970x125
I was a guest on a recording for a workshop series about maternal and reproductive loss last month with a colleague from Australia. We were talking about these uncomfortable, often unaddressed but not so unusual losses, including miscarriage, stillbirth, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and infertility. We wanted to examine how this fits with my work on maternal ambivalence.
My colleague’s own experience is both inspiring and shocking. Even though she was interviewing me about maternal ambivalence, I urged her to start with her story—a way to set the tone for us.
She and her husband have four children. Their first daughter, who was stillborn, would be 23 years old now; the second child, a son, is now 22; the third child, a son, died from SIDS, and would be 19; and their youngest is a 16-year-old daughter.
She recounted the loss of two children in a voice that was clear and at times faltering. The lump in my throat and my respect for her were intensifying by the minute.
She talked with such passion and earnestness about her experiences and her decision to set up an organization to help other couples with their losses. Together, we put the words to describe what these mums endure every day as they face the turmoil of their inner and outer world, the complexities that weigh them down, their sustained feelings of grief, and how the silences and misunderstanding that exist around these particular losses often magnify their pain.
Our dialogue was punctured with questions such as:
- How do I hold myself, my marriage, and my family together as I attempt to absorb the pain and shock of my new reality?
- How do I keep my remaining children safe? Daily doubts and fears that something will happen to my living child plague me constantly. While all mums worry about this, it’s like on steroids for some who have gone through this already.
- How do I let go of my living children and ensure that I help them grow and lead regular lives when I’m constantly living with fears about keeping them safe? How do I hold my own fears rather than transmitting them?
- How do I keep the memory of my nonliving child alive as a part of my family? And where do I place him or her emotionally and actually?
- How do I manage the discussion with my living child/children? How do I explain that one day he/she has a sibling, and the next day the sibling is gone? Do I tell the whole truth? What is the consequence of a partial truth for the family?
As I’m processing all this, my mind is buzzing with more questions. How do these mums get up every day? How do they empower themselves after such a loss? How do they mother their living children? The invisibility of these losses, such as miscarriage and infertility, is so nuanced.
Maternal Ambivalence
We move into our shared area of interest, the linking of my work on maternal ambivalence to these losses. I return to the fundamentals to guide me.
Maternal ambivalence rests on subscribing to flow rather than rigidity. Expression such as self-compassion, messiness, welcoming, openness, surrender, and leaning into and learning from mistakes embodies its essence.
Flow is at odds with rigid feelings such as guilt, shame, isolation, and judgment. Inflexible ideals of mothering are often tied to the unattainable goal of reaching for perfection, which also undermines the mother’s humanity and sense of herself while strengthening her feelings of inadequacy. These often leave the mother second-guessing herself.
Then we get to the core of maternal ambivalence: The mother’s capacity to own all her feelings, the bitter and the loving ones, and to value, rather than neglect, the difficult, despairing ones. It is a challenging and reparative energy to hold together and to make use of these often conflicting emotions.
While all mothers experience maternal ambivalence, it is extra challenging for a mother who has experienced reproductive and maternal loss to admit to her everyday anguish, to give herself the right to be cranky, tired, and fed up with her mothering while she knows at the same time how lucky she is to hold her living child. How does she permit herself any dark, despondent feelings?
How does she integrate painful anniversary days, memories that take her back to her raw loss, and keep mothering normally at the same time? Needing space to grieve the past and continue with her present life? Holding on and letting go simultaneously?
Then we touched on the highly sensitive area of those women who never become mothers; what happens to them? Their feelings of longing, hopelessness, and heartache. My colleague is comforted knowing that she was pregnant and a mother to her nonliving child, even for a very limited time. This mindset doesn’t work for everyone.
This is both a compelling and tough subject. I am, in part, lost for words, and equally, I am full of questions.
Suitable Language Needed
What is clear is that we need a suitable language. We need to lift the taboo; we need to grant women the time they need to heal in the knowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all. We need more open conversations and more curiosity. We need to encourage these mums to surround themselves with those who support them, who they feel safe with, and who give them energy and permission to be themselves, other mums who my colleague calls my “tribe.”
We must name these experiences, give them a place, and admit that we don’t yet know how to talk about reproductive and maternal losses.
