The Grief Journey of Pregnancy Loss
I never knew that emptiness could take up so much space.
Pregnancy loss is a unique grief because it is mostly the loss of something you didn’t yet receive. Your child was real, your child lived, and his/her brief life has eternal value, but your baby died before birth. The hopes and dreams you had for your long life with your child also died. You were waiting to be transformed by your child’s life, but not this way – not through the shattering of your heart. It doesn’t matter if you were 5 weeks pregnant or 40 weeks pregnant. Your baby died and we are so terribly sorry.
For Catholic mothers who have experienced a miscarriage, the grief journey is deeply personal and spiritually intertwined with their faith. Our Catholic faith teaches the dignity of life from conception until natural death.
Your baby was real.
Your baby was fully human.
Your baby deserves to be mourned.
Don’t let anyone keep you from mourning your baby as long as you need to. Your grief will last forever, even if your active mourning may decrease over time. While everyone grieves differently, here are some common experiences of the grief of pregnancy loss. We are here with you and for you as you grieve. You are not alone.
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I feel so much shame and guilt that I did something wrong and that it is my fault my baby died. I was supposed to keep my baby safe and I failed. My body has changed and I have nothing to show for it. I feel inadequate. I’m so tired, but I can’t eat and I can’t sleep.
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People don’t see my suffering. Many people didn’t even know I was pregnant, so I don’t know how to tell them my baby died. It feels like I am not supposed to talk about it, especially since life in the womb is not valued by many people. And when I do tell people, it is exhausting to tell the story over and over.
People say the worst things too. Hearing “You’ll have another baby!” or “It’s part of God’s plan!” makes me so angry. I don’t know how to advocate for myself and I feel relationships slipping away as my friends and family struggle to understand me and my suffering. I feel like people think I should be “over it” by now, but I am not.
My husband doesn’t even seem to be grieving since he had even less time with our baby than I did. That makes me feel even more alone.
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If it’s not my fault that my baby died, how can I keep it from happening again? Being open to life means being open to death, and I am so scared to go through this again.
What if I can never have another baby or a baby that can be born alive? I have had multiple losses and I fear that my body may just not work right. What if it is just God’s plan for me to not have a living child? I don’t want to live the rest of my life with my longing to have a living child left unfulfilled. I am so afraid that is what will happen.
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People mistakenly believe that since my baby wasn’t alive “very long” that the impact of his or her death should be less, but that is not true. I lived a lifetime with my baby the first day I found out I was pregnant. I imagined her birth, crawling, walking, snuggling, going to school – even graduations and weddings and grandbabies – all in the blink of an eye.
Losing my baby is largely the grief of what I won’t get. It is the loss of a dream I already loved. It is ambiguous, which makes it worse. There was so much I didn’t get to know about my baby, and so I grieve every possible future.
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Losing my unborn child is like losing a part of my identity, but there is no easy way to mourn that. I miss my baby, and I miss the woman I was before I knew death in my body, yet people are acting like maybe it wasn’t a big loss. The doctors and nurses don’t seem prepared to accept the profound grief I feel. There isn’t a lot of experience, language, or rituals for my grief. People aren’t offering to help me plan the funeral or find a Catholic cemetery to bury my baby. I wish someone would help me find ways to honor and remember my baby.
Integration & Healing
Integrating your grief doesn’t mean you are done grieving, but rather you have learned to carry your grief inside you. You are not afraid of it. You have walked the terrain of your sorrow and know the borders of your grief. You know how to grieve and how to help yourself come out of active grieving. You are able to love and remember your child with joy and sorrow, not just pain. Reaching a place of integration means entering fully into your loss with the Lord and allowing him to love you and care for you in your pain.
You will never forget your baby. You need not be afraid of that. Your child is always with you. (Click here for amazing scientific evidence of this!)
One important component of healing and integration is fostering a new relationship with your baby. Your baby did not cease to exist. Your baby is still alive. We can learn how to relate to them and stay connected with them in a new way rather than severing that connection, which arguably cannot be severed anyway.
Healing and Integration is not about slowly forgetting. It’s about finding meaningful ways to remember. This produces peace even in the midst of missing your child.
Click here to read more about honoring and remembering your baby.
Three Suggestions for Spiritual Healing after Pregnancy Loss
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Shock & Disbelief
Acknowledge the shock and disbelief you experienced when your baby died. Telling the story of your baby’s life and death over and over can be helpful in making sense of your devastating loss. It takes time to process that the life you were nurturing is no longer there. Your faith may feel shaken, yet you may also draw strength from the sacraments and your faith, especially through the intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows. Seek spiritual counsel from your priest or our Red Bird Spiritual Director.
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Sorrow & Lament
The profound sadness of loss sets in as we come to terms with the reality of our baby’s death. Prayers of lament can be very consoling during this time as we trust that God is fully present in our pain.
Lament is a prayer of pain and hope, turning toward God with our raw, desperate emotions when despair tempts us to run away. We pour out our grief, sorrow, and anger to the Lord, confident that our prayers are heard and held by a loving Father.
Lament is a form of “groaning,” similar to labor pains. Lament reminds us that "the Holy Spirit ‘helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.’" Don’t hide your grief from God. He is waiting to hear your heart. One of the best places to go in your grief is Adoration. You don’t even have to say anything, just sit in front of the Lord and let your tears fall.
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Seek Meaning & Community
It is normal to try and understand why this happened, to search for spiritual meaning after your baby died. While the pain may seem unbearable, our Church reminds us of the dignity of every life, no matter how brief. We can also find consolation at the foot of the cross, uniting our suffering to Jesus. Red Bird Ministries is here to help you carry your extraordinary cross. Your suffering can be redemptive suffering and includes the promise of hope in eternal life. Allow our flock of other grieving mothers to walk with you on your journey through the grief of losing your baby. Join our app community and the Mothers of Loss and Pregnancy Loss groups to find other mothers who know. Click here to join the Red Bird app.