Do you ever feel like an event in your life, that's very important to you, but it seems like everyone else downplays it??

I feel that way right now with the baby I lost not long ago. When it happened my mother treated me as if I had a scraped knee and expected me to be completely cured and over it in 2 days. Yeah right. My father spent several months ignoring me after it happened. Neither of them bring it up or have asked if I want to talk about it. One of my best friends had a baby herself a month before I lost the baby, and that keeps her pretty occupied. All she has said in regards to it is "I'm sorry." Comforting I guess..to a degree. It's 2 words my parents never said in regards to the baby. My mother in law, who I thought would be comforting since she had experienced a miscarriage before, wasn't of much help, nor did she offer any really. As for my other relatives, my aunt wants to have a talk with me about it, maybe that would help, but she wants to do it in person and since she lives a few hours away, it would be kind of hard to do that without a bunch of other people around.

One of my cousins..well..she..didn't know about it until a couple months ago. She's a teenager and I think she tried to be comforting once the shock of just finding out wore off. She was doing a pretty good job until she said "You know I can't believe my sister has 2 kids already and she's younger than you." That comment quickly got her added to the "Don't ever confide in again" list. Another cousin who is my aunt's (the one who wants to have the talk with me) son. He'll be a little comforting when the topic comes up. He'll say "Sorry" and "I wish it hadn't happened." You know what I'm talking about..the stock answers that don't come from actually knowing how it feels but it sounds good. I'm not sure how many of my other relatives know. One of my other aunts had an interesting response to finding out. "You will try again right??" Well I have to admit that's a response I wasn't expecting or heard before. Some of my online friends have been comforting to a degree.

Notice I didn't mention my husband until this paragraph. I have a good reason for that. Talking about how he reacts to it will require a whole paragraph. The pregnancy was a pleasant surprise. In other words, we didn't plan it, but wasn't too upset that it happened. It took us both some time to adjust to it, but we did. Losing the baby was something I knew was a possibilty but not a very realistic one considering how things were going in the pregnancy. I took losing the baby hard. My husband was the strong one and took care of me. He hasn't cried like I have over the baby. But..it was his child and in some ways I wish he would show how he feels about it. He says that he didn't really know the baby, I was the one who carried it, so he didn't really get the opportunity to get attached to the baby as I did. Now I know that makes sense and he has a every right to feel the way he does..but..the baby was his child, shouldn't that count for something?? Granted he didn't meet the baby, but it was still his baby. I didn't meet the baby either and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about it and miss it. I can see why my carrying the baby makes it harder on me than him, but still...I know this isn't true, but sometimes it looks like the baby didn't mean much to him. I know it did..he talked to the baby a lot, he sang to it, and excitedly told his friends about it. Maybe he just doesn't want to think about it. Today I got upset with him a bit because he was talking to his sister on the phone, and they haven't really talked since before I lost the baby. He didn't bring it up, or even ask if she knew about it. I'm assuming she did but I don't know for sure. He talked about my cat dying, but didn't mention the baby?? Maybe I'm overly sensitive about this but I just think if you can mention a cat dying, you can mention your own child.

I want to talk about the baby more with him. I do sometimes, but I just would feel better about it if maybe he brought it up first, or when I talk about it, share the same feelings on the baby that I have. God knows I would never want him to have to carry a baby for all that time I did then have to lose it like that, but maybe if he did he'd get an idea about how I'm feeling.

I know the baby meant something to him. I'm positive of it. And I know he has a hard time talking about his feelings sometimes. I know everyone deals with things differently, but am I asking too much??

Sometimes I get the feeling just about everyone around me (except my husband) is perfectly okay with my losing the baby. They aren't the ones who lost it, but does that mean that I just excuse their lack of compassion about it??

There are some things you just can't really explain to someone who has never gone thru it. Losing a child is one of them.

To me losing the baby..wasn't just about a miscarriage. It was about losing a child I will never meet. It was about feeling like a failure that I somehow am at fault for not being able to bring it into the world healthy. It was about not being able to watch my child grow up, and experience all the things that the world has to offer. It was about constantly wondering what the child would look like and what it would be doing right now. It was about losing a part of me that I will never get back. It was about questioning why God allowed me to get pregnant and fall in love with my child just to take it away from me. It was about never being able to look at another child the same way again. It was about having millions of questions, the most important one being: why?? It was about not having hardly any of the answers to those questions. It was about all that and more.

I think about my child every single day, and I would do almost ANYTHING to have just 5 minutes with it.

In some ways I wish I had never gotten pregnant, in others I'm glad I did. I still cry for that baby sometimes and there will probably be more moments that I cry for it.

Some people have told me that it would have been harder if the baby had been born and then died. I don't believe that personally. If the baby had been born I could have held it and seen it. I could have looked into it's eyes and maybe seen my own staring back or seen my husband's. I could have said a lifetime of things to it that I couldn't with the way I did lose it. I could have the memories of that child and keep them forever and look back on them. Perhaps we could even have taken a picture of the baby to keep in an album. If the baby had been born, it may have been harder at the time. If you ask me though, I'd say the way it happened was harder.

Now I'm not asking for everyone to be as upset as I am about it. All I'm asking is that it matters at least a little bit and to be a little more understanding.