My wife and I had a miscarriage last week. We were 11 weeks along but our baby only grew to 8 weeks.
It's been devastating.
I'm hoping to get some advice from anyone who's been through it.
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what can I do to help my wife? She's in physical pain which seems to be overriding the emotional pain, but I'm sure it will hit in due time and want to be able to help her the best that I can.
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our 15 month old obviously doesn't know what's going on, but it seems like he's noticed a change of energy. Its hard to play with him like I normally do. I love him to bits, I just don't have the energy but I need to make sure he knows he's loved.
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we were able to collect the fetus as it passed naturally , we would like to do something to memorialize our unborn child but don't know what.
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how can I take care of myself while taking care of my family through these times.
Thanks for any advice.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Support your wife. Do things without her asking (make meals, clean). Importantly, make sure she knows that you're experiencing grief as well, and that she isn't alone. Miscarriage is unfortunately more common than people realize. Please be gentle and kind with yourselves. It's OK to feel a rollercoaster of emotions.
One thing I did for the first few years after my losses was recognize them by lighting a candle for the wave of light: https://babyloss-awareness.org/wave-of-light/
"Do things without her asking (make meals, clean)"
I can't emphasize this enough.
When I had a miscarriage my husband took care of everything around the house. Literally everything. For one week I only had to worry about myself. I had 24 hours a day to do wathever I needed in that moment. No cleaning, cooking, feeding the cats, not having to remember any chores that needed to be done. That was the best he could have done and I was so thankful for it.
After one week i started working again and slowly helping out more and more until thing went back to normal.
Being able to only worry about myself for a whole week helped so much with my heeling.