Talking to a friend who has miscarried?

I have a dear friend i have known for years - we share a birthday even. She's been trying for a baby for a couple of years, and has had two previous miscarriages at 12wks and 14wks. She finally concieved a third time and baby had the same due date as mine. However she very sadly lost this one at 16weeks.

Now she is going through chromosonal testing, the full works which is stressful for her, and worse now they've pinpointed her as the 'cause' of the losses.

She is still really excited for my pregnancy and always asks how its going, i hesitate to bring it up even because i dont want to hurt her but it seems all she wants to talk about!!! I have sort of inquired into how she is doing, but she isnt interested in talking about her, only about me/my baby. Which is fine...

I just wonder if that is a front (i'm guessing it is). Like she says "oh, i'm fine" and then goes home and cries for three hours because being faced with me is too hard.

Can anyone give suggestions as to how i can help, what i should do...?

Just being there for her is perfect. We had a m/c at 12 weeks and it helped me a lot to be with ladies who knew what I'd been through, but she's had 3 and that is so sad but don't doubt her happiness for you. She'll grieve for as long as it takes and you sound like you're being the best a friend can be given the circumstances. Don't be so hard on yourself either.

I'd say its likely that your friend does find it painful to see you but she obviously loves you dearly because she is doing it anyway. This kind of situation is really hard and there is not much you can do but be supportive, not assume anything about how she is feeling and where she is at with ttc, let her control how much she talks about her losses and of course try not to make any of those thoughtless comments people often make when they mean well but don't know what else to say e.g. at least you can conceive, you can have another one, there must have been something wrong with it, etc.

They say that and way worse. Someone said to me that it was probably for the best! WTF?
You wouldn't say that to someone if it had been their parent/sibling/partner/born child that died, so why do people say these things if it is an unborn child? madness.

Vanillabean wrote: I'd say its likely that your friend does find it painful to see you but she obviously loves you dearly because she is doing it anyway. This kind of situation is really hard and there is not much you can do but be supportive, not assume anything about how she is feeling and where she is at with ttc, let her control how much she talks about her losses and of course try not to make any of those thoughtless comments people often make when they mean well but don't know what else to say e.g. at least you can conceive, you can have another one, there must have been something wrong with it, etc.

Ditto all of this, exactly. Plus, everyone grieves/ feels differently after a miscarriage. I remember after mine I was still so interested in a friends pregnancy, because I SO wanted a baby and saw it as such a miraculous thing for her that even though I was sad for me, I was excited for her.

As for the horrible comments, my boss questioned my taking bereavement leave (instead of sick leave, as told to by HR) and actually made the comment "now I don't want to get into who is a person and who isn't . . . " after my miscarriage. I was too stunned to reply

Edited by JadeC