I wrote about our miscarriage story in detail, which you can find linked at the bottom of the page. I’ve also included a summary list of everything I will write about as a download at the bottom of the page for your convenience.
Disclaimer: please be advised I am not a medical doctor and suggest you work closely with your doctor or midwife regarding medical care. This is only my experience.
First and foremost, I’m so sorry you’re miscarrying or have gone through a miscarriage, or maybe you’re not and thinking about preparing just in case. But if you are, I’m so sorry. I discovered in the midst of this painful experience there are a lot of people who have gone through the same thing we have. Please know you’re not alone. I have reached out to God and family and friends for strength, and have received responses that have helped bring me comfort, and others that I have felt surprised and angry about. This will happen, but I hope by being vulnerable and reaching out we can filter out the things that hurt and find the support and peace we need from people who want and are able to give it in the way we need.
Unfortunately we don’t get to choose whether we want to experience miscarriage, which made me feel helpless. I wanted to be in control, and the outcome I wanted was to be pregnant and have a baby. When I had no choice but to go through with it, I felt a whole buffet of emotions; surprise, anger, sadness, anxiety; I could keep going. I’m sure your experience has been similar, and also different, but I’ll try my best to help you through it one step at a time based on our experience.
We had our first miscarriage a week ago. A month ago we went to our first midwife pregnancy appointment. In addition, we would also be having an ultrasound. We brought our five kids along so as a family we could see the baby and hear it’s heartbeat. You can probably guess what happens next. She told us the baby hadn’t made it. We were shocked and heartbroken and I cried uncontrollably. She explained we had experienced a missed miscarriage, which happens when the baby dies but your body doesn’t recognize it until later or maybe not at all, and your uterus keeps growing, in which case medical intercession may be necessary. I told her I had started spotting and cramping the day before so she was encouraged I could have the miscarriage at home. She told us I would pass stringy like things which was the shedding of the uterus, and I’d bleed, and that if it didn’t happen completely within a couple weeks, we would probably need to start looking at other options. Because we had a missed miscarriage, we had a little more time to plan, but if your miscarriage comes on quickly, you won’t have that convenience. Even then, we were so shocked with the news, we lived out the next week glazed over and numb, so even with the extra time we could only see one foot in front of us. God helped and guided us, and it went as best as a miscarriage can, but we were extremely underprepared for the questions we’d need to face that we hadn’t thought to ask: How should I prepare my body for miscarriage? What feminine products will I need? How do I manage pain? If it’s small, should we flush or bury it? How do we catch what comes out? What do we do if we can’t see a baby but want to make sure it’s there? Where do we get a casket? How should we bury it? Do we bury it in a cemetery or on our property? Unfortunately and fortunately, my sister was going through a missed miscarriage at the exact same time as me, which was a huge blessing, and she was a valuable source of knowledge, instruction, and comfort for me. But unless you’re close with someone who’s gone through a miscarriage before and they’re willing to share intimate details, or your doctor or midwife gives you specifics of what to expect, you may feel scared and alone. In this post I want to focus on answering these questions so you feel more peace and focus on healing instead of feeling fearful and helpless.
Spiritual Strength
I believe in God so I’ll be writing with this perspective. I believe in the power of prayer. I also believe angels are all around us, and when we pray, God sends those angels and his spirit to lift us in hard times. I talk about angels in our miscarriage story. You can click on the link at the bottom of the page to read about them. For me, prayer is the best thing I can do during this difficult time. I have felt the power of an answered prayer in our deepest hours and know it has carried us through. If you’ve never prayed before, you may feel awkward, but He is real and listens to you. Maybe you don’t know how or what to pray for and would like to try. For this reason I’ve included a few prompts below, or they might trigger what you’d like to ask for. Maybe you don’t want to pray at all and I respect that too.
Dear Heavenly Father/God,
We feel so sad about this beautiful baby that we’ve just lost. Please help us to know you love us and are aware of us. Please help us to have strength and feel comforted through this difficult time. Please guide us through this process and help us know what to do. Please help us to have faith and trust in your plan. Please bless ____________ who is also struggling that they might feel thy love.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Asking others to pray for you if they feel comfortable, would also be an appropriate thing to do, and to thank them afterward. The more people praying for you means more prayers are going to heaven, and more power coming to you.
Emotional Strength
I believe spiritual and emotional health go hand in hand. As I mentioned above, the number one thing that helped me to find peace emotionally is to pray and to ask other people to pray for me. The power of prayer is underestimated and overlooked sometimes, and I encourage you to try it if you haven’t, and to keep doing it if you are.
One thing I have found very helpful emotionally is journaling. Not a this-is-what-happened-today written in chronological order, but a emotional, vomit journal if you will, to get what you’re feeling out on paper. When I do this, a magical phenomenon occurs where it’s much easier to sort out what I’m feeling when I see it in front of me. The act of writing and getting it out is also very therapeutic in and of itself. If I’m frustrated or sad or overwhelmed and don’t know why, I start writing. Additionally, once I have it on paper, I flip roles and play counselor as if I’m helping someone else. For some reason, when I look at it from another perspective, it’s easier to see more things more clearly and know what to do. I’m not saying the purpose of this is to fix anything necessarily. Sometimes, just simply getting it out makes me feel better and that’s all I need. Other times I want answers and that’s where the reverse role playing helps me.
I was (and still am) a mess and cried A LOT at the beginning. On top of it being an emotional rollercoaster, my hormones are trying to get back to normal. When we first found out our baby had not made it I burst out sobbing in my midwifes office as she was talking mid sentence about why it could have happened. At least twice. I think it was three or four times. I was a little embarrassed. I think I cried every five minutes the first day. The next day was a little less, and a little less the days following. I’m not saying you’re going to follow this pattern and don’t expect yourself to follow this pattern, but if you do that’s fine too. Everyone grieves differently. My husband didn’t want to talk about it and kept himself busy and that was right for him. Do what you need to do to feel better. Allow grief to happen naturally and give yourself time. I found myself expecting to be fine after two or three days. I thought, Is this normal to be crying so much? I should be getting back to normal by now, shouldn’t I? Looking back, I don’t know how I could’ve expected that much from myself. When I found myself doing this, I had to stop and ask myself how many days it had been. Oh yeah. Only three days since the miscarriage. The next day was the same. Oh yeah. Only four days since the miscarriage. It helped put it into perspective. I’m sure a year or two from now I’ll say, oh yeah. Only a year since the miscarriage. Who knows how long it will take and that’s fine. There is no time limit to grief, even if your partner and loved ones have seemed to be over it and have moved on. Everyone grieves differently and for different periods of time. Be loving and accepting of where you’re at. You’ll heal more fully if you do.
My midwife gave me some business cards of counselors who specialize in miscarriage and prenatal loss and trauma and I’m currently talking with one of them. I was hesitant because I’ve never talked to a counselor, heard negative stories about going to one, and a little fearful of what to expect. But I decided I thought I needed one. You might need one too or you may feel you can manage with support from close friends and family. If you do decide to make an appointment with a counselor, expect not every counselor will work for you. If you don’t feel comfortable with someone or they’re keeping you in your grief instead of helping you move through it in a healthy way, find someone else. It’s like a shoe. Make sure the fit is right. You might ask how you can do this without breaking the bank. Ask if they will do a consult. They may or may not. I contacted each of the counselors and explained my midwife had given me three business cards and asked if they would each do a consult first so I could see which counselor would be the best fit for me before making an appointment. All of them agreed and were very supportive and agreed I needed to find the one best suited for me. I made my choice and let the others know as a courtesy that I had found one and thanked them for their time. If you’re having a hard time formulating a message, I’ve included an example below.
Hi Dr. Someone,
Your Name here. Thank you for speaking with me the other day. I’ve spoken to all the counselors and I’ve chosen one that best fits me. Thank you for your time and I wish you all the best.
Your Name
I didn’t have you say, “I’ve chosen one and you weren’t it,” or “I didn’t choose you.” They got the message and thanked me in return.
I found a pregnancy loss support group online that I’ve attended and found to be helpful. They meet once a week moderated by a psychologist. I’ll include the link at the bottom of the page.
One of the counselors I had a consult with recommended a website that I think is very helpful called postpartum.net. You can find a counselor there and I’ll include the link at the bottom of the page.
This is really meant for family of friends of you, but I’ll mention it anyway. When we had the miscarriage, we were blessed to be showered by love, gifts, food and flowers which I felt loved by, but what I found happening was I’d open up a bag of gifts or open the card with the flowers and it was addressed only to me while my husband was standing right there watching me open it. This happened multiple times and I felt bad for him. I appreciated it and understand it logical to direct love towards the woman because, after all, she carried the baby and feels a special bond with them. But our partners and kids are grieving too and we can remember to be sensitive to that. Address cards and make gifts appropriate to the entire family.
Physical Preparation
Physical preparation is key in this and I recommend the following products:
Depends. My sister who’s had four miscarriages recommended these to me. I resisted for the obvious reason I didn’t want to wear depends. Then I started spotting. I went and got some, but cried to my husband that they were ugly and didn’t make me feel pretty, so I just wore pads instead. A week later I woke up with my pad completely soaked as my miscarriage was in full swing. Depends gave me physical security, but surprisingly even more emotional security because it gave me peace to know I wasn’t leaking everywhere and I could focus on breathing and relaxing. There are different brands and I imagine they all work fine. I bought the Depends brand because they were pink and had a pretty flower design on them. They were pretty as pretty depends can be. I think I would’ve gone down a size to make an even more sealed fit, but even then they were completely comfortable. I can honestly say they were one of my best friends through this.
Overnight pads. I put these in my depends and changed my pad out as needed, and treated my depends like panties, except for the convenient fact I could throw them away when needed. I like Kotex overnighters without wings. I tried the thin overnighters with wings and they didn’t seem to absorb as well as the thicker pads. I know the thinner ones are more pretty, but compared to depends, the thick pads are pretty sexy. You might decide the thinner ones are better and that’s great too. It’s about comfort and finding something that will do the job right so you can feel peace and focus on healing. You’ll find your preference.
Pain medicine. I didn’t know what to expect regarding pain and I was fearful of the unknown. I read stories about women doubled on the floor in excruciating labor-like pain. I have only experienced back labor with my deliveries, and not to diminish other women’s pain because all labor is painful, period, but I’ve heard back labor is supposed to be much worse than front labor, so the fear was present.
My sister read that a lot of ladies used Aleve for their miscarriage and she advised me to take medicine as soon as I felt it coming on, so as soon as I started spotting and cramping, I took it. The next time I took Ibuprofen to see which one worked better for me and I liked Ibuprofen better. It didn’t make me feel as off, I guess, and two of the midwives from the midwife group I was seeing also said Ibuprofen worked better for them as well. Another plus is you can take Ibuprofen every eight hours instead of every twelve with Aleve, but everyone’s different so use what works for you. My midwife also said you can alternate between ibuprofen and Tylenol every four hours and also gave me a prescription for Tylenol with Codeine in case the pain was severe. I never had to use it though so that was a blessing. When the miscarriage was in full force, the pain was radiating from my entire uterus versus localized in one or two places during a period. To my relief, I didn’t experience excruciating pain that I read about online. In the beginning stages of spotting it was manageable and I only took it as needed. As the cramping and bleeding increased and consequently the pain, I increased from three ibuprofen to four a total of two or three times every 8 hours and then back down to three every eight hours. Make sure to check with your doctor or midwife about brands and dosages. The total time for the active miscarriage period was about 48 hours for me. The first day was heavy bleeding, then it let up, and the next day I miscarried with a little more bleeding. The first active day was the heaviest though for sure. Everyone is different so you may experience more or less pain, but this was my experience. I imagine the bigger the baby, the more pain.
Warm compress. I used a hot water bottle and placed it on my uterus. It helped with the pain and it just felt good. You can use an electric heating pad as well, but I didn’t try it because the hot water bottle worked. I also found a warm shower felt nice and helped with pain as well. As the saying goes, Water is the midwives epidural.
Medjool Dates. My sister recommended the medjool kind specifically. I live in Texas so I got them from H-E-B, but I imagine any health food store will carry them. They’re supposed to be really good at controlling bleeding, quickening labor, and shortening the duration. Studies have been done on them and I’ll give you the links at the bottom of this page. In the study they mention a different kind of date so take your pick.
I tried listening to soothing music and it was just too much for me, but if you think it might help relax and calm you, do it. Aromatherapy and candles might be something you like as well. Just prepare ahead of time and have your playlist and everything else sitting on your nightstand ready to go so when the time comes so you can relax.
During and After the Miscarriage
Since our baby had died early on, we talked with our midwife and decided I would miscarry at home. If the baby is bigger, you might decide it’s better to deliver at a hospital. Since I miscarried at home, most of my writing will be from this perspective.
If you’re miscarrying at home and you plan on burying it, consider buying a miscarriage kit or making one at home. I’ll include the link to buy one down below. If you make one at home, you will need:
- Colander with fine mesh, small or large, depending on the size of your baby
- Plate
- Q-tips
- Jar with lid
- .9% saline solution.
- gloves
After I passed the baby, I cried and cried and cried and cried. This was therapeutic for me to let all my grief flow. Take a moment.
Depending on the size of the baby, there are a few options of what to do immediately following the miscarriage, but don’t feel locked in to any one of these. You may want to do something completely different and that’s the right thing for you to do. If the baby is small enough, the most common choices I’ve heard of are to bury or flush them. If it’s over about ten weeks, the usual options are to bury or cremate them. When I had the miscarriage we decided to look at it to see if there was any form of a baby, because if there was, I wanted to bury it, but if there wasn’t, we would flush it… Only I didn’t want to because I knew it would traumatize me, but my husband doesn’t do well with needles or blood and he had to lie down so he didn’t faint. I asked my oldest daughter if she could help me and told her she didn’t need to if she felt it would traumatize her. She said it wouldn’t be a problem and I asked if she was sure again and again, and she said, yeah Mom, it’s not a problem. She was an absolute rockstar, and even said afterward she thought it was interesting. For me, it was traumatic like I thought, even though I pushed through it, but I wouldn’t want to do it again.
This is where bereavement doulas may be of help and I’ll include the link at the bottom of this page. I’m unsure if a doula’s scope of work includes looking for the baby for you after you have passed it, but they help you decide what arrangements to make for burial and other things so you may want to look into it. Friends or family members can also fill this role as long as you know they won’t be traumatized by it.
Since then, we’ve decided, if unfortunately it happens again, we’re not going to look for the baby if it’s not easily visible. No matter how big or small, no matter if we can see a form of a baby or not, we plan on rinsing it and placing the baby (and the placenta if they’re small enough and tangled up in the placenta like ours was) in a bottle with saline solution until burial.
If you decide to care for the baby yourself, put on the gloves and place the baby in the colander. Gently rinse off with cool water. If you’re afraid of damaging them, you can place cheese cloth or a thin towel in between them and the colander to provide a soft barrier. If they’re too small to see and you want to look for them, place them on the plate and gently use one or two Q-tips to search. The baby is usually an off white color and a stark contrast to the dark red placenta. Ours was in a small, clear sac. I was very hesitant to try and separate the baby from the placenta because he/she looked wrapped inside it and we didn’t want to damage them. The baby and placenta were small enough to put both in a jar filled with .9% saline solution I bought off Amazon to preserve until burial. We liked the Jar because of it being protected and preserved in the bottle and then even more when we place it in a box. I’ve also read from others they like it because the solution gives the baby color, more detail, and better shape. They also say the baby looks peaceful floating as they once were in the womb. In contrast, another option is to put it in a completely biodegradable container so it is able to naturally decompose with the earth.
Burial Containers, Boxes and Caskets
Some funeral homes give out free caskets for miscarriages as well as nonprofits which I looked into. The nonprofit said they wanted to donate one to us. He offered to call the funeral home and see if they recommended a cemetery that participated in free burials for miscarriages. I truly appreciated the time he took to do this because he wasn’t getting paid, but after about a week of waiting for answers, then not hearing from him, I felt like it was taking too long and even contemplated flushing them so the pain didn’t drag on. This is why it’s good to plan it out ahead of time so you don’t have a dark cloud hanging over you while arrangements are made. We decided we weren’t going to wait any longer and we ended up buying one.
I looked online and found some containers and caskets at heavensgain.org. I’ll include the link at the bottom of this page. I’m sure you could google it and lot of options would come up. You can choose from plastic and wood and they range in price from sixty-nine dollars to over four hundred. We also found wood boxes and biodegradable caskets on amazon. Many of them say for pet, but if those words don’t bother you and you want to go the biodegradable route, you can try that. We almost went with a wooden box on amazon, but I wanted to look at Hobby Lobby first as well as looking at their glass containers. I wanted something a little nicer than a mason jar but wasn’t impressed with the white, plastic-looking lids on heaven’s gain. It happened to be Friday which is our date night so we went to Hobby Lobby to look (saddest date ever). I expected we’d find something because of their large inventory, but it turned out we weren’t impressed with the choices of boxes we found in the isle. They were the raw wood boxes that you usually paint. Coincidently, we turned around and saw glass containers which were really pretty. There were many different styles and the lids on the containers we were were drawn to were silver, gold, or white. The lids were still plastic but they looked much nicer and the container was glass. We picked out two with gold lids so we could try their different sizes with the baby. We wandered through the isles and found bandanas that had many different colors and patterns. We found a pure white one that was beautiful and simple. We got four of them to wrap the bottle in and use as padding in the box . We eventually came upon some decorative boxes and found one we liked, then one we liked more, and then one we really liked. We wanted to seal the box with wood glue and this box would allow us to do that.
I was concerned the containers might leak, which they did a little. To fix this we put a bead of silicone around the top of the lid.
Where Should we Bury Our Baby?
This was another question we hadn’t decided on beforehand and has dragged out our pain. Knowing this beforehand will save you time so this doesn’t happen.
You can bury them on your own property, but if you ever sell, they might not be as accessible to visit in the future. Some people bury them in a cemetery. Some cemeteries have a designated spot for miscarriages that let you bury your baby for free. Your doctor or midwife may know who participates in this but if they don’t you may need to do some research. I imagine there are also some that have discreetly buried it in public places, like back in the woods where no one will ever find. This is illegal of course but I’m guessing some do it.
Our property backs up to a large commons area belonging to our neighborhood area but because it’s in the flood plain, no one can build on it. We decided to bury our baby on the back of our property next to the commons so we can visit it from the commons side if we ever move.
One very important thing I would suggest is setting aside the day and time you’re going to bury it. I felt like a dark cloud was hanging over us because it had been almost two weeks from the moment I miscarried until we buried the baby because of everything we needed to find answers for. We’d get things done as we got answers, but needless to say, we didn’t have a date or time. We had been invited in advance to someone’s house for dinner on Sunday. It also was the day that was less hectic so we decided that day to take family pictures with the box. There was no baby in the box because we were still waiting for the saline solution to arrive that day. We would have also buried the baby that evening after the saline had arrived, but we didn’t want to cancel on our friends. so the burial waited. Then Monday I went shopping for food in the afternoon and didn’t foresee not getting done until after sunset. Tuesday finally came and family was coming into town. We felt pressured to get it done before they came because we wanted it to be a private family event. That day I also had a counselor session scheduled and my husband had a meeting at work. I went back and forth through texts with my counselor to see if we could move it back all the while wrapping the baby, writing the letter to the baby, placing the baby in the box, taking pictures, etc. I ended up cancelling with my counselor and her replying saying I was going to have to pay the full session fee and to let me know when I’d like to reschedule. That was stressful as well as trying to push back my husbands meeting a half an hour so we could bury the baby, and getting done before his parents got into town an hour later. I wanted the burial to be the most peaceful and special part, but unfortunately it turned out to be the most stressful. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice and parts of it were special, but at one point (and I’m ashamed to say) I was so angry I wanted to throw the box across the field and walk home. But I didn’t. I still feel angry about most of the situation and I’m going to have to work through it. Long story short, I highly suggest picking a day and time for your special day and working everything else around that, not the other way around.
Another thing to consider is whether or not you want a photographer. My husband and I both agreed we wanted it private, so we decided to set up a tripod and take pictures on my phone, and if they didn’t look good to call a photographer and do the burial later (that dreaded word). It seemed to work out fine, although when the day of the burial came, my daughter took pictures for us and I would have liked to have let her experience the moment, although she didn’t seem to mind. An extended family member could also fill this role. Are you ok with phone pictures versus higher quality ones from a camera? Our thought was phones are getting so nice now days that we were fine with phone-quality photos, but you might think differently so keep that in mind.
It’s over now which is a relief, but the grief still remains. I imagine it will take some time, or a long time. Who knows. Grieving doesn’t have a timeline for which I am grateful. For the moment I’m happy to hopefully have helped someone who’s struggling with what to do in their miscarriage, and I’m content with that.
You can take a look at all the links below and read our miscarriage story. If you have any other questions I can help you with, you can contact me through the contact us link or email link at the top. And I’d be honored to hear your story if you’d like to share. You can comment below or contact me from the contact us or email link at the top of the blog.
Dates medical study links here and here.
Buy miscarriage kits here.
Buy containers and caskets through heaven’sgain.org here.
Read about bereavement doulas here.
Loss and grief in pregnancy support group click here and scroll down to register.
Pregnancy loss Counselors click here.