Is it normal for me to feel this way after a miscarriage of an unwanted pregnancy?

[hawaiibunny7]

My husband and I are newly married and both of us are poor college students.  My husband is getting ready for four more years of pharmecy school so children were far off in the future for us.  But I had a missed period and for weeks after we hoped and prayed I wasnt pregnant and I was just simply late.  But after weeks and weeks of pregnancy symptoms and no period we couldn't hide from the truth any longer and I took a pregnancy test, it was positive.  I felt completly lost.  Part of me still wished I wasnt pregnant, having no idea what we would do and how we would afford it and give it what it needed.  But the other part of me could not help being over joyed and I fell absolutly in love with the baby.  I could see the affects it was having on us already.  My husband was talking about giving up pharmecy school, I was talking about dropping out of school so he could continue, ect.  But I still continued to have split feelings and I couldnt help either.  I loved the baby but wished we were financially and emotionally ready to have her.

a few weeks later I started to bleed heavily and there was nothing we could do, I had lost the baby.  I stayed in bed for a week and refused to get up except to use the bathroom.  Once again I had a million emotions changing every five seconds.  Part of me was relieved, and then I felt guilt and hated myself for feeling any type of relief, and then of course the rest of me felt nothing but intense grief at the baby I lost and that I felt I hadnt appreciated enough while I was lucky enough to have her.  Its been two weeks since and though I am up out of bed and doing what I should I cant shake the grief and hurt at the loss of her.

I also feel completly alone and slightly betrayed by my husband.  He cant understand why I am taking it so hard, he couldnt be more relieved.  The whole time I was in bed he didnt once try to comfort me and I actually started wondering at my choice of men.  but I can see a little of where he is coming from.  He didnt carry the baby in his body, his career plans would have been stopped or put on hold, and we just werent ready and its not as if I werent guilty as well.  but all this just makes me feel more alone.

I attend a college where everyone is pregant or has children and I get so angry and jealous sometimes I dont even want to leave the house.  It makes it harder because I can't just simply go and try for another baby.  I have to wait possibly years to try for a baby and it makes it all the worse.

My husband says God took our baby back because he knew we werent ready yet for the little thing and that when we are ready he'll give us another chance at her.  But part of me feels god is punishing me for not appreciating her as much as I should have.  I guess theres true saying in "be careful what you wish for."

Is everything I am feeling normal?  Ive read about woman grieving after a planned pregancy and then having a miscarriage, but what about grieving after a misciarrage of an unwanted pregnancy?

[sNicolet]

I just had my first pregnancy which ended in miscarriage. i'm 20 and have been with my partner for years and am half way through my degree so I was so scared and tried to stop myself but did start to wonder what this little baby would be like. then one day it was gone. i couldn't sleep for weeks because i felt like a little piece of me was missing. I couldn't understand where it had gone. My partner didn't understand, sure he grieved. even blamed him self for me losing it but he didn't cry like i did. he promised me more children but it was hard to tell him I want this one. and like you i knew i had years to wait for them. I'm scared to tell people i was pregnant because people think its comforting to remind me it was unplanned as if some how that makes losing it easier ? I forget for a few days, feel like me then just cry. So my partner and i gave him a name. Rubin-Max, and we're buying a teddy to remember him by. I realised its important to acknowledge that he was my baby, i felt a love for him and i miss him every day. And that most importantly that i won't forget him, nor will i simply replace him. And honestly until you've felt your body change and grow for a baby, you will never understand the physical and emotional pain or losing it. no matter how far along you were or how unplanned it was.

[sNicolet]

I just had my first pregnancy which ended in miscarriage. i'm 20 and have been with my partner for years and am half way through my degree so I was so scared and tried to stop myself but did start to wonder what this little baby would be like. then one day it was gone. i couldn't sleep for weeks because i felt like a little piece of me was missing. I couldn't understand where it had gone. My partner didn't understand, sure he grieved. even blamed him self for me losing it but he didn't cry like i did. he promised me more children but it was hard to tell him I want this one. and like you i knew i had years to wait for them. I'm scared to tell people i was pregnant because people think its comforting to remind me it was unplanned as if some how that makes losing it easier ? I forget for a few days, feel like me then just cry. So my partner and i gave him a name. Rubin-Max, and we're buying a teddy to remember him by. I realised its important to acknowledge that he was my baby, i felt a love for him and i miss him every day. And that most importantly that i won't forget him, nor will i simply replace him. And honestly until you've felt your body change and grow for a baby, you will never understand the physical and emotional pain or losing it. no matter how far along you were or how unplanned it was.

[tk2013]

I'm so glad I read this even though I'm 6 years too late.

I had my tubes tied almost a decade ago after two kids & had a surprise pregnancy we did not want. But I did...but I didn't. :P  It was ectopic and after healing I had another tubal done.

But the anguish of guilt, etc is still there. I constantly think how old she/he would be today (1 month old), but as I ready my oldest for college...I know it was best. Doesn't stop the hurt, though.

[cat9841]

an unplanned pregnancy always carries doubts, both positive and negitive, and anything that upsets our plans in life with bring with it concerns and questions. if you do have a baby, this and that will change, if you don't, will this and that change. a misscarriage is a death, a death of the child, a death of a dream. I KNOW how you feel. the baby I lost at 18 weeks would today be 29 years old. I still at times mourn her too, but if I would have had her, then the daughter concived before that one was due would never had been born. I don't know why God allows these things, but he does have a bigger picture, a bigger plan, one we cannot see or know. someday, all these things will be known to us and only then will we understand. as for your husband, mine was comforting for a time, then he got tired of it and I had to seek counselling from somewhere else. Men see things differently than us, we are more feeling where they are more practical, but he still feels the loss and may feel some guilt too. your feelings are perfectly natural, normal and someday, who knows, you will be used by God to help another younger woman cope with the same loss. Hang in there, you will be in my prayers.
CAT

[ParamedFlorena]

Hi Hawaiibunny,

Thank you for replying so fast. I hope that you through this community can find support. I am only one who had a miscarriage soon after finding out about the pregnancy, and well... The sleepless nights wondering how to adapt life to a 2nd child, it was probably making the physical pain worse too... Then not being able to talk about it even with the ones who were closest to me (husband seemingly shrugged it off, parents in law said "get over it!" and I never dared to even tell my boss about it).

People seem to think that a miscarriage and a child you never knew, is not a tough or difficult grief but it is. It all depends on the pre-phase, the event and how it is dealt with afterwards. We can't change the events prior to it, and we can't change that it happened - but we can do something to let it be a dis-armed life-experience.

I give my grief the air it needs. It is something that I know many women go through. I don't think I'm "just one more in the line". I never consider myself as that. I'm not someone who can be generalized. No one are going through the "general" - it's always personal experience, thoughts and emotions to something that happens.
It is then that it is so good to have someone to explain it to: To give the emotion a "this-is-the-way-I-feel-tag".
We are human beings. We need to label the emotions and thoughts.

I hope you get more input by others, since I'm only sharing my personal point of view.


Florena

[hawaiibunny7]

Thank you so much for your kind thoughts, you have no idea how much they mean to me. It is so nice to hear that I have a right to grieve.  I dont know anyone who has had a miscarriage and so the only support I have had, are people telling me to snap out of it and move on with things and to get over it (or that I have nothing to get over). it has left me feeling truely alone in one of the most difficult things I have ever faced.

[ParamedFlorena]

Allthough most parents-to-be actually think "Oh my, we can't possibly care for a kid at this point", your situation is heart-wrenching to read!
Don't blame yourself for going through all those thoughts while you were preparing for becoming a mother. You wanted this baby, were ready to give her a safe home and I have no doubts that you'd make it. It was maybe an unplanned pregnancy but you'd have been ready to love this baby with all of you from the beginning.
I can say as many times as I like that you shouldn't blame yourself for your thoughts but you've got to allow yourself to grieve as any other mother.

When it comes to miscarriages, I do believe that it is a lot of truth in that the fathers bond to the baby much later - when they can touch, feel and see that it is someone in there. That's what makes the miscarriage a lot more difficult. (I am really not saying that all fathers do this). The fathers come to the comfort-talk part of the grief a lot sooner. They have the father instinct, but we have the mother instinct.
A father can't be forced to grieve, but he can still comfort and hug and love his partner. None of us knows what God is up to though, we can't prey Him for answers nor explanations, but someone reminded me yesterday that even if we might never see the reason, it is always one.
Some finds comfort in their belief, others want to leave God out of it. Do exactly what you feel is right for your grief. You haven't failed and you are not to blame no matter how much you struggled in making your life fit into a mother-role.

I reply to you because I know how difficult it is to accept that the timing wasn't a best one, then after a while loose the baby, go through the physical pain, the emotional pain and then meeting... "the wall" when it comes to talking about it with a husband. I ain't saying that my husband was insensitive, and yours is probably not either, but it was difficult to bounce my thoughts to him. It took a whole lot of time for us to even talk about the miscarriage and what he thought. He went through a full grief process on the inside - at the same time he did his best to convince me that "there was a reason". Sometimes now I sit and ponder: Was it me or was it himself that he comforted most?

Have you got at least one you can talk with about the miscarriage?

Stay in touch!
Florena