It’s hard for people to understand how devastating a miscarriage is, if they’ve never had one.  the baby's mother and father, can react so differently to their loss.

Dave and I sure did. We were young, and this was our first pregnancy which ended so tragically. So the doctor said, “You’re young; there’s plenty of time to have another” but this didn’t help me at all -- because what I really needed was to have my loss and grief validated. I was surprised to find out that these same words had actually lessened some of Dave’s pain. Another difference between us was that I had to take time off work and I cried, on and off, for weeks afterward. But Dave returned to work the next day, and I never saw Dave cry over our loss.

This surprised and confused me. I was already “shattered”’ and so vulnerable that I wasn’t feeling strong enough to work on our relationship. The bickering and fault finding started. Eventually, we separated.

The separation was so painful that I began to consider divorce. My sister suggested counselling for us, and thank heavens we took her advice.

The counsellor helped us to see that although we never felt the kicks or watched my belly grow, we had suffered a very deep and intense loss.

She helped us realise that Dave and I had never really talked through it as well as we could have. Through counselling we discovered that our loss bothered me more than him because while I really wanted to have a baby -- deep down, Dave, wasn’t sure if he was ready for one yet. I was surprised again! I thought he was ready, because he always acted so mature. But he just wasn't ready yet. 

So this was the turning point: I could finally understand why the intensity of our reactions was different. We began to reconcile, reunited, waited a few years until both of us were ready to become parents, and are still happily married today.

So if you find that other people grieve your loss differently than you do, remember that we can all be really unique in our reaction to the same experience. And if you’re confused and it’s causing trouble in your marriage, please seek help. I hope that you, too, will have a happy ending!