For a husband and wife, preparing for the birth of a child is often an enriching and strengthening experience for their marriage. Their love for each other deepens as they get ready to expand their family.
Just as quickly as the discovery of a pregnancy can bring joy and excitement to a marriage, the loss of an unborn child can create heartache and tension. Miscarriage and stillbirth have claimed the lives of many children before they have a chance to take their first breath. This tragedy is very real to both the mother and father, though each will have his or her own way of dealing with it.
"Miscarriage and stillbirth are generally misunderstood, often overlooked, and almost always minimized," says Elizabeth Honeycutt, developer of www.babygrief.com, a website for moms and dads dealing with the loss of a baby.
The statistics are higher than most people realize, she says. "Fifteen to twenty percent of pregnant women personally experience a miscarriage in the U.S. each year. One in 200 pregnant women experiences a stillbirth. About seven in 1000 babies die before their first birthday. Countless others watch as their friends and family go through these losses."
Elizabeth got the idea for the BabyGrief website after losing her first child at 18 weeks. As she turned to various books and websites for council, she discovered that many other women — and their husbands — have dealt and are dealing with miscarriage or stillbirth.
"The purpose of this website is to offer encouragement and hope to moms, dads, and others who have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth," she says. Her desire is to share her experience — and the hope she found in God — with others around the world.
Individual pages deal with the difficult issues that arise from dealing with a miscarriage, like pain, anger, and guilt. Sometimes a husband may blame his wife, or the wife may even blame her husband. Confusion and hurt can develop and cause great tension in a marriage if they are not handled properly.
The BabyGrief website has a special page just for moms, where Elizabeth offers encouragement and comfort from her own experience. "Moms of miscarried and stillborn babies carry a private grief that no one else can understand," she says. "I have found that my emotions and needs are often deeper than my husband's. While we have both grieved, and still experience grief, my feelings are still more sensitive than his."
Elizabeth's husband, Billy, has written a special section just for dads. He says, "Sometimes my wife, Elizabeth, would have a hard day and be very sad and I wouldn't be as sad those days. Sometimes she was the one who comforted me when I was hit with the grief."
Just because the woman is physically pregnant, it is no less the dad's child also, Billy points out. Marriage is a partnership, and having a baby is something you do together, and when you lose that child, you both need time to grieve.
"Many couples feel the grief over miscarriage or stillbirth years after the loss," Elizabeth says. "Others close up their feelings and try their best to move forward. For those who have felt the personal pain of losing a baby, the emotions, questions and grief need to be felt, answered, and worked through."
If a husband and wife do not take the time to listen to each other and help each other deal with their grief, it can place a serious strain on their marriage. Elizabeth and Billy know how important it is to communicate and to trust God together during this difficult time.
After many months of planning, research, and writing, babygrief.com is now online. Through this website, they hope to give mothers and fathers a place to find hope and encouragement, ideas and advice, and to share their own stories. As Elizabeth says, "It's never too late to remember what you have been through, and the little person who touched your life.
 |
Copyright © 2005 David Sanford and Elizabeth Jones, Used by Permission.
 |
|
|
Author
|
