It’s hard to interpret my own reactions to a failed pregnancy because I have nothing with which to compare the experience. I’m not sure what I’m grieving most. A life? My own hopes? My partner’s pain?
Obviously, the experience has been physically and emotionally painful for her. Feelings of inadequacy and failure and guilt and sorrow are surely normal and expected – even if they are irrational.
Statistically, there is nothing to be worried about.
Not yet. In her words, though, “it still sucks.”
My own shadowy pain is harder to pinpoint, equally irrational, but certainly less acute than hers.
How will the experience affect our fears and attitudes next time? It can’t help, right? It was comforting to hear the doctor say the cause was a typical chromosomal failure. It was nothing we did or didn’t do. The thing just couldn’t happen. Second-guessing is innevitable in the process but it doesn’t have to be sanctioned by your doctor, and ours has ridden enough rodeos to know.
This, on the other hand, is my first, and I’m thankful for all the help I can get.