The return home

 

The return home and back to daily life can be very painful: without feeling guilty, one can feel nevertheless empty, often with a sense of uselessness after having lived such a very intense time..
It is important to be patient with yourself and give yourself the time to live this grief entirely: losing a baby requires a real mourning period, in the same way for the loss of any person dear to oneself.

Even if friends and family do not necessarily recognise the necessity of this mourning and instead have a tendency to want to see the parents go back to their « normal » life as quickly as possible, it is better to leave yourself the time to express your pain and surround yourself with people who can understand. All the more so that this time, at least in the first months, will be marked by phases of depression or anxiety, mixed with moments where you feel a bit better. But at each setback, the mother has the impression that she will not get over it: she can therefore lose confidence in herself, in her capabilities to be a good mother and feel a deep need to be reassured and surrounded by people.
Maternity leave, which is still a right even if the child dies in the womb (depending on each State legacy), allows taking this necessary time of retreat in order to make it possible for mourning to begin to develop.

The desire to have another child can be felt very early after the death: it often signifies the persistence of the link with the baby who has died and hides the pain of "empty arms". A new pregnancy which is started too early could repress the necessary mourning and set back this internal healing which must take place.

The feeling of having done everything for one’s child, the memories of having lived this accompaniment for and by him or her form points of support to find comfort and consolation within oneself and from others. They are the foundations of a mourning which will develop over the weeks, months, years to come. It is a slow self reconstruction, which, with time’s help, will happen in several stages, as if it is necessary to learn to detach oneself progressively from the deceased baby, in the same way as a detachment which occurs with a child who grows up. Little by little, despite setbacks, the violence of the separation softens and the grief subsides. Of course without ever forgetting this child or replacing it since the child has left its trace in the life of the parents forever.

The other children can live this time of mourning with their parents and often go back to their lives quickly if they know that they can always speak openly about the child who has gone. Funeral rites are an important moment of goodbye for them, where concrete acts allow them to show their grief in their own way.

If you feel the need, you should not hesitate to ask for help – from associations, through a psychological support or by reading certain documents. This is true even after several months/years. And you should try to resist pressure from family or friends who want life to go back to “How it was before “.Only time and the expression of grief can allow the notion of separation with the deceased baby to be integrated and a soothed heart to be found.