to some and as my best friend she knows how I feel and what reaching out personally to me would mean to me.
i can understand not everyone would want that but like I said she knows.

OP posts:
ColleenDonaghy · 22/03/2024 22:46

I'm so sorry for your loss. It sounds like she's a good friend. Is she supportive in your grief otherwise? She may just not be one for anniversaries and so may not realise the date. I'm sure she'd want to support you, so don't be shy in telling her it's the anniversary that day/week and you're struggling.

KThnxBye · 22/03/2024 23:01

I have lost 2 babies at a similar gestation OP, and I’m sorry for your loss - reading between the lines there may be an extra element to your grief but you needn’t feel that way. Babies don’t make it for many reasons and some need hard decisions to be made but they are deeply felt losses nonetheless, or more so.

I miss my babies every so often, I think about them, but I’m not sure I can remember the dates they were lost. As you know, they don’t get birth certificates, death certificates, funerals or memorials or any form of official or legal recognition (this is changing now). We don’t get the time with them that we might have if they were a little bigger, we don’t get the little mementoes like photos or footprints or locks of hair that we might have if they were stillborn. We just get a traumatic experience and a sudden ending. It makes their dates more fuzzy and less definitive in my experience. No one in my family or friends of any type speak about or acknowledge my lost babies, the vast majority do not remember that they ever existed. There were cards and a head tilt or two at the times I lost them, but the road to parenthood is extremely bumpy, a majority will experience loss, and they do often become a bittersweet side note of life. Important to us, yes, but to others, most likely not, and that’s really to be expected.

Its OK to talk about them though, any day of the year - I wouldn’t expect anyone else to remember but I would expect them to be kind when you are down.

OooScotland · 22/03/2024 23:03

I am very sorry for your loss, but I agree with some others - I wouldn’t expect even a very good friend to dwell on someone else’s miscarriage, its not important to someone not immediate family and I think it would be weird and ghoulish if it were.

I might just be heartless but I don’t remember the anniversaries of any family deaths. Its needlessly sad and pointless and life is hard enough dealing with the here and now. I do take a minute to think of my late parents and dear aunt on their birthdays (she’d be 112 now!) but I don’t want to dredge up their deaths year after year!

I think you need to realise your friend is not trying to hurt you. Bringing this up with her may not be the best idea, especially in anger.

Please get some counselling for your grief, OP. You’ve been through a terrible thing.

Lovingitallnow · 22/03/2024 23:17

I'm so sorry for some of the replies you're getting here. I imagine for your friend she doesn't think about it, or doesn't know how to broach it.

bleurghhh4 · 23/03/2024 08:40

I think at least one of the replies you have had is very heartless.
I lost my baby - and she was a baby - at around the same gestation. I gave birth to her and spent time with her. She was/ is my child.
People only remember her due date anniversary/ birthday if I mention it - and I do, if I'm asked in the run up how I am etc. otherwise people do forget and as a pp said I am less upset about this a couple of anniversaries on than I was.

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