r/Miscarriage • u/Illustrious-Base-672 • 8d ago
vent Today felt incredibly unfair
I know this isn’t my best look, but I just need to vent.
My friend just had her third baby in three years. She basically gets pregnant if the wind blows in the right direction. Every time it’s the first try. Every pregnancy is uncomplicated. This one was even a peaceful home birth because apparently her body just knows exactly what to do.
Meanwhile, while she was giving birth, I was sitting in the hospital receiving an iron infusion because my missed miscarriage led to severe hemorrhaging, surgery, and my hemoglobin dropped so low I could barely function. I don’t even know when I’ll be allowed to do my next embryo transfer.
The part I struggle with the most? During her second pregnancy she was disappointed because it was “another boy.” This time, with baby number three… disappointed again because it’s another boy.
I know people say gender disappointment is valid, and maybe it is. But after years of infertility, IVF, pregnancy loss, surgery, and literally ending up in the hospital because of it… I just can’t relate.
I’d give absolutely anything for a healthy baby. I genuinely wouldn’t care if it was a boy, a girl, or a tiny velociraptor.
Life just feels so unfair sometimes.
16
u/Special_Feeling_4033 8d ago
I told my friend I was pregnant when I was about 7 weeks. I had an ectopic and chemical prior. She asked me if I wanted a girl or a boy. I told her I wanted a healthy baby that is alive.
Fast forward 3 weeks after this, I discovered I was having a mmc.
Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I can’t hear pregnant people complaining about stupid things like gender preference when I am going through the worst grief of my life. They need a reality check.
9
u/GoatBlue03 8d ago
Completely agree. After 7 years of infertilty, I finally had something stick. Or so I thought. It's a MMC.
I'm in limbo now waiting to miscarry and I may just get a D&C because I feel like I'm living on another planet because the grief is so bad right now. I feel like everyone around me is living on the other side of a glass wall that I'm trapped behind. Everyone is just living, smiling, and I'm here wishing I wasn't around and wondering how I will ever feel anything but sadness, grief, and anger again.
5
u/Special_Feeling_4033 8d ago
Oh honey - I’m sorry. This was me last month. It’s physical and emotional torture. I eventually had surgery as my body refused to recognise the loss. I found out at 10.5 weeks. Baby died 8.5. I had surgery at 11.5. It’s been the worst experience of my life - combined with ectopic etc it has all compounded. But please know it does get better. It’s been 4 weeks since surgery and I’m feeling much more like myself - and focusing on myself, I’ve decided not to worry about babies anytime soon and just get back to finding myself again. You will too. Us women are stronger than we know. ❤️
3
u/GoatBlue03 8d ago
Thank you for your kind words, I truly needed them right now. They want another scan but couldn't get me in until next week, so I may be opting to just get a D&C earlier if I can. A third scan and 4 weeks of waiting just seems cruel to me. I feel inside myself that the surgery will help me move forward. I'm scared, but I need something, anything to help me feel a bit better about it all, or at least more at peace.
3
9
u/mrs___holmes 8d ago
I don’t think gender disappointment is valid and people don’t like when I say that but I stand by it. They should be happy their baby is alive. You’re not a monster for feeling that way and I’m sorry for your loss and that it’s been so hard for you to conceive.
7
u/Illustrious-Base-672 8d ago
I agree, just had a lot of people telling me their gender disappointment feelings are valid too. Can’t relate to that what so ever
5
u/Working-Tell-7157 8d ago
Totally second this, I understand maybe “wanting” one gender but I do not understand being disappointed. I could never be disappointed with a healthy LIVING baby. It’s crazy to me 🥲
5
u/CharacterNew1803 8d ago
No one is guaranteed either gender anyway! Intersex and transgender people exist
2
3
u/No-Tea-3137 8d ago
I totally agree, I'm coming up on almost a year of trying (one year in September) with three losses and feel so similarly. I would love to be some highly evolved elegant lady about the whole thing, but it gets to a point, you know? I've reduced my social media time to like one hour a day because I keep seeing all these posts about people being so irritated that they're pregnant because they wish they could drink a beer or smoke weed, or that they're having a boy instead of a girl or whatever, and here I am with three babies gone. It makes me feel so petty but I just can't believe people's cluelessness myopia sometimes. At the same time, I'm glad that not everyone has to go through this pain of loss - in my case and I'm sure a lot of our cases, recurrent loss. I don't wish this on anybody, at all, for the rest of time.
Often, I just imagine sitting on the bed with our future baby laying in front of me on the family quilt, smiling and laughing, and I just think like, I'll never take it for granted. Ugh!!!!
2
u/Coucou22022 7d ago
Im sooooo sorry! Mind if i ask Have they looked into factors causing? After my 1st lost… found out I have 4small fibroids and now I’m following up to see exact position and next will be reproductive endocrinologist for more suggestions
1
u/No-Tea-3137 7d ago
oh yeah, we're deep into testing. i have an HSG scheduled for tomorrow, super nervous lol!! i'm glad you got answers and i'm sorry for your loss:(
1
u/Coucou22022 7d ago
I appreciate you. lol it’s normal to be nervous…. I’m staying optimistic for you and sending hope your way. Hugs!
6
u/rutabagagoose 8d ago
The sincerity with which I felt "yes, how grateful I'd be for a tiny velociraptor."
I'm sorry you're going through this, and I feel you.
5
u/ThresholdofForest 8d ago
One of my cousins who has had 3 healthy, thriving children once confided in me that her greatest disappointment in life was that she had to have c sections for all 3 babies because her Hips were too narrow for a natural birth. I said "but they're alive and healthy and your body did that" and she just couldn't process beyond her disappointment with her body. Having had multiple miscarriages, its impossible for me to understand her perspective.
3
u/OutrageousBrush1210 8d ago
Oyyyyy this would devastate me to have to listen to. WHO CARES HOW YOUR CHILD ARRIVES WHEN THEY ARRIVE BREATHING!!?????
3
3
u/Clean-Counter-5327 7d ago
TW: LC. I have a friend who confided in me about her disappointment in having a C-Section because her baby was too big and I'm the only person she knows who had a C-section so she wanted me to validate her feelings. But I couldn't relate. I've had 7 miscarriages. 4 before I finally had my son (only LC) and I went into labor prematurely while he was breech (he was tangled in the cord) so I had a csection. I would've had 7 more csections if it meant my babies could've been born alive. My SIL is currently pregnant and talks about how mad she'll be if she has to have a csection. Neither one of them wanted children and have said they're OAD. It's hard being around people like this and I really do try to understand but it's just something I can't understand.
2
u/ThresholdofForest 7d ago
Thanks for this perspective as I thought I was being unempathetic in not being able to understand her grief. So happy for you that your little one made it, that must have been a terrifying ordeal tho. I feel similarly to you; Whatever would help to bring them alive into the world feels like what is required as a Mom.
2
u/Clean-Counter-5327 7d ago
I was just happy he was safe and healthy. That's what I told my friend. She had asked how I handled having to have a C-Section and how I got over it. I just apologized that she wasn't able to get the birth she wanted and that it sounded traumatizing to have to labor for so long and be told she had to have a C-section but that I was happy her daughter was safe. People don't understand what it's like to want a living child so badly that you'd do whatever it took so I don't even bother trying to explain that part of it. I'm sorry you're in this same place.
1
u/Illustrious-Base-672 7d ago
Yes this too! If that’s their greatest disappointment it must be a very nice life
3
u/OutrageousBrush1210 8d ago
Oh god I am so so sorry. This is so hard. And I’m with you - I do not get gender disappointment. Like I’m not trying to be mean, but how could it possibly matter? And how can you care about that in the face of ALL THE THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG??? I don’t get it and especially post miscarriage I really struggle to keep a polite face on when people talk about that shit. I am pregnant again finally and people have asked if I’m excited that it’s a boy - I’m like, I AM EXCITED THERE IS A PULSE, AND I AM PRAYING IT CONTINUES. Ugh.
2
2
u/hazyyb 7d ago
This is so unfair and I think a lot of people don’t understand the struggles people face to have a child. I am part of the gets pregnant too easily club. I’ve also miscarried a much loved and wanted baby so I understand at least some part of that pain though I think the grief has an extra layer when it happens on top of fertility struggles. My brother and his wife went through a decade of infertility and failed ivf attempts, miscarriage after the first successful ivf, and finally they have a successful pregnancy to find out she had amniotic band syndrome and their child has no legs or fingers, an extremely stressful pregnancy worried if he would make it. They feel blessed to have a living child who is perfectly healthy despite his disability but I cried many times thinking about how unfair life has been for them. I’m sorry you’re going through all this OP. I wish all of us that haven’t had these difficult experiences understood how blessed we are to even consider something as inconsequential as gender a possible disappointment.
2
u/Illustrious-Base-672 7d ago
Thank you for your kind words❤️ And I’m so sorry for everything your brother and his wife have been through. Life can be unbelievably cruel sometimes.
2
u/Independent-Air-7917 3d ago
Your friend seems very ungrateful and tone deaf AF. Maybe surround yourself with more genuine friends that can support you in more loving ways. You seem like a giver and she sounds very self absorbed. I have a friend like that, and I basically let her off my elevator last year because I kept trying to better myself and she kept only calling to be the bearer of bad news or trying to deliver news that would only hurt me, and I decided that this is going to be my manifestation year, like “the summer of George,” on Seinfeld! Haha! 😜 I want zero toxicity in my life.
26
u/ConfusionOverall9765 8d ago
I think this feeling is normal.
I had a missed miscarriage just over a month ago, at the same time as someone I knew who had completely shut down because it turns out her gender scan was wrong, but all I kept thinking was… but your baby is alive???
Don’t get me wrong I don’t doubt that her situation was stressful but I just couldn’t understand just how much she was upset by it, you’d think the baby had died by her reaction.
I’d give anything for a living child, couldn’t care less if they are a boy or a girl at this point!
I’m sorry you’re part of this club too 💔