What do I do?

Question

My husband has a cousin that is having a hard time getting pregnant. We had no idea about this until after she had a cold reaction to our pregnancy announcement. She was finally recently able to try a fertility medication and became pregnant on the first try only to lose the baby before she was even 8 weeks. We are sensitive to her struggle when we are around her but we're not even supposed to know about it all, my MIL told us. My husband and I just went on a babymoon while we were on a break from school and posted the pictures. Not even an hour later his cousin said that she thinks she needs to leave Facebook for awhile. I'm convinced it's because of us. But I'm not sure what to do. I can't say anything to her about losing the baby because we aren't supposed to know and I don't want to not enjoy my pregnancy and my baby because it might make her feel bad. But I also wouldn't purposely rub it in her face. What do I do about it?

Answer

I struggled with years of infertility.  I can't even explain the pain you feel and the heartache that's with you every moment.  Don't feel bad that she needs a break.  No one can take her pain.  She had to learn to handle it and that can take a while.  Just be ready for her and let her know you care about her.

I still cry when I think back to all the pain and struggle I went through.  But time was kind to us with a 26 week bun in the oven.  I cry tears of joy too,  and I know it many women appreciate their miracle babies the way that I do ( and all the other moms that made it through the torment).   Hopefully time will help her too, and she'll have her rainbow/ miracle baby to make all the heartache worth it.

Answer

Were going through a similar situation with some of our friends. She got pregnant first try but lost their baby at 8 weeks. I am now 28 weeks pregnant. They didn't tell anybody when they had their miscarriage, and I made the mistake of texting her to ask for her address for my baby shower. I got a really crappy response back and wasn't sure why until some of their closer friends told us what happened.

Clearly I feel terrible for them. I would never want them to feel as if I am rubbing it in their face or purposefully trying to make them feel bad. With that said, we also want to be able to celebrate our own happiness and not hide that. They asked us to not post about our bundle on Facebook, not put up pictures, not talk about our son when we're all together. This is when I had my breaking point, although I still understood their reasoning. Clearly we are supportive of them, and when we are all together I do talk much less about our baby unless someone asks me a question. With that said, they must respect that you are experiencing something incredible and you will want to talk about it. Others may think this sounds mean, but as friends/family of a person, you are supposed to share in the good times and bad. If you share in the bad times with her, she must learn to accept the good times with you.. Even if it's difficult because of her own loss. Don't let it take away from your own pregnancy and don't hide it. She will understand once a pregnancy sticks with her and she feels that happiness you're feeling now. I would be sensitive towards how she is feeling and cautious when she is around, but as far as Facebook goes, she can hide your posts if it bothers her enough, atleast until she can handle it.

Answer

I have had two miscarriages my self and had to take a break from Facebook. I even blocked some people because they would end up pregnant constantly when we were struggling for years. It wasn't their fault- they have created a miracle but it still hurts. I was jealous, mad, hurt, and so incredibly sad. I had to learn how to deal with it. It is still so hard and I have not posted a lot about our current pregnancy because I have several friends that are still struggling. I try and use our experience to help others. We are currently 24 weeks with our miracle/rainbow baby. I shared on Facebook our struggles and losses and let me tell you there are so many people who have been through the same thing that you never new. I think I needed to share it to be able to heal and for others to see our lives are not perfect and even though it sucks to go through what we did, I hope to be there for others that have struggled getting pregnant. I also wanted to date our struggles because I was tired of people asking when we were gonna have kids! We have been married for 10 years so it was something we heard all the time and I couldn't handle it after the losses. So putting it out there kind of made everyone else shut up and leave us alone. My husband was good about screening and protecting me from questions or people he knew would make me end up in tears.

We are all sharing this life together and it pays to have some compassion and understanding even when you have never gone through it. I didn't need to hear any words- just a hug and being there were all I needed. I know it makes it hard for you since they don't want anyone to know but just give her her space. She will be ok one day. I'm still not ok and it's been 2 years since our first miscarriages.

God bless you and your precious baby!

Answer

Similar situation. Pregnant with our miracle baby and my cousin lost one several years back. She has PCOS, like I do, and is having a hard time with it. I don't post pics or say anything about the baby on Facebook anymore- created my own page for our little one just to keep from rubbing her nose in it. The problem is that she is rubbing my nose in her pain. Every day,  post after post about the baby she lost. I feel for her, and understand to some extent having had fertility issues. But I shouldn't be made to feel guilty every day. It is hard dealing with someone's loss and pain while trying to enjoy and celebrate your growing family. *hugs*

Answer

I lost a pregnancy a little over 4 years ago and we weren't able to conceive for 4 years after because of my PCOS. I would NEVER EVER say anything rude to or ask someone else who was lucky enough to conceive to not post their good news. You can choose to UNFOLLOW someone on Facebook without unfriending them so their posts don't show up in their newsfeed. You should never have to feel ashamed to share your good news. Yes, it is hard to see the good news of others when going through a hard time. I VERY much understand this as I have been there myself. We are now 28 weeks pregnant and so happy with our miracle baby!

Answer

We had the some thing happen with our friends.  My husband and I are younger and they are both 40.  She wanted a baby because her first husband didn't want a family and the current husband has a son to his previous marriage but wanted one of her own.  We got pregnant and made the announcement.  She texted me the next day and said I was insensitive to her and her husband because they are unable to have children and then we go and get pregnant (we were trying but not trying at the same time).  She got even more pissed when she found out we were having a girl.  She defriended me of Facebook, had her husband defriended me.  The worst part is our husbands hung out a lot together and she told her husband he can't hang out with mine because the past few times he wanted to hang out, I had doctors appointments. So now they can't be friends because my husband is going to be a father(even though he is already a father to his 8 year old)

Answer

I think some of it might depend on how close you are to the cousin. If you're close, you could reach out and say that you know she's had a hard time conceiving (because you said you knew that already) and that you hope your babymoon pics didn't add to that heartache and that you're sincerely sorry if it did and maybe ask if there's anything you can do to help be more sensitive to her needs right now. That allows you to make amends (because it sounds like the last thing you wanted to do was upset her at all) and also gives her the opportunity to tell you about her miscarriage if that's what she wants to do.

If you're not close enough to her where reaching out like that feels comfortable, you could just check in with her and say something like "I saw that you're taking a break from Facebook and I just wanted to check to see if you're doing okay." Again, that allows you to reach out and offer her some comfort without divulging what your MiL told you and gives the cousin the chance to tell you what's going on if she wants to.

Of course, depending on how she's feeling, she might not necessarily feel receptive to having you reach out to her and she might feel like you're making things worse, so the best option might be to not say anything at all and just be mindful of what you post on social media. I think you might be able to set your privacy settings on Facebook to keep certain people from seeing certain posts or pictures--maybe you could tweak your settings so that she might not be able to see baby or pregnancy related posts from you in the future?

Basically this is a really tough situation and there might not be a right or wrong thing to say or do, but it sounds like your heart is in the right place! I hope some of this helped!

Answer

My first five pregnancies were all miscarried. I can say from experience, it's an unbelievably difficult thing to deal with, especially with regards to people around you being pregnant.

All I can suggest is that you try to be sensitive and try not to be hurt by anything she says or does. Before I lost my babies, I was over the moon about any pregnancy announcements. Later, I couldn't even bear to be around my pregnant family members and friends. I ended up taking a few breaks from Facebook myself, and would systematically unfollow anyone expecting a baby when I was on. I promise, I wanted to be happy for them, but you go through so much pain with a miscarriage. People who haven't been through it usually don't understand. My own brother was angry because I didn't want to hold his new (third) baby who was born a month after my second loss was due and two weeks after I lost my fourth. I wasn't trying to hurt him, but it would hurt me too much at the time to hold my nephew.

Don't feel guilty, but also understand she needs her space and her time.

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