I offer you my deepest and most heartfelt empathy. When we found out the baby had no heartbeat exactly 13 days ago, we were together at the doctor’s office (that was kind of just luck because he happened to have the morning free and it was supposed to be a routine visit.)
My husband canceled work immediately for two days. I was actually pretty okay for the first day or so, but by the end of the week I was a sobbing hysterical mess, in part due to hormones. He was very upset, and became physically ill that night which is something that sometimes happens when he is emotionally upset. Since the moment we learned of this we have faced it together. We’ve talked about it. We’ve cried about it together. It didn’t happen to me, it happened to us.
But yeah, all things considered, he held it together a little better than I did. He was the one who got me up and into the hospital somehow so I could have the procedure, because I would have been content to lay in the darkness and never come out of our bedroom. I know this has been a horrible experience for him, but that has been in part because of how intensely I was suffering and his inability to change that. Try to keep in mind that when a woman miscarries, a whole bunch of physical things are happening to her body, none of which are familiar or pleasant. For me, I felt the physical loss as keenly as the emotional one. The deepest most primitive part of my being mourned for that child. My body ached not to lose it. That is something my husband will never be able to understand or relate to. So even if she’s being a massive bitch right now, try to remember that she may be going through one of the most traumatic experiences of her life - one that you can never possibly understand.
I’m not saying that’s fair. It’s not fair to you at all - nothing about this situation is goddamn fair. How is the world supposed to go on when we’ve lost our baby? I still don’t know.
Now I don’t know if that’s the experience your girlfriend is having, but it sounds like you want the kind of relationship where you can be mutually supportive. I’m not sure that is the kind of relationship this woman is able to have with you. The fact that she didn’t even call you is a pretty huge red flag. There is a possibility she was trying to protect you, but at this point she probably senses that you don’t trust her and is withdrawing. Or maybe she just finds it too painful to think about. I don’t actually know. The only way to know for sure is to talk to her about it. Whether things work out or not between you - please know that you have support here.
Also, I should probably link to the thread I started, because in it you will hear all kinds of stories about this kind of loss. It brought comfort to me to know that others have gone through it, so maybe it will bring comfort to you.
I was horribly rude to both my husband and my mother at least a couple of times during the ordeal of my miscarriage, when they were both being complete angels to me and taking off work and catering to my every need. And he was rude to me at least once to the extent that he reduced me to tears. It sometimes happens when you’re grieving. And like Spice Weasel says, there are hormones going through the woman’s body and yes, it can be a very different experience for the woman (although again, not for everyone). But it’s true that I did talk to my husband (though not as much to my mom) about how I felt in an overall sense and what I needed from him, even if I did most of my actual grieving in private.
Anyway, this is all beside the point, as is whether she had an abortion or a miscarriage (as you and many other posters have said). The point is that you can’t support her at least partially because you don’t trust her, but partially perhaps because she doesn’t communicate with you the way you feel someone in a relationship should communicate with you about important things. This is a problem.
But it’s one you can talk about. elbows and ddsun have come up with some great ways of trying to start articulating it. And sure, maybe it’s not fair that you have to be the one to start the conversation. As Spice Weasel said, nothing about this is goddamn fair, to any of you.
The question is not is it fair. We know the answer to that. The question is, okay, what do you do now to pick up the pieces? Do you think the pieces are worth picking up?
Oh, just an aside - on the medical bill it will probably be identified as an abortion even if she miscarried. Abortion doesn’t only mean to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy. On my medical bill for the ultrasound my reason for visiting was written up as ‘‘missed abortion,’’ meaning I aborted (involuntarily) and we didn’t know about it. I have heard of cases where women were erroneously billed for an elective abortion following a D&C procedure. So I would be careful about reading too much into what’s on the discharge papers, if you happen to see them.
I am sorry if it is distressing to read about that in such clinical terms, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea from medical terminology. A miscarriage is still an abortion, medically speaking.
I’m not going to ask for papers. that’s too extreme. I really just don’t care if it was an. abortion. I just don’t understand the reason for not involving me. if not wanting to upset me at work was the reason then why did she still call at work to say she miscarried? I would prefer to leave work and go through it with her or wait to hear until I was off work. She chose not to involve me and involved someone she. the whole thing was just inconsiderate. I don’t think anybody understands this because they aren’t me. I know tomorrow when I say this she will say I’m selfish blah blah. if that’s how she feels then we don’t belong together.
You are not the only person who understands how you feel, hon. She SHOULD have called you, that’s the thing. You SHOULD have been her go-to person for this. The fact that she didn’t is the problem, here.
There are possible worlds in which she was upset and not thinking clearly, and that’s why she called a friend instead of you, but on the whole, you’re right that it’s a bad sign for the relationship. I don’t know what else to tell you, except that if you can’t accept what she says to you today, you’re probably right that you don’t belong together.
I’m sorry this happened to you. You’re absolutely right to be upset and confused.
(My credentials: woman who has had five pregnancy losses and one live birth)
You know, it’s entirely possible, that the only way for her to get through it was to not have to deal with someone else’s tender emotional life. Yes, your motivation may be pure in entirety, no question. But there are things in life we need to do alone. Maybe she needs to move forward into a future where this choice was hers alone, uninfluenced by another. Possibly for her own mental health reasons.
It’s also possible she has misplaced anger, at you for, I don’t know, maybe not making the impossible possible. For not begging her to keep your child, or some other foolishness that even she knows wouldn’t have changed a thing. Really only making a difficult thing all the harder. But that doesn’t mean a part of her didn’t long for you to be that guy. All this to say, she likely knows or senses she’s feeling these things out of all proportion, and may be excluding you until her thinking clears some.
My point being, give it some time, things may calm between you yet! Good Luck!
That is a perfectly legitimate thing for you to be upset about. I don’t think anybody is disputing that. I think we’re just suggesting some possible reasons for her actions. I mean, it’s hurtful to be left out of such an important thing for any reason, but personally I would feel better about it if I knew it was coming from a place of hurt rather than a place of mistrust. The former might be worth salvaging the relationship, whereas the latter may not.
Classically, involuntary loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks is not a miscarriage, but rather a spontaneous abortion. Miscarriages occur after 20 weeks.
However, most pregnancy losses started getting called miscarriages as to not be confused with elective or therapeutic abortions, which are quite loaded terms for some folks.
All pregnancy losses are traumatic, and sometimes it seems to me that advancing technology, allowing us to diagnose pregnancy as early as a few days after fertilization, brings more woe than joy since so many early pregnancies end in spontaneous abortions. In the past women were often able to just assume what occurred was a late or particularly bad period, rather than loss of a potential child.
Jakecorey, Spice Weasel has provided some great advice and you would do well to listen to her. Just be careful about going into any conversation with too many preconceived ideas about what your girlfriend’s actions last month tell you. Yes, the fact that she didn’t call is a flag, but I’d say not quite red. Maybe yellow or orange.
There are many reasons she might not have called. Some of those mean bad things for the relationship: she doesn’t trust you, she doesn’t see a future with you, etc. But some of the potential reasons are justified: she doesn’t know you well enough yet, she panicked, she was scared of losing you if she opened up, she’s had bad experiences with men in her past. We can all sit behind our keyboards guessing at the reason and telling you which we think is most likely, but it means nothing when it comes to the real reason she didn’t call you. And you won’t hear that from anyone but her.
So go into the conversation with an open mind and listen. You will have plenty of time to judge her, get pissed, and feel hurt if her excuses aren’t acceptable to you. Don’t waste time judging or making decisions now when you don’t know what was going on in her head at that time.
And finally, as everyone else has said, this really sucks. It isn’t fair. Don’t read a lack of sympathy into any of our advice here. We’re pulling for you.
Given my experience I am inclined to agree with this. We saw the heartbeat on an ultrasound at 7 weeks, and the day we learned that the heart had stopped beating (10 weeks), I was getting genetic blood tests that would determine the sex of the child. I think even compared to 10 years ago things have come a long way in terms of having a concrete idea of your child very early on in the pregnancy. I wonder if it would have been better in the past.
OTOH, in the past I wouldn’t have had the option of controlling when and in what circumstances to get pregnant in the first place, and that’s an advantage I find pretty spiffy.
Well that went well. I stayed calm and just wanted to know her thought process that morning. Said I didn’t feel like she thought I was somebody she can turn to for help. I got an extremely defensive attitude in return. According to her I think it’s all about me and I’m just Mr Selfish who can’t be made happy. She was just trying to take care of herself - that’s the only answer she can give.
So one of us is unreasonable and I don’t know which one it is. Somebody please tell me if I’m crazy and unreasonable. Is a normal person really going to be okay and not question anything whatsoever about this? I really want to know so I can go get some psychiatric help if I’m that crazy for being upset over the way she handled things that morning. Like seriously tell me the truth.
I’m surprised by all the support you’re getting here. What I’ve seen you do is spend the whole thread talking about how she’s probably lying to you and how difficult that is and how can you catch her in the lie and why would she do that to you. What I’ve not seen is your asking for advice on how to support her in such a difficult time, or for insights from other women who have lost a pregnancy about the grieving process, or for anything that would make me think, “now THAT’s what a good boyfriend does!”
It sounds very unlikely to me that she lied to you. But even if she did, it’s not going to do either of you any good for you to try to sniff out that lie right now: if she’s telling the truth, it’ll be insult added to injury, and if she’s not, she’s not going to fess up and suddenly become the honest girlfriend you want.
Is it possible that you’re subverting your own grief over the lost pregnancy, turning into anger, because that’s easier to handle?
I think you need take a good long hard look at yourself.
Maybe she is feeling that she could not rely on you to take precautions and so is annoyed that she had to sort things out herself?
And now that she has done that ( I think its more than evident that she has had an elective termination) do you see how it may be just a tiny bit unhinging for her to have you questioning her thought processes that traumatic morning?
Yes you are making it all about yourself. You need give your head a shake buddy. Give her some support not questions.
It’s not a last resort if she has an infection. Sometimes the placenta can get an infection, which causes fetal loss, and puts the mother in danger of sepsis. In that case, a D&C should happen STAT.
I don’t think she had an abortion. I would guess that she would not have told you at all, if that was her plan. The only abortion scenario that makes sense to me is that something was found to be very wrong with the fetus, and it either would die shortly after birth, or would require so much care, she did not feel she could provide it, and give her other kids enough attention, but she thought you would disagree with her decision to abort, and she did not want to get talked out of it.
I dunno, it depends how far down the road of becoming a parenting team we’d travelled before my partner decided to bail. Past a certain point, I’d have some issues.
Actually the issue I have is she doesn’t seem interested in my support or in supporting me. People in relationships should support each other during times like this. She is the one who apologized and said she was being a bitch. And I have asked for advice from women who’ve had miscarriages. They’re the ones who said the timeline doesn’t fit a miscarriage.
This is about the relationship, not just my personal feelings vs hers.
At worst, whatever. At best, you know how she deals with stressful life events, and how much emotional support you can expect.
People don’t normally change much. If she decides to stay with you, this is what you’ve got. Don’t expect it to get better. Don’t hope it will get better. Don’t trust that it will get better. Don’t plan to pull out later after you’ve got stuck.
The time for deciding if you want to carry this kind of burden is before you move in together, certainly before you get married, and absolutely before you have kids. If you have any othe options, you still have a chance to escape right now.