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My Miscarriage

REV. ROSIE FREW

I do believe that honesty and vulnerability are important facets of ministry. When we open ourselves up to others, they respond, and we have the privilege and the pain of sharing their deepest hopes and fears and sharing also the love and compassion of Christ.

In my final year at university, I had to write a dissertation. One of the subjects I covered in it was miscarriage, in particular the pastoral care of those who had experienced this loss of a pregnancy. I remember being very moved as I did my research and read account after account of personal heartbreak. I hoped that my study would give me an understanding and empathy in my future ministry.

Over the years, I’ve spent time with a number of women who have miscarried. And then, sadly, at the beginning of July, when I was twelve weeks pregnant, I experienced the pain of miscarriage for myself. I can now speak from a very personal perspective.

People were very kind and thoughtful. With cards and flowers, they wanted to show that they shared our sorrow and disappointment. People, unknowingly, were also very hurtful. ‘You must have been working too hard. You must have been lifting things. You can’t have been taking care of yourself properly.’ The medical profession will tell you that miscarriage is a very common event – it is rarely anyone’s fault, there is usually no obvious reason ‘why?’ I had no cause to feel guilty, and I knew that, yet blame was being apportioned to me. Others, again unthinkingly, all too easily dismissed our loss as trivial. ‘You’re young, you can try again, the fun’s in the trying . . .’ The loss of a pregnancy is the loss of dreams and hopes and possibilities, and the loss of a child that has been very real and yet hidden.

Miscarriage has been described as the loneliest grief. There is not always, on the part of others, a full appreciation of, and respect for, the powerful feelings of loss and bereavement that are usually engendered. I’ve had to learn that the hard way, not just from books in a library.

I thank God that I have a healthy, happy, boisterous almost-two-year-old, and I pray that in the future he will have a brother or sister. However, the 2nd of February will always be remembered as the day when the baby we lost was due to have been born.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139, NIV)

Following this article, a number of women wrote to me to share their stories of loss and to offer me comfort in my loss – some heartbreaking stories of repeated miscarriage and feelings of failure and desperation. As I went about my parish, several women spoke to me of their own experiences and thanked me for ‘speaking out’ on their behalf.

My story has a happy ending. My daughter, Rebecca, was born in June 1998. Following my announcement of my pregnancy to my congregation, an elderly lady asked me to visit her. With tears pouring down her cheeks, she told me that she too had had a miscarriage when her only daughter was two but, despite her husband being desperate for a second child, she had felt unable to face the possibility of another heartbreak. Their loss and her decision remained a tension between them throughout their married life. She ended by saying: ‘I so wish I had had your courage’, by which time my tears were flowing too.