Someone else's loss

The friends of ours that I blogged about earlier had a missed miscarriage, which was eventually confirmed last week.

It's a horrible thing, obviously. I've never been through one, but it strikes me that it must really fuck with your head the next time you're pregnant. I was paranoid with the Boy, anyway, but I would have been worse if my losses hadn't been fairly bloody and obvious early on.

But then, I'm not sure how much comparison is helpful. Just after my ectopics and miscarriages, I was very sensitive and it was easy to say the wrong thing. I don't want to piss my friends off by telling them about how I felt when we were going through the bad years.

But then, I also know (and here I am, comparing again) that it can feel really, really isolating. I only had one person I knew who had had previous ectopics and talking to her was immensely helpful. I don't want to pretend I've sort of wiped it all out from my memory.

What I absolutely don't want to do is to try and push the Boy as some sort of beacon of hope. That sort of thing completely did my head in during treatment. Even although the Boy spent 18 months in the freezer while I miscarried or failed treatment, it would still feel like rubbing it in. Because knowing you've been through a bad time with treatments but have a baby at the end of it is not the same as actually living with the uncertainty of IF and not knowing if you ever will get that happy ending.

I suppose the only thing I can do is to try and emphasise that I've been in a similar, but not identical position before. And, rather than wanting to talk, am ready to listen.