Grief & Loss - Parenting (Phase One)
Content warning: This blog discusses sensitive subjects including pregnancy, miscarraige, abortion, infant and child loss. Reader discretion is advised.
Grief can be a heavy topic. If you are finding yourself being weighed down while reading, or if it’s feeling like a lot, it’s always okay to take a break. Come back to it later, space out the times you come to read about this, and check in with yourself about how this topic is making you feel. Take care of you.
In many ways, parenting involves ongoing feelings of grief and loss. Don’t get me wrong - parenting has many moments of joy, pride, comfort, love, and connection. But with all of that comes micro-moments of loss and overwhelming waves of grief.
From the moment we decide to enter or are thrust into the role of parent, whether through hope, pregnancy, adoption, or marriage, we are faced with loss at the same time as a myriad of other emotions that you will know if you have gone through this yourself.
If you struggle to get pregnant, there can be deep grief stemming from the absence of what you long for on a biological level.
If you have experienced miscarriage, you may have known the feelings of grief that overtake you in the grocery store and as you look at the world carrying on around you while you walk around looking normal but now you are a mother and nobody can see it and your hormones are raging and you can’t mention it because maybe nobody even knew yet or maybe they did but either way how can you grieve someone you haven’t actually met yet?
What if you chose abortion because that was the right choice for you and yet you are grieving a loss or not grieving a loss but still experiencing the feelings and how do you even fit in this idea of parent and what if people are not supportive and what if you aren’t sure if you ever want to be a parent but you almost kind of were and that still matters?
And what if you are the Dad or potential Dad and you are experiencing these losses and nobody even notices that you are sad or what if nobody cares?
If by some miracle you are actually pregnant on purpose and happy to be there, you may be surprised to still be experiencing moments of grief. Maybe you have lost a bit of yourself week by week as you prepare for a new life and kind of say good-bye to your old self who didn’t know about lochia and never had to think about hemorrhoids. Maybe the only thing you’re sad about is that you can’t eat deli meat but it is really sad because all you ever even wanted was a ham sandwich and you’ve lost the ability to just eat one and that just really sucks sometimes. Maybe you’ve always dreamed of a baby girl but you find out it’s a boy and while you are happy and can get excited about a boy a little part of you is just really sad that he isn’t a girl.
There is a big, unique kind of grief that is reserved for parents who have lost a child. This is in it’s own realm of pain. I can remember the names of all the babies my friends and family members have lost in what is called a late term miscarriage, stillborn, or who have passed away too quickly after birth. To support these moms and dads we can’t necessarily help their pain, but we can be with them, sit with them, walk with them. Remember their babies, say their names. Reach out on mother’s day and father’s day. I haven’t been the best at this. It’s hard for me but harder for them and I wish I showed them how I recognize this. There is an Anderson Cooper podcast episode called The Greatest Loss where Katie Talman bravely shares her experience.
“You know, I just wasn't ready for her to leave because once she was going to be out of me, I had very little time left. So I was really holding in. I was holding in so much. So much fear and devastation. Also holding on to a little bit of hope that somehow everyone was wrong. And when Everly came out of me, I screamed and let out this like a primal moan. That was that was everything that I had been holding in. And it was then that I knew that I had lost and that I was wrong. And that she was never coming and it was never going to be true.”
~Katie Talman on All There Is with Anderson Cooper
Karen Alexander, PhD., RN describes her own experience with infant loss: “My grief was deeply physical. Each time I got out of bed, or even stretched in bed, I would remember the pain of losing Molly. I would look in the mirror, and there she was . . . I was sliced open in an attempt to give her life. Instead, I was left empty” (Alexander, 2021, p. 349).
This experience is not one that is easy to connect to or hear about for a lot of people. I do think it is important to recognize and talk about this kind of grief and loss to reduce isolation and create opportunities for connection. Within this post, the purpose of discussing multiple kinds of grief potentially associated with parenting is not to compare or contrast but to connect and share. We’ve all experienced or will experience loss in our lives and we are not alone.
Adoption Loss can be experienced by biological parents, grandparents, adoptive parents, and the adopted individual. This kind of loss can involve many kinds of grief including disenfranchised grief, anticipatory grief, complicated grief, and traumatic grief. The process of adoption brings potential for many losses along the way for all involved as well, with failed adoption, expectations that go unmet, misunderstandings and misguided upsetting comments from others. There can be stigma, shame, or guilt mixed in to make it extra complicated and isolating.
Nicole Chung addresses her adoption related grief as an adoptee in an episode of All There Is with Anderson Cooper:
“The loss of my first family, like my birth family, that initial separation, and I speak only from myself here as an individual adoptee, but that is, literally, the original defining loss of my life. It's the one from which everything else and all of my many gains, you know, everything that I've also gained, and it came from this initial loss.”
Meyer et al. (2023) explored “the lived experience of adult adoptees regarding loss, grief, and counseling as it related to their adoption experience”, noting that while the feelings of loss varied between participants, there were some common themes that emerged including “identity curiosity”, “difficulties with connection”, and “relational distrust”. This research was fairly small scale as there were less than ten participants but sets up potential for further research around lived experience which again emphasizes the importance of realizing these experiences are unique.
What Can We Do?
If you are the one grieving - Try not to be alone. Use your family and friend’s offers of help. Invite them in. Let them be with you. If you don’t have anyone, consider looking into professional supports like therapists or talk to your family doctor about government funded options available to you.
Write, draw, or sing through the pain. If you have a favorite mode of creating this can be an incredible outlet for grief.
Talk about it - Find a professional who you connect with, or a friend who loves you. Sometimes, when we reach out to others, we find surprising and uplifting connection through sharing our stories. You may feel lighter by sharing, and you may even find opportunities to gain deeper relationships when you get vulnerable and real with loved ones.
Let it happen - invite the grief in and feel your feelings.
If you are in crisis, reach out to Distress Centre at 403-266-4357.
If you are supporting someone through loss - Be there for them. Show up, feed them, listen to them, allow them time and space to express grief in whatever way they want to.
Recognize that grief is experienced differently by everyone - avoid holding them to expectations that are based on your own experiences or others. Follow their lead and be ready to meet them where they are at.
Take care of yourself, too. If you don’t know what to do, you can also reach out to a professional or call Distress Centre to talk it out and get some ideas how to support in your specific situation.
Stay tuned for more on Grief & Loss - Parenting with phase two coming soon.
Contributed by Ellery, BSW Practicum Student
Resources:
Alexander, K. (2021). Shared Grief. JAMA : The Journal of the American Medical Association, 325(4), 349–350. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.25000
Cooper, A. (Host). (2023, December 13). The greatest loss [Audio podcast episode]. In All There Is with Anderson Cooper. CNN Audio. All There Is with Anderson Cooper - Podcast on CNN Audio
Cooper, A. (Host). (2024, January 17). Nicole Chung: Carrying memories alone [Audio podcast episode]. In All There Is with Anderson Cooper. CNN Audio. All There Is with Anderson Cooper - Podcast on CNN Audio
Meyer, M., Wiggins, E., & Elliott, G. M. (2023). Adult Adoptees’ Adoption-Related Experiences of Counseling, Loss, and Grief: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study. The Professional Counselor (Greensboro, N.C.), 13(2), 129–144. https://doi.org/10.15241/mm.13.2.129
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