Miscarriage: When It’s For The Best

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As I’m sure most of my readers know I had a 20 week miscarriage five years ago.  Quick recap of how that story goes.  In November of 2008 I found out I was pregnant for a 4th time.  My son had just turned 1 and I was already into my 2nd trimester which meant I was going to have two under two.  The timing of it all was really just awful.  We were just getting things on track for my son and we definitely did not have the room for a 4th child.  So a month later when I went in for a check up and my doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat it really almost seemed like a blessing in disguise.  And truth be told that was how I got through those first few hours.  This is for the best.  I didn’t shed a tear in the doctor’s office.  It wasn’t until that night that this whole “it’s for the best” thing became my worst nightmare.

I went through many ups and downs through my grieving process, but the whole idea of it’s for the best flew out the window completely the moment I had her.  While I felt this huge amount of relief that it was over, it really wasn’t and I have carried her with me every day for the last five years.

I have seen this a lot too.  And you know it’s so easy for people to tell a woman who’s grieving that it was for the best, but you know what?  Even what’s for the best still hurts.  My little angel was still a part of me and my husband that we had created together.  She looked like her siblings to me.

But this one “for the best” moment in our lives had a huge impact both positively and negatively on our lives.  It has been the hardest thing I have had to deal with thus far in my life.  It has had an impact on each and every one of us in some way or another.  So despite the fact that this might have been what was best for our family and without this having had happened our lives would be very different (not saying better or even worse, just different) losing a baby is still very very hard no matter how much it was for the best.

So the next time you hear a woman go through a miscarriage and you want to say it’s for the best, just don’t.  First of all she probably already thought it and second of all it’s just not helpful.  Whether it’s a young teenage girl with her life ahead of her, it still hurts.  A mother of multiple children already with her hands full with the kids she already has, it still hurts.  The single mother or soon to be single mother, it still hurts.  The woman who has raised her children and suddenly gets pregnant late in life, it still hurts.  This was a life that while it might not have been planned doesn’t mean it wasn’t loved right from the get go and so it’s hard.

Miscarriage and death are never the best answer to life’s problems.  So please, the next time you feel the urge to say, “It was for the best!” stop yourself.  No matter how you mean it, you don’t know just how much this baby was loved.  So offer your condolences, offer your love, offer a shoulder to cry on, but DO NOT offer it was for the best.