More about grief and grieving

At first you may feel that your whole existence is taken up with grief. You may also feel that life has no purpose now that the plans you made for your future with your baby have been swept away. It takes quite a long time for these feelings to begin to fade and for the grief to become less overwhelming.

You may find that crying and talking about your baby are good ways of releasing pent-up feelings. You may want to tell your story over and over again. You may find it helpful to write down what happened and how you feel day by day. You may want to write poetry, draw or paint. Some parents prefer not to express their feelings or talk about their baby. This is also a goodcoping strategy as long as it is not combined with things that are in themselves damaging,such as working round the clock or drinking too much.

Because grief can come in waves, you may sometimes find that you can cope perfectly normally for hours or even days. Some parents feel guilty about this and feel that they are being disloyal to their baby. But it doesn’t mean that they have forgotten or don’t care. It is quite normal to have periods of calm and normality between waves of acute sadness.

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