The Hardest QUestion

You might remember our previous post, where Margaret, one of the volunteers for Aaron's Butterfly Run Ottawa/Gatineau, shared the letter she wrote to her son Matthew, who was stillborn at 26 weeks. Margaret also experienced two first trimester miscarriages before her last child was born. 

Margaret shared with us some more of her thoughts around miscarriage and infant loss (also known as perinatal loss), which she summarizes as "the hardest question" - Read more below...

​For the last eight years, the hardest question to answer has been, “how many children do you have?” It is so innocent. Such an icebreaker. Strangers ask me all the time in the grocery store line-up, at the park, the hairdresser, the dentist. All the smiling people looking at me with expectation while I do this mental calculation.
         ‘What mood am I in?’
         ‘Do I feel like being sad or making this person uncomfortable?’
         And more importantly: ‘Will I have to see them again?’

Frequently in the grocery store or other places where I expect to never see the person again, I answer “Three.” But I always feel like it is a betrayal of the truth, of my firstborn son, my Matthew, stillborn at 26 weeks, and the two first trimester miscarriages I had before my last was born.

Occasionally I tell the whole story, but I can’t always stand the pity and the awkwardness. Most of the time, I am just in a hurry. I need to get this chore done because the demands of my three living children keep me pretty busy.

The new complicating factor is my six-year-old daughter who is admirably dedicated to honesty. If she ever hears me answer, “three,” she corrects me, “No, mommy, four. What about Matthew?”

I’ve always told my children about their older brother. We visit his grave. We take care of the flowering bush we planted by his headstone and we pluck the dandelions that grow in the grass around his resting place. We do the little things we can instead of taking care of the child we wanted.

​I do feel a responsibility to answer this question honestly because I felt so caught off guard when I learned my pregnancy wasn’t going well that first time. It was only after that bad news ultrasound that the stories of grief and loss came out. I had no idea that pregnancy and infant loss was so common and in a way I felt betrayed by that. If we had a more open conversation about loss, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so blindsided. When I deny the truth of my son and my grief, I am doing the same thing to the women and men around me. I am leaving them unprepared for the possibility of pregnancy and infant loss. I am abandoning them to a situation where they will feel alone, where they won’t know that resources exist, where they won’t know they have a friend to whom they can talk openly. Which is why if I think the person asking the question, “How many children do you have?” is someone I might see again, I try to tell them the truth in a way that lets them know it is common, it is a part of life and it isn’t fresh anymore so if you need to talk I actually feel like I have some capacity to do that now. If you want to talk, or if in the future you ever need to talk, you know you will have a compassionate, listening ear and you are not ever alone. 

Thank you Margaret, for sharing your thoughts on perinatal loss.