How do you respond when you learn a friend or family member had a miscarriage?
Your response to learning someone had a miscarriage can tell a lot about your pro-life convictions.
In order to be better witnesses to the dignity of the unborn, all pro-lifers should check themselves.
WE MUST BE CONSISTENT
I would hope we all would say we respond with sorrow and empathy. Sadly, I don’t think that is the case. But why not?
Too often we don’t bat an eye, much less shed a tear for a miscarried baby.
We ought to treat the event like a death in the family—because that is exactly what it is!
If you don’t see why, or you don’t agree, then I invite you to draw a parallel to the holocaust of abortion. Maybe then we can come to an agreement.
As pro-lifers, we mourn the loss of countless babies killed daily to abortion. And for good reason. But what is that reason?
Is it because the unborn being slaughtered are merely potential human beings? No, clearly not.
The unborn children are real human persons. They possess real souls. They are unrepeatable human beings, whose lives can never be replaced.
Does that description not fit every unborn child?
As pro-lifers, we mourn the loss of lives to children belonging to parents who are strangers to us, by and large. Yet, those who inform us of their miscarriage are known to us personally.
The baby they lost when they had a miscarriage is perhaps your niece. The baby was not “going to be” your niece. She is your niece (or granddaughter, or cousin, etc.).
If you are not related to the miscarried baby’s parents, still perhaps that baby would have grown up to be on your son’s baseball team. Maybe that baby lost was going to be your daughter’s best friend.
When we think of the tragedy of miscarriage in this way, we will hopefully gain a deeper sorrow for the loss of life of miscarried babies.
Take it from me, trying to fulfill our corporeal work of mercy of burying the dead, right after losing your own child, can be stressful. It would alleviate a lot of stress to know someone already knows just what to do!
PRACTICAL STEPS YOU CAN TAKE
By mourning the loss of every unborn baby, we all grow a stronger pro-life witness.
Here are some suggestions for ways to be more cognizant of the loss of life due to miscarriage.
1. Express empathy when you learn a friend or family member has a miscarriage.
Beyond praying for parents who have had a miscarriage, you can offer to do more for them.
You should tell them you are sorry for the passing of their child. You could offer to cook for them, or to watch any of their offer children, so they can properly mourn for some time.
You could buy them flowers or do some other token to express your grief.
2. Include your miscarried babies in the numbering of your children.
You get stopped at the Church or at the grocery store and you are asked, “So, how many kids do you have?” Do you remember to count any children you lost to miscarriage?
So often miscarried babies do not even get counted in a person’s numbering of their children. If their own parents won’t remember them or talk about them, who will?
Which leads me to #3…
3. Be willing to discuss past miscarriages you or others have had.
Perhaps you know you lost a sibling to a miscarriage. Have you ever talked to your parents about your brother or sister? What was the baby’s name?
When we are willing to discuss our miscarriages, it welcomes healing and can be liberating.
4. Try to get miscarried babies buried.
If a baby was far enough along in gestation, hospitals may permit the parents to bring the miscarried baby home with them. This was the case, when my wife and I lost our twin boys at 18 weeks.
We were able to get them buried in the local, Catholic cemetery… But not without a lot of effort on my part to sort it all out.
A ministry you could take upon yourself is to contact your closest Catholic cemetery and find out everything you can about how they treat miscarried babies.
How much does it cost to bury a miscarried or stillborn baby? Where do they get buried at the cemetery? What funeral services are offered? How quickly can such arrangements be made? Can the baby’s body be transported to the cemetery from the hospital, if needed? These are the questions someone needs to know the answer to.
Then, let every local Catholic parish and parish group know that such a ministry is in place. Become the contact person. Or else, know who is.
That way, in the future, if a couple loses a baby to miscarriage, you can direct them.
Take it from me, trying to fulfill our corporeal work of mercy of burying the dead, right after losing your own child, can be stressful. It would alleviate a lot of stress to know someone already knows just what to do!
5. Do an annual commemoration.
Have a grave stone at the cemetery to mark your child’s life and death. If the baby was too small to be buried, put a marker of some kind, like a cross, in your backyard.
Once a year, on the anniversary of the baby’s passing or maybe on what would have been the baby’s birthday, commemorate his death.
VIDEO OF OUR TWINS WE LOST
As a bonus, here is the video made by the ministry, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, following the loss of our twin boys, Moses and Nathan. They are two of the five babies my wife and I have lost to miscarriage.
YOUR TURN
Do you agree such responses like these to someone who has had a miscarriage will add consistency to our pro-life message?
Do you have more suggestions of how to commemorate the passing of miscarried babies?
Please share any thoughts you have, below!
