A generationYour husband has taken an ultrasound image from the refrigerator door and is about to throw it away, but Anna protested. “That’s our child!” Even if the heart hurts, even if there is nothing to bury in the body-at least she doesn’t want to just lose her memories. Anna had a miscarriage in the eleventh week and called to tell me about it. “Maybe you want to write it,” she said, she just didn’t want to see her real name in the newspaper. “I didn’t even know you were pregnant again,” I said. -“Of course not. I shouldn’t tell anyone in the first three months.”
Now Anna wants to talk for processing and digestion. She wants to understand the pain of losing an undeveloped baby. After all, in her dreams and imagination, the child has grown up a lot, once a boy and a girl. I want to help her, I listen.But I also thought: why I don’t know anything about her pregnant?
The first few weeks of pregnancy are tricky. Some people don’t even know: Many pregnant women lose their children, mainly because the embryos cannot survive. Approximately one in six pregnant women will experience this condition. This is why the doctor recommends that you only tell the closest person about your pregnancy during the first twelve weeks. The idea behind this is that miscarriage is painful enough, or at least it can. If you never know about pregnancy, a woman doesn’t have to torture herself through conversations that may be traumatic. That’s good and right.
As if nothing happened
But there is another thought behind this. The more women around me tell me about miscarriage, sometimes they are as loud and confident and desperate as Anna, sometimes ashamed or casual or just sad, the more I feel this thought. Have the upper hand: women, don’t annoy us and your children, no frills! A child who has never been born is not worth mourning, and you can continue to play a role without disturbing anyone with the depressing story of the loss. Please make it clear by yourself!
This may be an exaggeration, but whenever I talk about abortion or celebrity children with people in my environment who are not involved in family planning, they look completely dumbfounded and clueless. Men in particular are ignorant of the lost experiences that many women carry with them. Of course, just continue to work or exercise or meet.
Twelve weeks of silence means that women who have lost children can simply revert to the status quo after the fact—as if nothing had happened. It’s as if they didn’t bleed, pray, or cry. It’s as if her life hasn’t changed forever.
Miscarriage is still a taboo topic
Twelve weeks of silence also means that women must come up with many excuses and lies. For example, the famous morning sickness mainly occurs in the first three months of pregnancy, making daily life difficult. Pregnant women are often very tired at the beginning and very often confused because they don’t know: How should I cope with all this? Who should I trust? When will I tell who? How will my current life change?
Of course, it’s up to you to decide when to break the silence. Many people need to clarify their ideas and make plans in the first few weeks, such as grace periods. But the order to remain silent for 12 weeks so that women do not disturb society because of their dead babies-this is completely wrong. Women should be fertile and have children. No one wants to have anything to do with the sadness of women (and men!) after a miscarriage. Only one thing can help: get out of silence!
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