12 Ways Surviving A Miscarriage Makes Your Relationship Stronger
byChrissy Bobic
When I got pregnant for the
first time, it was after just a few months of actively trying to conceive. Our positive test came just in time
to make a Christmas announcement to pretty much everyone who was important to
me and my husband. I was only about six weeks along when Christmas came around, and we knew well enough
that the general rule is to wait until your first trimester is over before telling other people that you're pregnant, but we
also figured that we had a fine chance of having a pregnancy where nothing went
wrong at all. Famous last words, right? In our excitement (and the convenience of having our loved ones assembled for the holidays), we told people.
It just so happened that we lost the
pregnancy on Christmas day, making
for a holiday spent in the hospital, followed by Chinese food that barely had a
taste and an evening alone together. But by the time all ways said and done, we learned that your relationship after a miscarriage can be even stronger than it was before.
Despite the research that
supports couples growing apart after experiencing a miscarriage, my husband and
I never pulled away from each other. Just like parenting our son brought
even closer together as a unit, so did experiencing the loss of our first
pregnancy. While I probably felt it much differently than my husband did, as I sat listening to the
doctor, my face puffy from a day's worth of crying and feeling so stupid in one
of those hospital gowns that never freaking close properly, we still ultimately went
through the loss together.
Because no one else knows
exactly what you're going through when you survive a miscarriage, your partner
may be the one person you'll feel most comfortable talking to about the loss and your
feelings surrounding it. And since it's likely a new kind of loss for you
both, there is a kind of "bonding" that happens as you try to make
sense of it all together and move forward, both individually and as a couple. Here's how jointly navigating this painful experience can actually make your relationship so much stronger: