I Truly Sorry, But You Took It Out of Context

Here are 2 excerpts from her post.

Before you read the following, please note that I am not actually complaining about blogging comments, except for the one that I mention in the post. The asshat derived comments I am referring to are NOT from blogland. These are asshats that I talk to every day in my non-virtual life. So, please don't read into this post, I am not at all upset with any of my regular readers (ashmc2, you can go ahead and assume I am not all that impressed with your comment though).

And at the risk of losing every single reader I have, I will say this one thing to preempt a particular comment. I am perfectly aware of the fact that people are well meaning when they make comments (specifically check out the one from ASHMC2) about the miscarriage. I am well aware of the fact that they were just trying to help. I am completely aware of the fact that they don't know what to say. I know all of this, really I do. And, guess what? That doesn't make me feel any better. One person who does get to "feel better" for having said something is the insensitive asshat who convinced themselves that their words of wisdom would wipe away the pain. Not to ruin SIL's mission of mercy or anything, but I am glad that someone is feeling better, even though it's definitely not me. Looks like she wins either way. Nice.

Here is her original post.

I am extremely sensitive to comments from people in my everyday, non-bloggie, life. Very sensitive. Here are a few excerpts of what has been said by well meaning people, and how I would like to respond is in italics.

· "It's just bad luck and you were the one in five in these odds for miscarriage. So if you have 5 pregnant women in the room, 1 of those women will miscarry and that was you." Really, Sherlock? Is that how odds work? If we have 5 people in a room, and I use everyone of them to beat you senseless, then what are the odds that I will kill you? Pretty high, I'd say.

· "It just wasn't meant to be." So the baby wasn't meant to be, but the miscarriage was? Nice. If it's not meant to be then maybe it shouldn't have started like it was.

· "Well at least you know that you can get pregnant." Unfortunately, it takes a bit more than that to get one of them take home babies though. So if that's all the optimism that you can muster, please don't bother even opening your mouth.

A nurse at the hospital after my D&C apparently thought that this comment would be helpful in some way, "I've had 5 miscarriages so far." Well, that's some happy news, please tell me more. If I get to number 5, then I will surely shoot myself in the head. That way I won't have anyway of saying the same thing to an unsuspecting, sad patient after her first D&C/miscarriage.

OK, so maybe I am a bit snarky right now. The thing is that I never say any of the stuff I am thinking when people make these comments. Instead, I just smile, thank them for their help, and even tell them they are so insightful. I am such a liar.

Here is my comment.

OK, as much as their comments hurt, they were trying to consul you in your time of need. Everyone isn’t smart enough to just shut up and let you greave on your own. You truly have the right to be cynical about it all, but remember no one actually meant to hurt you. They were trying to help in there own inept way.

I hope this isn’t insensitive – My wife and I went through more than our share of miscarriages, but in the end after all the tears and thoughts of why, two beautiful children proved to be strong enough to be here. So remember when things seem hopeless, there is still hope out there and you will find it and all these people here that love you will still be here to say congrats.

I am truly sorry for your loss.

My thoughts.

I don’t see where I’m an insensitive asshat who convinced themselves that their words of wisdom would wipe away the pain. Actually anyone that has ever commented on anyone’s blog could be accused of being an insensitive asshat who convinced themselves that their words of wisdom would wipe away the pain or what ever issue they are addressing. Right now no one can say the right thing. I wish I realized that before I hurt her. Maybe I’m un-insightful. In no way was I trying to hurt her in her time of need. I was trying to give her hope for the future. In absolutely no way was I trying to trivialize her unfortunate event or invalidate her grief. In no way was I trying to throw it in her face that I had kids in the end. I was trying to show her that it could happen for her. I was giving hope. I think that right now she is extremely grief stricken and irrational. She is emotionally spent. To hear of anything positive about the situation or anyone else’s experiences with M/C’s is to take away from her event in her eyes.

I felt the need to consul her and give her hope, because I remember just how deeply and traumatically it affected my wife. I might not have a woman’s perspective totally on M/C’s but my wife and I went through 9, count it, 9 M/C’s in 3 years. I lived with an angry, yet mostly extremely depressed wife. Most weren’t out of the 1st trimester, yet they hurt my wife deeply. One was a midterm loss and one was an ectopic pregnancy, which almost ruptured and possibly would have killed my wife. It put us in a seeming endless spiral of grief and depression. I kept telling her that maybe we should give some time, but she wanted a baby badly, even at the cost to her mentally, physically, and to her very psyche. She had to live in her bed trying not to M/C. I mean she literally lived in the bed. Finally at the end of all of our mental trauma 2 healthy children were born. Was it insensitive to tell her that we ended up having children after our own ordeal? Should I have just told her of our pain? I think not. Positive hope for the future is the key IMO. It is not her fault She is just currently an emotional wreck that wants to wallow in self-pity and wrongly blame herself and her body for the M/C. She isn’t shit. She was just one of us unfortunates that lost our child.

I want so desperately to tell her that I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I am not a bad person. I am a caring sympathetic person that truly wants to help others in need. I wanted to explain how much I feel for her personally right now, because I truly do know the grief she is enduring. But I didn’t think another comment was wise. I did tell her I was sorry and that I didn’t mean to hurt her. For me to try to explain any further would be selfish and merely trying to validate my first comment and my original intent. So I will keep reading her blog from the background and hopefully when she is again rational and stops the self-hate and is less hurt from her experience I can reenter her comment section. So here on my blog is where I will deliver my thoughts about what I actually meant. Hopefully once her grief has subsided to the point that she can be somewhat objective about the situation and peoples’ true intent, she can read this and forgive me. I do truly wish her the best and I’m extremely sorry that I hurt her when she needed help.