Appropriate Grief Response

During my pregnancy loss counselling session last week, I was told that pregnancy loss grief intensity is not proportional to length of gestation, but to each individual’s reproductive story.  The counsellor, A., also told me that my feelings are normal and that she would be concerned if I wasn’t feeling the way I have been.

At the end of the session, A. gave me a handout which outlined the appropriate expectations of the grieving process.  I have found it helpful and wanted to share it with you.  As per the copyright permission at the bottom of the sheet, I sought written permission from the author to reproduce the content here, as I thought it would benefit a lot of people reading this. The author, SIDS of Illinois, Inc., very kindly me granted permission to do so.

All Copyright is © 2005 Sudden Infant Death Services of Illinois. All Rights Reserved. No information may be duplicated without Sudden Infant Death Service of Illinois’s permission.

Appropriate Expectations You Can Have Yourself in Grief

Evaluate yourself on each on of the following and see if you are maintaining realistic expectations for yourself.  You can expect that:

Your grief will take longer than most people think.

Your grief will take more energy than you would have ever imagined.

Your grief will show itself in all sphere of your life: psychological, social, and physical.

Your grief will depend on how you perceive the loss.

You will grieve for what you have lost already and for what you have lost for the future.

Your grief will entail mourning, not only for the actual person you lost but, also, for all the hopes, dreams, unfulfilled expectations you have for and with that persona, and for the needs that will go unmet because of the death.

The loss will resurrect old issues, feelings, and unresolved conflicts from the past.

You will have some identity confusion as a result of this major loss, and the fact that you are experiencing reactions that may be quite different for you.

You may have a combination of anger and depression, such as irritability, frustration, annoyance, or intolerance.

You will feel some anger and guilt, or at least some manifestation of these emotions.

You may have a lack of self-concern.

You may experience grief spasms, acute upsurges of grief that occur suddenly with no warning.

You will have trouble thinking (memory, organization and intellectual processing) and making decisions.

You may feel like you are going crazy.

You may be obsessed with death and preoccupied with the deceased.

You may begin a search for meaning and may questions your religious and/or philosophy of life.

You may find yourself acting socially in ways that are different from before.

You may find yourself having a number of physical reactions.

Society will have unrealistic expectations about your mourning and responding inappropriately to you.

You may find that there are certain dates, events, and stimuli that bring upsurges in grief.

Certain experiences later in life may resurrect intense grief for you temporarily.

♥

I know I have experienced almost all of these things on this list. How about you? If you’ve never lost a pregnancy, who have you grieved?  What helped you move forward with your pain?