It is as if on cue, every time the fifth month of the year strikes, the world shows how it’s preparing for the commemoration of our mothers’ sacrifices throughout generations. Happy as it seems, but to speak in reality, Mother’s Day is not just for the expression of maternal love to their “physically” present children. The supposed “happy” day does not only speak for all that is well, but having the essence of being a mother also encompasses those who have lost their child to miscarriage, stillbirth, an incident, or any other uncontrolled forces by death.
What isn’t always talked about is how a supposed day of celebration may be a day of mourning for some, even a dreadful occasion for others. Reading into a published article on Motherly, it is disheartening how miscarriage can truly scar a person for life, even if the time passes, even if they start to have other children, too.
There are at least 3 points on how a grieving mother sees the world amid their loss each day.
1) Even with the extreme grieving, the mother will always have a great amount of love for their lost child, even when its soul only lived with them for a couple of seconds, for a week, a whole month, or even only existed inside their wombs. For mothers who had miscarriage, it was a whole life within their womb that have bloomed, regardless of the death of their child.
2) It is a deep, gutting sorrow. After miscarriage, the pain does not only linger all over the the mother’s body after the fetus is ejected from their uterus, but it continues as they get to live out each day, acknowledging the fact that they are expected to return to work as if no such loss happened, no additional assistance for the mental trauma that they are carrying of, amid the constant unsolicited suggestions of others to “just keep trying” until another child is conceived.
3) They carry guilt and regret for who knows how long. Grief comes from a place beyond the reach of what has happened. During the pregnancy loss, when the mother is already without their child, the guilt starts to come all-consuming–they feel guilty, blaming themselves that their body failed them even when the reason is more than that. Alongside the grief and guilt comes the regret that the mother feels, the pressure comes into thinking that they could have saved their loved ones from feeling the sorrow, hence, could have saved their child had they been “careful” enough. However, grieving mothers should understand that not everything can be within their control, and that it would not have made any difference.
In every Mother’s Day, every single aspect of loss after a miscarriage can be an invisible yet soul-crushing pain for these women who were only seeking to give out love to what they have expected to conceive in the world. For this special day, hold space for women you may know who have suffered a pregnancy loss.
Acknowledge her motherhood because she felt it the moment she held a life in her belly, even when it was not conceived. Even when she did not get to hold the child even for a minute.