After my first miscarriage, I obviously turned to my girl friends for some girlie support.  What I noticed straight away is that those who had never had a miscarriage themselves, as compassionate and loving as these dear friends are, simply could not understand how hard it was to go through it.  The reality is:  it’s a lonely experience and ONLY you can get over it on your own.

I am eternally grateful that I have many loving people in my life who, although they may not have understood the pain, at least didn’t judge me or assume I’d done something wrong to have caused my pregnancies to fail.  They were supportive and sometimes steered the topic away from the miserable direction I was heading in.

People say some many things to try and help you feel better, often it feels inappropriate (although it usually isn’t) and it’s amazing how incredibly sensitive one becomes under these circumstances.  For each woman who’s had a miscarriage, the ‘stupid’ comments vary.  For me the worst was:  “You can always try again.” As true as that is, I knew I would never ever be pregnant for the first time again, and I would never ever start another pregnancy without the past-experience fear of a miscarriage.

“Miscarriage is very common.” This one really irritated me.  Yes it’s common, one in every 4 women apparently.  Pretty crappy statistics considering how hardcore it is.  The flu is also common!  People can die from the flu!  People take weeks off work from the flu!  The flu is no fun, you can’t taste anything, you can’t breathe properly, your legs are sore and you feel like a walking zombie with a thick head full of mucous!  I’d say the only real comparison is, ironically, with the flu, no one REALLY cares much unless they’re the one with the flu…  and so it is with a miscarriage.  That’s just the way it is.

“At least you could get pregnant!” was another one that irked me a bit.  To be frank, I didn’t appreciate the sheer weight of this one until I found out that a very special good friend of mine had been trying to conceive for 2 years and finally conceived through IVF (she now has a healthy baby daughter).  In this case I was one of the insensitive ones when it turns out the friend that was trying to console me with this statement was the friend who struggled to conceive!