By Éva Zsák
Having lost my baby boy one of the “encouraging” lines I often received was ‘It happens to so many other women, it’s not unusual. You’ll get over it.’ For me, thus, the message to understand was that to lose your child is not infrequent, therefore, you should not take it very seriously.
This logic does not make sense. At all.
For one thing, because even if something happens fairly often, it can still be a very tragic event for those involved in it. The higher frequency of the event may not lessen the effect of each single occurrence it has on people’s lives nor may it serve as a consolation for what has happened. So the statement is simply incorrect. Not to mention the fact that we are not percentages in the statistics, we are the 100% when it comes to our lives. So the statistical probability of losing a child during pregnancy or post-partum is good only to make you fear the dreaded event.
For another thing, unfortunately, it does happen to lots of women and yet, it is one of the greatest taboos we meet. You may find it very difficult to talk about it. And not because you do not want to, but rather, because people do not want to listen. And these women, including myself, usually suffer a great deal. It’s not like you keep trying until you can see your precious child grow up and consider all those before ‘a biological hiccup’, as I was told to do. Somewhere before or after the positive pregnancy test you say yes to a lot of things. And these yesses make the difference. You say yes to a child, to your child, first of all. To the formation and the arrival of a human being, who is unique and as such irreplaceable. Yes to all the changes that involve your body and your personality. For better or for worse. Yes to nights spent awake, yes to school preparations, birthday parties, weddings, even grandchildren. Yes to a new quality of your life. A whole spectrum.
And when the dreaded and so incredible thing happens, all these yesses turn into nos. You lose your former life, your former self and your future with all your yesses, dreams and promises.
You may feel you are completely alone with your feelings, with your fears and with your grief. Nobody can experience or understand what you have gone through. But then, as time goes by you bump into stories even at the most unexpected of places. These stories and the emotions may differ from yours, however, you discover lots of similar features, too. You understand that every one of these bereaved mothers has a broken heart, with lots of scars. Just like you. They, just like you, longed to mother their children. And they do it, similarly to you, nevertheless, unlike so many others. They have to live in a reality where each day they have to face life without that baby, just as you have to.
These discoveries may happen in a university corridor while you are waiting for a lesson to start, or in a hospital ward right before an operation you are supposed to have, or on a train when you are going back home, or almost anywhere. It may seem you have developed some special sign visible only for other bereaved mothers that allows them to reveal their secretly carried grief and loss to you. That you completely understand. There is no taboo among you. And then you realise you are not alone. You share their pain, their loss, their grief. You are one of them. You are all of them. Every one of them.
Eva is 39. She lives in Hungary and Italy. She is a teacher and an interpreter, but now also a med school student.Her little angel, Peter is her only child. He died five years ago due to a premature rupture of membranes. This experience changed her life completely. She started to learn about grief and child-loss and the importance of the human factor in doctor-patient relationships. She likes reading, poetry, and literature in general.
- Infertility vs Cancer - April 19, 2021
- Loss is Not a Dirty Word - December 7, 2020
- What I Wish I Could Tell the Non-Loss Community - November 17, 2020
So true. I don’t get to talk about my son and my loss as much as I’d like, because for a lot of people it makes them so uncomfortable and they don’t want to talk about it. Them, not me.