Best way to help a friend some may find upsetting

[alethea]

I have received some terrible news today apologies to anyone reading this who finds this upsetting, a good friend has lost her baby full term, I really want to be there for her, I wondered if anyone had any experience of this wouldn't mind sharing any advice on how best to help her, I've only spoken to her husband and didn't feel appropriate to ask any details I've obviously offered to be there, but not quite sure what to do next and when. I can't begin to imagine how this must feel but want to help.

[SE22mum]

what sad news. this sadly happened to a good friend of my partner's, and to one of my sister's friends. everyone deals differently with grief. i think the only thing you can do is just be there for her and realise it can take a long time. it might be a long while before she can talk about it, or she might want to talk all the time about it. my partner rang and texted lots. i think there is something about not shying away from someone else's pain, not trying to make things alright before they are, just listening.

[hellosailor]

Such a terribly sad thing, your poor friend. I started a thread on this to ask for advice when it happened to a friend of mine.

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,843046,843588#msg-843588

[Dodie]

Hi Alethea. I'm very sorry to hear this. It is obviously devastating for the parents but also has a very powerful effect on everyone around them. A friend of mine also lost her baby at full term. I think all that you can do is what you have already done - letting her know that you are there for her whenever she needs you but also giving her the space to contact you whenever that time comes. When my friend lost her baby, I gave birth myself shortly afterwards so it felt complicated for me as I also felt guilt. However, I tried to put my own feelings aside. When we met up a couple of months after it had happened, she just wanted lots of time and space to be listened too. She said that her midwife had told her "you will make friends and you will lose friends over this" and she told me she had been so struck by the people she had considered to be close friends who had just stopped communicating with her. Maybe they just didn't know what to say or how to cope with their own emotions over it but this had been devastating for her. Everyone is going to react differently in these situations but I would say, do whatever feels right. For me, with my friend it felt right to send a card initially, then weekly texts or emails to let her know I am always there day and night to talk either by email, in person or whatever. My friend said that she had another friend who as soon as she found out had phoned her and insisted that she wanted to come round and be there with them and this had been her genuine response and my friend appreciated it. When you do get together, your friend will probably also want to talk about her baby; I remember my friend wanting to tell me about what she looked like and be able to talk about him/her. At the end of the day, there is nothing you can do to "help" her other than give her time, love, kindness and most importantly to just listen to those difficult feelings. My friend has found the charity Sands very helpful. Best wishes; it's a terribly difficult time.

[alethea]

Thank you that was really useful reading the thread, her husband said she doesn't want any cards or flowers, but a letter sounds like a good idea. As it's so fresh, I didn't even ask her husband what the baby was or anything, I thought if he's having to explain to everyone it's probably difficult so I didn't press anything.

[bluesuperted]

I'm so sorry to hear this, what a terrible and heartbreaking thing to happen.

This just happened to an old friend of mine who I'm only really in touch with sporadically on FB - which is how they announced the tragedy too. I sent her a card and a private message on Facebook. She replied pouring her heart out and so we exchanged a series of messages and I'm trying to send her a little message every week or so as the initial outpouring of support quietens...

I searched online and made sure not to say the following which people who had been through this said they heard (unbelievably really):

- anything along the lines of it was better than the baby being born ill/with problems/must have been a reason etc

- you can have another baby... She will want this exact baby right now

- anything that suggests that soon the pain will stop, I imagine it will lessen eventually but I don't think you ever truly get over it in the sense that you can get over other terrible events

- at least you have the child you have now (if they have a child already)

I also followed her cues, in the FB announcement they announced the baby very much like you would a baby that was born alive, with a name and weight etc. In all correspondence I have used the baby's full name, referred to her as her daughter and made it clear that the baby made an impact, had a presence on earth even though she was stillborn. My friend expressed missing the baby... I thought that was so profoundly sad but makes so much sense, and I think therefore some mothers might want to talk about the baby to keep him/her with them in a way. Again following cues of the individual grieving.

I think it's so hard to know what to say or do - and there really isn't an answer, nothing can actually help, so just recommend thinking carefully but also speaking from the heart... Expecting of course nothing in return - I fully expected my card and message to go unresponded to, but was happy I could be a shoulder to cry on even if I hadn't thought I was a natural choice for this.

Best of luck with helping your friend through this worst of times xx

[fl0wer]

Grief comes in waves and not always when expected. For instance welling up in a supermarket aisle where all the lovely nursery things are. Yet finding it not at all difficult to celebrate another family's newborn bringing joy.

The main difficulty bereaved parents report, is that their friends & neighbours cross the road rather than speak. I think just saying how sorry you are to hear the news, and sending the gentlest card you can find, is about right.

Many cards and people employ forms of words they would want to hear if it were them. They project on to the situation whereas as others write above, a real gesture of friendship is to allow space for your friends to be the way they are, which might sometimes seem numb or intensely private, or perhaps - especially if they have other children to look after - they will try to recover quickly and that is some folks style. No one ever forgets the birthday though.

[sillywoman]

This is an excellent starting place. They do such good work.

http://www.uk-sands.org

SWx

[Pugwash]

As everyone states, Grief is very personal, a friend of mine's daughter last her little girl at almost 9 months gestation and found it very difficult to talk of her experiences for considerable time. We sent a card which just stated thinking of you and our names.

In my time years ago as a bereavement counsellor, I had to deal with a young woman who had a still birth of a little boy at 6 months gestation. It took a while for her to talk about the situation including how she found out that her son had died, the effects it had on her and her partner. It was made worse as at the time of the delivery, she did not want to see her son and the child was buried/cremated without his parents being there. Times have changed and parents are encouraged to be actively engaged in this process and being with their child. I know as a mother, at the end of the counselling sessions with her, I used to lock myself in the loo and cry, as I felt her pain.

My own daughter is expecting her first child in 2 weeks time and I am on tenterhooks as my life experiences have also shown me that birth and infanthood is not always joyful.

[pilsbury]

Be there to talk to them when they are ready, keep reminding them you are there

Don't avoid the subject

Send a meaningful card

Offer to help with funeral arrangements or set up collection fund

Suggest bereavement counselling, check out sands as mentioned above

Don't relate it to other deaths or tell them they'll get over it when another baby comes along

Don't forget the anniversary

My best friend lost one of her twins at nine months last year, it was devastating but with the help of close family, good friends a bit of counselling she is doing really well now.

[fl0wer]

Pugwash Wrote:

" at the time of the delivery, she did not want to see her son and the child was buried/cremated without his parents being there."

What hospitals do now if the parents feel like this: they take a few photographs and tell them, "If ever you want to see them we are keeping them safely for you," because they know how later regret follows & also curiosity - how the child looked (always something beautiful about it that can be admired and acknowledged).

[dildals]

I lost one of my twins six months ago now, so this is a topic very close to my heart. The first week or so I didn't want to see anyone bar my mum and my husband, but I definitely appreciated all the texts and cards, it made me feel supported and like people cared. I appreciated the flowers too, as a way of people trying to be nice, but it was a bit surreal looking at these beautiful flowers (which inevitably then die). My kitchen looked like someone robbed a florist and I definitely had no desire to put them in vases. So send a card or a text instead of flowers I would say. My father in law was a bit at a loss on how to support us. He wanted to be there for his son, but I couldn't bear to have him around. He then showed up one morning with half a garden centre and set out to do our garden, which I thought was extremely lovely. One person, who had lost her daughter full term, sent me a book on grieving, which was helpful for her and I know she meant well, but I wasn't quite sure what to think of it. One couple really stepped up to the plate, she kept sending me messages and somehow she always managed to hit the nail on the head, it was really nice and we got a lot closer over it all. They both made an effort to come and see our other twin (who was in neonatal) both in hospital and at home. They gave us some really thoughtful presents for her (a book on preemies and a bed nest for her incubator)

I found it really difficult to know how to behave with people. Some of my friends were pregnant or new mothers and I didn't want to cause them any distress. So I was hesitant to bring up the subject and waited for their cue/questions (which in most cases never came). On the one hand I needed some sense of normality back in my life, talking about mundane stuff, but I also wanted people to know how devastated I was. Lots of my friends said things like 'you are doing so well', and to me that sounded as if they thought I was showing no emotion. They however only saw the 'me' trying to get some normality back in my life and mindful of their feelings. What they didn't see or heard about was the daily crying in the shower (the only place where you can be alone) and the terror of waking up and realising it wasn't a bad dream.

I really wanted to talk about her. I wanted people to ask me what she looked like, what went wrong, how I was feeling, what was happening etc. At one point I was arranging the funeral, which was incredibly difficult for me, and I realised that none of my friends actually knew what I was doing. No one bothered to ask and I felt self conscious bringing up the subject ('what have you been up to this week' 'oh, well, I have been looking at tiny coffins, which is offing heartbreaking, and I understand I can only have an ugly closed white coffin, rather than the willow one I wanted, because of ... 'odours' ... as the funeral guy put it.')

One of the midwives at King's said 'at least you have another child' and 'we'll see you here again in 18 months'. So yes, I agree with the other poster, bluesuperted, on things not to say, those ones are definitely up there. (All the other midwives at King's were lovely btw)

On counselling - almost everyone said 'are you having counselling, you should have counselling'. I found that quite annoying actually. Whatever happened to friends and family supporting you? It always sounded like an excuse to not have to talk to you about potentially upsetting things. And although the grief is enormous and pushes all the breath out of your body it is all part of the normal grieving process. I did find counselling helpful and SANDS are awesome, but what I found most helpful about counselling and SANDS was that I was finally able to talk to someone who didn't recoil or flinch as soon as you talk about a dead baby.

I found an article the other day that said that fetal cells of your baby stay behind in your body, somehow I found that a comforting thought, that your baby never really leaves you and always stays with you in that way. It definitely feels that way. Another thought I found comforting was that she had only known love in her life. Someone sent me a poem also, the 'no one knows how my heart sounds from the inside' which still reduces me to tears, so if you are looking for things to write in your card ...

[Saffron]

Please have a look at Debbie Howard's touching film project 'Still Born, Still Loved', a feature length documentary currently in post-production. http://bigbuddhafilms.co.uk/films/documentary/still-born-still-loved/

xxx

[alethea]

Thank you for all the posts, thank you dildals for your experience. I am seeing her tomorrow, so it's been really useful. I'm going to give her the poem as she is keeping a keepsake box and I think it sounds like its important to talk to her about her daughter. I think it sounds like she is coping, publicly anyway. I've no idea what it must be like but hopefully she will get to a place with it.

[Otta]

Let her know that you're there but that you'll wait for her to tell you when she needs you. Letter probably a good start.