Whether a baby has been lost to miscarriage, stillbirth or post natal death the grief bereaved parents feel can last a surprisingly long time. What's also surprisingly common is PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) -- we can get triggered into our grief and painful memories at lightning speed.

Just yesterday, a friend asked me a question that not only triggered my grief, but nearly cost us our friendship.

I had a miscarriage a few years ago. I suppose people who've never ‘been there’ simply neither understand how long we grieve, nor that we actually suffer from PTSD. I can appreciate that they may not realize this.

But what I don’t appreciate is when they assume this to be the case, and then ask a painful question. Like: “Are you going to try again?” , “How long has it been now? Do you still think about it all the time?” and “Aren’t you over it by now?” Sigh….

Well this one yesterday ‘took the cake’….

My friend has been blessed with two uneventful pregnancies: they both resulted in healthy births. Now she has just found out she is pregnant again, and she phoned me to ask what the signs of miscarriage are!

A fair enough question if this kind of grief would be a quick and easy thing to get over – but it’s not. In actual fact, I hadn’t thought about the pain and sorrow in quite some time – until she brought it up!! And of course, all of the details of my personal hell came flooding back to me.

I was triggered and angry. I called her an insensitive something-or-other, before slamming down the phone receiver. Luckily I thought about it and realized that she didn’t mean to hurt me and probably felt terrible about it. So I soon phoned her back and apologized. She said she was sorry too. And she learned a valuable thing: that our grief lasts a long time, and can be easily triggered. So if she has questions about the signs of miscarriage, she should really just ask her doctor.

I hope my article has shown you why it’s best to please ask your doctor, not us! Thank you for reading.