What Not to Say to a Friend Who’s Had a Miscarriage
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Something had changed in the room, almost imperceptibly so. The clock was still ticking loudly on the wall. My paper gown was still rustling in the breeze from the air-conditioning unit. The OB’s hand was still gliding the ultrasound wand over my stomach. But the small talk had stopped.
The evening before, the bleeding had been light—just a few spots of pale pink blood. Almost nothing. I hadn’t been particularly worried. During my first pregnancy, I’d had the same spotting a few times too, and yet my daughter was born strong, healthy, and—in my eyes—utterly perfect. This time, I was 10 weeks along and had already seen the astonishing twitch of my second baby’s heartbeat on several sonograms.
The doctor hit a button, and I heard the familiar whir of the printer. A wave of relief: She was printing a picture, a grainy black-and-white snapshot that I would take home and stick on our fridge. Except she didn’t hand me the printout. She tucked it into her folder. “I’m sorry. There is no longer a heartbeat. I don’t think there has been for at least a week or so.”
My body had been home to a baby, and that baby had stopped living. Worst of all—I hadn’t even noticed.
Did the doctor make eye contact as she said it? I don’t remember. What I do remember is that when she walked out of the room with the sonogram image in her folder, I felt as if I had been violently robbed. Come back, I wanted to call out. That’s my picture. That’s my baby. But I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, the ultrasound jelly drying cold on my stomach.
It was to be the first of three miscarriages in a row, over the course of 14 months. Now I know that my experience has a name: I am one of the unfortunate 1 percent of women to suffer recurrent pregnancy loss. Despite extensive, sometimes invasive testing, no one seems to be able to tell me why.
Although I feel lucky to have had love and support from friends and family throughout my losses, some throwaway comments have hurt—no matter how well-intentioned they were. I’ll share them here—not with judgment but with the hope of making things a little easier for those grieving a miscarriage and those who care about them.
1. “Don’t worry. I know you’ll have another baby.”
Of course, this is meant to be reassuring, and I appreciate the optimism. But after my miscarriages, I wanted time to mourn that particular baby. One of the hardest things about a loss is feeling that you are the only one to have ever known or loved that little flicker of life inside you. Rushing someone to think of the next baby, before having time to mourn this one, only intensifies that feeling of isolation and of carrying the grief all alone.
2. “Have you tried acupuncture?”
Or meditation. Or eating walnuts. Or any number of remedies or treatments. Your friend has probably desperately googled them all. “There’s no amount of blueberries or standing on one’s head that is going to get someone pregnant—or keep them that way,” says Jessica Zucker, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in reproductive and maternal mental health, and whose traumatic miscarriage inspired her bestselling memoir, I Had a Miscarriage. “Hearing these unfounded or oversimplified pieces of advice when grieving can really splinter the dynamic in a friendship.”
3. “At least you know you can get pregnant.”
People say that with alarming regularity, and it always startles me. During the aftermath of one of my miscarriages, I hemorrhaged so badly that I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. It was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I was dying, and there is no world in which I would choose that experience over a negative pregnancy test. “Any statement that begins with ‘at least’ is usually problematic,” says Zucker. She points out that this is true in all conversations with friends—not just ones involving fertility struggles. “Our culture has so much discomfort around talking about hard things. Rather than sit in grief with a friend, people try to pull them into the future—to ‘look on the bright side.’ But it really works to minimize someone’s experience.”
4. “How many weeks were you?”
This question always threw me: Should I say the number of weeks I thought I was pregnant? Or the number of weeks at which the doctor estimated that my baby’s heart stopped beating? Or even, the number of weeks I was when I had surgery, or when I took medication to induce the bleeding? Around 3 percent of pregnancies end in “missed miscarriages,” meaning there were no symptoms of the loss other than a lack of heartbeat during an ultrasound. For many women, this question is often impossible to answer.
In the throes of grief, it can also feel like too probing a question—as if the amount of empathy I deserved would be measured and doled out in proportion to the number of weeks I carried the baby for. “Of course, there are physical differences in losing a baby later in a pregnancy, but someone can feel just as much despair with an early loss as a later one. Who are we to judge?” says Zucker. “The best way to support somebody who’s grieving is to just ask more holistically about their experience and how they’re feeling.”
5. “I know someone who’s had five miscarriages.”
It’s a natural human instinct to share stories and to search for common ground when empathizing. But no one who has suffered a loss wants to imagine more suffering down the line. “This most likely comes from a place of empathy, but telling someone horror stories could make them tuck into themselves, keeping their grief and despair to themselves,” says Zucker.
6. “Do you know what caused it?”
Rest assured, your loved one is probably thinking of nothing else. Was it the glass of wine she had before she knew she was pregnant? Was it that too-vigorous workout? Was it some kind of cruel atonement for something she did a lifetime ago? But the truth is that most women will never know what caused their miscarriage, and being reminded of this is beyond painful.
What to say—or do—instead
One of my wisest and closest friends, Hannah, who herself lost a baby in her second trimester, has a wonderful rule for talking to friends about tough stuff: Ask lots of questions so they can voice how they’re feeling and coping, express plenty of empathy, and never, ever try to fix things or offer advice unless it’s explicitly asked for.
If you can, drop off a home-cooked meal or send a pick-me-up. I was touched when my friend Young sent me a voucher for a pedicure, and when some of my Oprah Daily colleagues sent me treats from a local bakery. Of course, nothing can undo your loss, but it always feels good to know people are thinking of you.
The worst thing of all is to do or say nothing at all. “People will say, ‘Oh, I didn’t want to remind her of it.’ But she’ll probably already be thinking about it anyway,” says Zucker. “If your friend says she doesn’t feel like talking about it right now, at least you’ve let her decide that and have acknowledged the reality she’s living in.”
Even expressing a few words of sincere empathy can make a profound difference. I quickly became used to the callousness of many of the medical staff I spoke to, who often couldn’t even muster an “I’m sorry to hear that” when I explained that I’d had another miscarriage. So when, one day, a health insurance rep stopped in her tracks and said, “My heart is with you, and I believe your pain,” it moved me deeply.
Above all, be present for your friend and give her the chance to voice her sadness, if she wants to. “These types of traumas can really shift the dynamics of friendships and family relationships,” says Zucker. “It’s hard to sit with people in these challenging seasons of their lives, but that is what true friendship is about.”
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