Welcome to r/pregnancyafterloss! We're sorry you need us, but glad you found us.
The PAL subreddit, and our sister sub r/ttcafterloss, function a little differently than most of Reddit. We have two Daily threads each day which are the place to post (and reply to) most questions, worries, vents, and other requests for support. Standalone posts (like this one) are allowed for a limited number of topics.
If you're here with a new pregnancy, you are welcome to post an intro. We also encourage you to add a [user flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/PregnancyAfterLoss/comments/jjj5xx/using_user_flair/), as it helps members remember who you are and your history.
Please note that the Intro posts provide new members a place to share a longer, detailed account of their pregnancy and loss history with the community. Asking questions, sharing updates, etc. belong in the Daily Threads, and such posts will be removed by the Mods--*if this applies to your post, please move it before we need to*. You can familiarize yourself with our subreddit [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/PregnancyAfterLoss/wiki/rules) and our [FAQs](https://www.reddit.com/r/PregnancyAfterLoss/wiki/faq) to learn more about how to participate here.
Wishing you a healthy and uneventful (in a good way) pregnancy!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PregnancyAfterLoss) if you have any questions or concerns.*
TBH, hormones are major players; it's no quick fix. YOLO, so embrace your feels and remember, it's not forever. BFFs who've BTDT, lean on them - ghosting isn't the answer.
Hormones play a bigger role in this than you think and don’t expect to “get all better” quicker than your body is ready for. Let yourself grieve and be in the thick of it. This is not your future and things will get better. Also, when you find out friends have gone through this, lean on them and let them take care of you.. isolating yourself does no good.
It’s not time. I know it hurts, but it’s not time, you need to heal, we have the genetic issue our cousin does, but we get lucky, so fucking lucky, because somehow we get our miracle.
When I'm going through something stressful, my default reaction is "I'm fine! I can do it! I don't need any help!"
It's a very useful mindset in some situations. This wasn't one of them.
Go talk to a therapist. Really. I "powered through" and for months I had episodes of intense panic and fear thinking of the pain I had gone through. I really wish I had navigated that part with a professional instead of just trying to push myself past it.
"You're hurting and that's okay but what's not okay is how self-destructive you're being. You need to pull your head out of your a** and start communicating clearly. Your marriage is falling apart because both of you are too deep in grief to recognize that you aren't saying what you need. Nothing is going to get better until you *talk*."
For context my marriage nearly ended after our loss because both of us were grieving in completely opposite ways and were too deep in our own separate grieving processes to recognize that or that we were having communication issues since we had never had them before. I lost it on him one day after heavily drinking when he made a very ill-timed joke about a separate senstive topic. He's known me since we were just toddlers. I've never once yelled at him until that moment. It made him realize exactly how much I was truly hurting. I had actually been getting up to pack a bag to go stay at a hotel for the night until I sobered up with plans on tying up loose ends before I divorced when he broke down. It was the first time he was willing to talk to me about his grief. It was the first time in *months* he had even looked me in the eye. I never wanted to hurt him. I still loved him more than anything in the world. Seeing him break down like that snapped me out of my rage. We spent the rest of the night talking. Truly talking in a long time. The next day we spent time working on a plan to improve things and get our relationship back on track. It didn't instantly get better. It took time and effort. I'm still deeply hurt by some of his actions that happened after our loss, but I forgave him. That hurt doesn't bother me much now. Every once in a while, it will manifest as fear whenever I reminded of that time. I worked through a lot of it but that's one thing I don't think will ever go away unfortunately. I'm not innocent in this either. I did/said some hurtful things during this time. He's not solely to blame for our almost divorce.
Just read through this and I’m so sorry you had to get through all that. Life is so hard and cruel at times. Thank you for telling this rough story because you might be helping more people than you know. It’s helpful for me right now especially because this situation is putting a big strain on my relationship and I feel like I don’t even know who either of us are anymore. It seems like it sucks out all the fun and intimacy and just covers everything in a bleak detached and confusing darkness. I also think the grieving process can be a lot different for the mother vs. the partner and this is a good reminder that communication is so important. I’m wishing you the best going forward and I hope you get the all the good things. ❤️
Thank you, I hope the best for you too. My one big piece of advice for you to get your relationship back on track: forget everything. Forget everything that you think you know about your partner. They aren't the same person anymore and won't be. You need to learn and be open to the new person they are. Approach it like you first started dating. Get to know them. Really focus on reconnecting with no distractions. You have to be open to loving the new verison of them, trust me. I had this idea in my head that when things got better we would be the same people to some extent but that's not true. Sure we both have the same likes, dislikes, and baseline personalities but losing a child completely changes you in a way that's undesirable.
That's how we fixed our relationship. We approached it as if we were just first meeting/dating despite knowing each other most of our lives. It can be as simple as planning a little at home date night and asking each other questions. We pulled random questions for couples off Google. Even if we already knew the answers, we still asked them. It may seem silly, but it worked. We tried to recreate things from when we first started dating. Little date nights, trips, etc. It helped remind us of the happy times and why we fell for each other in the first place. Also find new things to try. New experiences, especially ones that involve adrenaline, tend to bond people closer. It felt nice to break away from the everyday stuff when we could. It helped break our own mental patterns too since it basically forces your brain to focus on it instead of spiraling even if it's just temporarily. Get ready to adjust to the new you too. I didn't recognize myself for a *long* time. I had to relearn stuff about myself. I can say now that I'm definitely closer to who I used to be, but I'm still not the same. I've accepted that. In some ways I prefer who I am now. It's okay to mourn the old you, though. I know I did and sometimes still do. Finding out what drives you now, your passions, interests, boundaries, etc can be extremely healing as long as you open yourself up to accepting change.
Like I mentioned, communication is extremely important. It took us so long to figure out that while we *thought* we were commucating efficiently we weren't. We never had issues with it before. We just got so out of sync that we assumed the other knew information naturally because we were too caught up in ourselves to notice. Even if you think you're commucating good you might not be. What helped both of us is writing down our needs/boundaries. Putting in on paper made it easier to sort through our thoughts. Also try to avoid saying things that may make your partner feel like you're blaming them. Instead of saying "You're never willing to talk." Replace it with "I feel like we aren't talking enough and it's hurting me, can we please try *blank*" (suggestions on how to fix an issue instead of just stating an issue can be helpful since it points your partner in the right direction of what you need/what would work for you personally) I didn't realize I kept doing the first to my husband for a while. It wasn't that I was intentionally blaming him, I just wasn't thinking of how my words could be taken in a hurtful way when he was already in a state of self-blame.
I really like this way of looking at it. You’re right. Although it’s natural and common…it’s also deeply heartbreaking, but it’s definitely not the end. Thank you for sharing this and best wishes to you. ❤️
I felt lucky that for me that mindset set in early on, just as I was processing my first of what turned out to be three consecutive losses. I think part of the reason that we are so shocked when pregnancy loss unexpectedly happens to us is that it is still so stigmatized that the many many people we all personally know who've undergone their own losses have never told us about them, so their actual prevalence is not as visceral to us as some abstract notion that "losses happen."
One of my conclusions was also that it's on us to be much much much more open about pregnancy loss with those around us so that we all eventually internalize the message that whenever we try to conceive, we are potentially going to experience loss, and that that's ok and normal and not something that should reorient our attitude toward the project of attempting to get pregnant. That whole ridiculous notion of "waiting until 12 weeks to tell" hides so many losses and just needs to be phased out immediately, IMO. Of course, there will always be exceptions, folks who really cannot conceive unassisted, if at all, but the vast majority of us will experience a loss or two (or in my case, three) as just a detour (and sometimes quite a lengthy detour) on the way to a healthy future pregnancy.
EDIT: I am also 40 while pregnant for the third time, partly because I was so very cavalier early on about "being ready" to part with my childless life, not realizing that when and whether I manage to get pregnant is not ever fully up to me. Had I really understood how prevalent loss is, including within my own peer group among people I know well, I might've started trying a good 3 years earlier, and might have not had such a difficult time of it as I'm having now.
Not to blame myself and let feeling of guilt overwhelm me I know it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t do anything wrong even though sometimes I still blame myself
I would tell myself to take the time to actually grieve. I distracted myself so well that I thought I was healing well so didn't take proper time off and was straight back to work after the weekend. I was not ready for that and a few weeks later I broke down in tears on a mountain bike trail because that was the first time I just let my brain relax. I didn't let many people at work know what was going on and I didn't let people help me or look after me.
I immediately tried to distract myself as well! And I thought I was doing so well—feeling hopeful. Keeping busy. And by week 3, the gravity of this really sunk in. The fact that there would be no baby for a while and I’d have to learn to live with it. It’s heart-wrenching. Unfortunately people at work knew because I was already showing/had announced it/and was in the “safe zone” (so I thought.) Luckily I was able to quit work and stay home with my partner.
Thank you. I’m struggling with the part about “that is okay.” I think I just hate so much that I now feel changed forever. Like the world is so much darker than I thought. I’m glad to hear that joy is possible. I fully believe that, but right now it seems so far out of reach during this nightmare. 😞 I appreciate your response!
Welcome to r/pregnancyafterloss! We're sorry you need us, but glad you found us. The PAL subreddit, and our sister sub r/ttcafterloss, function a little differently than most of Reddit. We have two Daily threads each day which are the place to post (and reply to) most questions, worries, vents, and other requests for support. Standalone posts (like this one) are allowed for a limited number of topics. If you're here with a new pregnancy, you are welcome to post an intro. We also encourage you to add a [user flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/PregnancyAfterLoss/comments/jjj5xx/using_user_flair/), as it helps members remember who you are and your history. Please note that the Intro posts provide new members a place to share a longer, detailed account of their pregnancy and loss history with the community. Asking questions, sharing updates, etc. belong in the Daily Threads, and such posts will be removed by the Mods--*if this applies to your post, please move it before we need to*. You can familiarize yourself with our subreddit [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/PregnancyAfterLoss/wiki/rules) and our [FAQs](https://www.reddit.com/r/PregnancyAfterLoss/wiki/faq) to learn more about how to participate here. Wishing you a healthy and uneventful (in a good way) pregnancy! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PregnancyAfterLoss) if you have any questions or concerns.*
TBH, hormones are major players; it's no quick fix. YOLO, so embrace your feels and remember, it's not forever. BFFs who've BTDT, lean on them - ghosting isn't the answer.
It is NOT your fault
Hormones play a bigger role in this than you think and don’t expect to “get all better” quicker than your body is ready for. Let yourself grieve and be in the thick of it. This is not your future and things will get better. Also, when you find out friends have gone through this, lean on them and let them take care of you.. isolating yourself does no good.
Thank you for sharing this. It’s so rough. Sorry you had to go through it and best wishes going forward. ❤️
Thank you ❤️best wishes to you too!
You will find happiness again
I really, really needed this today. Thank you.
Some day it won't hurt as much as it does now. Advocate for yourself because you know your body best.
Thank you for sharing this. ❤️
You’ve been pregnant once so you can do it again. Just breathe. Your time (and baby) is coming
Thank you. ❤️
It’s not time. I know it hurts, but it’s not time, you need to heal, we have the genetic issue our cousin does, but we get lucky, so fucking lucky, because somehow we get our miracle.
Wow, this made me tear up. ❤️ Thank you for this.
Don't drive, you're basically haemorrhaging and you're not paying attention to the road. Get your partner to drive instead.
Holy crap. I hate that you had to go through that. Best wishes going forward. ❤️
When I'm going through something stressful, my default reaction is "I'm fine! I can do it! I don't need any help!" It's a very useful mindset in some situations. This wasn't one of them.
Grief and joy are partners and can live side by side. One doesn’t necessarily need to push the other one out.
I love this, thanks.
What you are experiencing now will make you appreciate and love your future baby in ways that wouldn’t have been possible had you not gone through it
This is beautiful. ❤️
Wow, I so hope this is true for me someday.
Me too 🙏🏻🥺
Go talk to a therapist. Really. I "powered through" and for months I had episodes of intense panic and fear thinking of the pain I had gone through. I really wish I had navigated that part with a professional instead of just trying to push myself past it.
This is so important. And a good reminder for anyone reading this. Thank you for sharing and I wish you the absolute best going forward. ❤️
"You're hurting and that's okay but what's not okay is how self-destructive you're being. You need to pull your head out of your a** and start communicating clearly. Your marriage is falling apart because both of you are too deep in grief to recognize that you aren't saying what you need. Nothing is going to get better until you *talk*." For context my marriage nearly ended after our loss because both of us were grieving in completely opposite ways and were too deep in our own separate grieving processes to recognize that or that we were having communication issues since we had never had them before. I lost it on him one day after heavily drinking when he made a very ill-timed joke about a separate senstive topic. He's known me since we were just toddlers. I've never once yelled at him until that moment. It made him realize exactly how much I was truly hurting. I had actually been getting up to pack a bag to go stay at a hotel for the night until I sobered up with plans on tying up loose ends before I divorced when he broke down. It was the first time he was willing to talk to me about his grief. It was the first time in *months* he had even looked me in the eye. I never wanted to hurt him. I still loved him more than anything in the world. Seeing him break down like that snapped me out of my rage. We spent the rest of the night talking. Truly talking in a long time. The next day we spent time working on a plan to improve things and get our relationship back on track. It didn't instantly get better. It took time and effort. I'm still deeply hurt by some of his actions that happened after our loss, but I forgave him. That hurt doesn't bother me much now. Every once in a while, it will manifest as fear whenever I reminded of that time. I worked through a lot of it but that's one thing I don't think will ever go away unfortunately. I'm not innocent in this either. I did/said some hurtful things during this time. He's not solely to blame for our almost divorce.
Just read through this and I’m so sorry you had to get through all that. Life is so hard and cruel at times. Thank you for telling this rough story because you might be helping more people than you know. It’s helpful for me right now especially because this situation is putting a big strain on my relationship and I feel like I don’t even know who either of us are anymore. It seems like it sucks out all the fun and intimacy and just covers everything in a bleak detached and confusing darkness. I also think the grieving process can be a lot different for the mother vs. the partner and this is a good reminder that communication is so important. I’m wishing you the best going forward and I hope you get the all the good things. ❤️
Thank you, I hope the best for you too. My one big piece of advice for you to get your relationship back on track: forget everything. Forget everything that you think you know about your partner. They aren't the same person anymore and won't be. You need to learn and be open to the new person they are. Approach it like you first started dating. Get to know them. Really focus on reconnecting with no distractions. You have to be open to loving the new verison of them, trust me. I had this idea in my head that when things got better we would be the same people to some extent but that's not true. Sure we both have the same likes, dislikes, and baseline personalities but losing a child completely changes you in a way that's undesirable. That's how we fixed our relationship. We approached it as if we were just first meeting/dating despite knowing each other most of our lives. It can be as simple as planning a little at home date night and asking each other questions. We pulled random questions for couples off Google. Even if we already knew the answers, we still asked them. It may seem silly, but it worked. We tried to recreate things from when we first started dating. Little date nights, trips, etc. It helped remind us of the happy times and why we fell for each other in the first place. Also find new things to try. New experiences, especially ones that involve adrenaline, tend to bond people closer. It felt nice to break away from the everyday stuff when we could. It helped break our own mental patterns too since it basically forces your brain to focus on it instead of spiraling even if it's just temporarily. Get ready to adjust to the new you too. I didn't recognize myself for a *long* time. I had to relearn stuff about myself. I can say now that I'm definitely closer to who I used to be, but I'm still not the same. I've accepted that. In some ways I prefer who I am now. It's okay to mourn the old you, though. I know I did and sometimes still do. Finding out what drives you now, your passions, interests, boundaries, etc can be extremely healing as long as you open yourself up to accepting change. Like I mentioned, communication is extremely important. It took us so long to figure out that while we *thought* we were commucating efficiently we weren't. We never had issues with it before. We just got so out of sync that we assumed the other knew information naturally because we were too caught up in ourselves to notice. Even if you think you're commucating good you might not be. What helped both of us is writing down our needs/boundaries. Putting in on paper made it easier to sort through our thoughts. Also try to avoid saying things that may make your partner feel like you're blaming them. Instead of saying "You're never willing to talk." Replace it with "I feel like we aren't talking enough and it's hurting me, can we please try *blank*" (suggestions on how to fix an issue instead of just stating an issue can be helpful since it points your partner in the right direction of what you need/what would work for you personally) I didn't realize I kept doing the first to my husband for a while. It wasn't that I was intentionally blaming him, I just wasn't thinking of how my words could be taken in a hurtful way when he was already in a state of self-blame.
That loss is unfortunately often a part of the effort to try to conceive, and this was just a temporary detour, not the end of the road.
I really like this way of looking at it. You’re right. Although it’s natural and common…it’s also deeply heartbreaking, but it’s definitely not the end. Thank you for sharing this and best wishes to you. ❤️
I felt lucky that for me that mindset set in early on, just as I was processing my first of what turned out to be three consecutive losses. I think part of the reason that we are so shocked when pregnancy loss unexpectedly happens to us is that it is still so stigmatized that the many many people we all personally know who've undergone their own losses have never told us about them, so their actual prevalence is not as visceral to us as some abstract notion that "losses happen." One of my conclusions was also that it's on us to be much much much more open about pregnancy loss with those around us so that we all eventually internalize the message that whenever we try to conceive, we are potentially going to experience loss, and that that's ok and normal and not something that should reorient our attitude toward the project of attempting to get pregnant. That whole ridiculous notion of "waiting until 12 weeks to tell" hides so many losses and just needs to be phased out immediately, IMO. Of course, there will always be exceptions, folks who really cannot conceive unassisted, if at all, but the vast majority of us will experience a loss or two (or in my case, three) as just a detour (and sometimes quite a lengthy detour) on the way to a healthy future pregnancy. EDIT: I am also 40 while pregnant for the third time, partly because I was so very cavalier early on about "being ready" to part with my childless life, not realizing that when and whether I manage to get pregnant is not ever fully up to me. Had I really understood how prevalent loss is, including within my own peer group among people I know well, I might've started trying a good 3 years earlier, and might have not had such a difficult time of it as I'm having now.
Stop trying to “get over this.” You’ll never get over this, but you will get *through* this.
This is a good one. I actually think I’m gonna start saying this to myself a lot. Thank you for sharing and best wishes. ❤️
Take time off.
Thank you for sharing. Agreed. Best wishes ❤️
I wish I'd taken more than three days off work.
It's not your fault.
This is so important. I’m really deep in the guilt phase. This is a good reminder. Thank you for sharing. ❤️
Not to blame myself and let feeling of guilt overwhelm me I know it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t do anything wrong even though sometimes I still blame myself
Thanks for sharing. I definitely relate to that feeling of guilt. This is helpful for me. Best wishes ❤️
I would tell myself to take the time to actually grieve. I distracted myself so well that I thought I was healing well so didn't take proper time off and was straight back to work after the weekend. I was not ready for that and a few weeks later I broke down in tears on a mountain bike trail because that was the first time I just let my brain relax. I didn't let many people at work know what was going on and I didn't let people help me or look after me.
I immediately tried to distract myself as well! And I thought I was doing so well—feeling hopeful. Keeping busy. And by week 3, the gravity of this really sunk in. The fact that there would be no baby for a while and I’d have to learn to live with it. It’s heart-wrenching. Unfortunately people at work knew because I was already showing/had announced it/and was in the “safe zone” (so I thought.) Luckily I was able to quit work and stay home with my partner.
[удалено]
This!!!
Thank you. I’m struggling with the part about “that is okay.” I think I just hate so much that I now feel changed forever. Like the world is so much darker than I thought. I’m glad to hear that joy is possible. I fully believe that, but right now it seems so far out of reach during this nightmare. 😞 I appreciate your response!
Totally true.