Undying Love and Special Place For The Unborn Child

Imagine feeling indescribable joy and anticipation at the arrival of your new unborn child, preparations are excitedly made for the big arrival. The special day is even more momentous, especially if it has been a difficult journey trying to conceive for many years. Then one day unexpectedly, you lose your unborn child through a miscarriage. Unfortunately, this happens to thousands of women everyday around the world and also to the women and couples who attend El'ohim Clinic- FertilityCare. In some cases, women can unknowingly have a miscarriage not realising the full significance of the  spotting or light bleeding that occurred at an unusual time in their menstrual cycle. Only to find out from their doctor that they were actually in the earlier stages of pregnancy. 

Ann Romney, devoted wife of Mitt Romney who is the 2012 Presidential candidate for  the Republican Party recently shared her story of having a miscarriage when she was in her forties in an interview with CBS on "This Morning". She spoke about the emotional impact it had on her and especially her youngest son, Craig. Meanwhile, her husband dressed more casually than the public usually see him, was listening with avid interest to his wife's story.  It was interesting to observe that Mitt Romney didn't seem to openly show much emotion when Ann Romney shared about the loss of their unborn baby. The only exception was when she reaccounted the story about Craig's grief over the loss of either a new baby brother or sister.

So what is officially considered a miscarriage? A miscarriage also known as a spontanteous abortion is when an unborn baby dies spontanteously before the 20 weeks of gestation. It is not uncommon for women who are in their forties, like Ann Romney was, to be at a higher risk of having a miscarriage. So yes, the age of the woman when she conceives is an important factor for increasing the chances of a miscarriage. Women in this age group who are able to conceive, are premenopausal and are inevitably not far away from menopause. There is a shift in the hormonal balance. Whether or not a woman is premenopausal or belongs to a younger age group, one of the major causes for a miscarriage is due to progesterone deficiency. This can be addressed with natural progesterone treatment available through FertilityCare and NaProTechnology treatment. 

Women and couples who have experienced the loss of their unborn child, can often experience a range of emotions. Most obviously are the feelings of immense sorrow, grief and guilt. I remember one grief stricken woman telling me her feelings of loss were so overwhelming that she wanted to die. The woman had miscarried her baby over 20 years ago, but even to the day she was sitting in my office. I could feel and see her overwhelming pain and sorrow as tears streamed down her face. Time as they say, does not always lead to healing. The emotions were sadly still fresh and very real, despite the passage of time. 

It is not uncommon for women who have lost their unborn child to have feelings of guilt and start thinking about all the things that they should or shouldn't have done, that may have prevented the miscarriage. I have had several women over the years who say that GOD is "punishing" them for having pre-marital sex in their teenage years, that consequently got them pregnant and ended with them having several induced abortions. Obviously this is not true, but it can sometimes be very hard to change their mindset about this when they are so adamant that this is the "hand of GOD". 

Although, Ann Romney's miscarriage happened over 20 years ago it is obvious that it still has an emotional impact on her life. It would be hard not to be affected especially when the consequence of her miscarriage, bore such a heavy emotional weight for her youngest son at the time. She retold the story with such vividness, as though it had only happened recently.  Craig was not only grieving over the loss of a new brother or sister but also the loss of what could have been. In his case, most presumably the honour of being an older brother to his younger sibling and having a new playmate to nurture in his own special way. His dreams of being an older brother were shattered at that moment in his young life, when his mother gently spoke to him about the death of the newest family member. 

Ann Romney shared that her son, Craig had being "holding this sorrow inside of him....having no one to speak, no one to comfort him". This is a good example of how it can be psychologically, for father's who have lost their baby through miscarriage. Although it is unintentional, when a couple experience the loss of their baby the focus is centred more heavily on the mother's psychological well being. That is not surprising, considering she is the parent who experienced the physical termination of the pregnancy. Meanwhile, the husband does his best to remain "strong" for his wife when he is equally or in some cases that I've witnessed is seemingly more devasted about the loss of his unborn baby than his wife. So he internalizes his grief and loss by shutting everyone out, including his wife and buries himself with longer hours of work or other projects to escape the emotional pain.  At El'ohim Clinic- Counselling, I have had the priviledge of being included in the emotional journey of these grieving parents and seeing how they gradually heal when they come to terms with their loss. However, I think that there will always be an emotional scar that may not fade away, especially when there is a resurrgence of emotions around the time of the death anniversary. The experience of having a miscarriage and the healing process  is always going to be different for every parent, but one common ground that they all have is the undying love and special place that they hold deeply in their heart for the unborn child that they never got the chance to kiss and hold in their arms.