5 Things I Would Say to Someone Who Has Suffered an Early Miscarriage

Trying to comfort someone in this situation is so difficult. Having been on both sides of it now, I have a few thoughts to share with you.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this post for over a year, ever since I went through my own miscarriage one week after jubilantly discovering I was expecting. I wrote out my whole experience about seven months after it happened. If you’d like to read it, I’ll leave the link for you here.

First, I think the term ”miscarriage” can be difficult. The prefix ”mis-“ is defined as badly, wrongly, or unfavorably. And I really dislike that those words are associated with losing a pregnancy. Miscarriage is not the mother’s fault. She did nothing wrong and she is not to blame. She did not carry that baby badly, wrongly, or unfavorably. But that’s the term and it is what it is. We just need to always be sure never to place the reason for unviability of a pregnancy on the mother. She’s going through enough.

Now, here are a few things that I think many mothers experiencing a miscarriage would appreciate hearing. Even if you don’t think you know anyone who has had a miscarriage (though I’ll almost guarantee that you do), keep these things in mind. You never know when someone experiencing a loss will need to hear them.

Do you have someone that you can talk to?

When I was going through my miscarriage, I felt entirely alone. I hadn’t told anyone but my husband that I was pregnant yet, and I didn’t want to burden anyone with my loss out of the blue. I spoke to my husband a little bit, but he was hurting too, and neither of us were in a great position to offer comfort to the other.

I ended up sending a Marco Polo message to a friend of mine in the middle of the night because I just needed to cry to someone. That friend was so helpful for me to just talk and vent to. It was helpful for me to get everything off of my chest.

I’m not suggesting that you necessarily need to be the person that the miscarrying mom confides in, just make sure that they have someone, somewhere that they are able to speak with about their loss.

It wasn’t your fault.

Though I knew this in my head, the message didn’t make it through to my heart until my midwife said it out loud to me. According to Mayo Clinic, over 50% of miscarriages occur because of incorrect development of the fetus due to chromosomal abnormalities. Especially those that occur so early on like mine did.

But even though a mom might know those statistics, there still may be that voice in her head that wonders if there was something she could have done differently to prevent it. Or if there was something she did to cause it to happen.

It can be helpful to hear it said out loud that this was not her fault. She is not to blame for this happening. She did not cause this and she could not have prevented this. Sometimes, things just happen.

What can I take off of your plate?

No matter who you are, I would bet money that you’ve got a lot of balls in the air. Whether you’re an employee or a parent or a business owner or in the military or serving in church or any combination of occupations, you have a lot on your plate. Now think about handling all of that while grieving the loss of a pregnancy…the loss of the potential for new life, and while going through the physical pain of miscarrying. It can become too much.

I suggest that rather than asking ”Is there anything I can do?” you ask ”What can I take off of your plate?” This changes the question from being ”Is there anything unusual or special that I can do for you?” into being ”Let me lighten the load you are carrying.” This might being picking kids up from school or daycare, taking a toddler for an afternoon, filling the car up with gas, picking up the groceries, grabbing a curbside order of food. Try to find something she was going to have to do anyway, and do it for her.

Can I pray for you?

Even if she isn’t a religious person, the willingness of another human on this earth to keep her in their thoughts and heart can be surprisingly comforting. It means she isn’t alone in what is happening to her. It means someone else cares enough to take a moment out of their day to think especially about her and to pray for her.

I remember when I miscarried, my grandma called me on the phone. She and I talked about it for a few minutes and then she told me that she and my grandpa would pray for me. Just to know that those prayers were going up to heaven on my behalf, helped me to stay centered and grounded when I felt like I was spiraling a little out of control.

You get to grieve for as long as you need to.

This has been said so often that it often comes across as cliché, but it is 100% true. Grief has no timeline. And honestly it doesn’t truly have an end point in my experience. I’m here, over a year after my miscarriage, with my baby daughter in my arms, and I still sometimes get a pang of achy grief for that baby that I lost three months before becoming pregnant with Della.

If you ever hear a momma who has lost a pregnancy say ”I should be over it by now” or ”It’s been long enough…I should be fine.” I want you to remind her that she gets to feel her feelings for as long as they exist. And that they are always valid.

I hope and pray that these words are helpful to you. Whether you are the one experiencing an early miscarriage or the one with no idea what to say to someone who is.