Pregnancy Loss Awareness

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last entry, This Is My Miscarriage. It is somehow comforting and yet madly saddening to hear about the stories of others: on one hand, I can be grateful that I am not alone and that there are others who understand; but on the other hand, it's upsetting to hear that these things happen to anyone, let alone so many women.

I was surprised, honestly, that I only got one male responder, and that was my husband. I didn't mean for my last entry to be for women only, but it seems like it turned out that way. I've spoken to a few men about their experiences after miscarriage, so I know that they are out there and that it can deeply affect them too. But as much as women are discouraged from grieving their losses for "too long" (whatever that means), I suppose that men are probably even more discouraged from showing their grief at all.

I discovered an article called Mourning My Miscarriage a few days ago. It details the author's miscarriage experience in Japan, where there are temples for women and families to publicly honor and mourn their pregnancy losses. It's a good read, and it's interesting to see the difference in attitudes towards pregnancy loss in Japanese and Western culture. Personally, I do wish that we had the same thing or something similar over here.

I still have a lot of mixed feelings over my last post. Part of me is glad to have gotten it out there, but part of me feels like I should have just kept my mouth shut. I don't think that most people want to hear about pregnancy loss because it's sad and confusing, and people don't want to be sad and confused. So how do you raise awareness amongst a population that, by and large, really doesn't want to know any more about the subject?

There are awareness movements for almost any disorder, syndrome, illness, or mishap that could befall an innocent person. Is there really a place for a Pregnancy Loss Awareness movement? And if so, would anyone listen? Would it even help?

I've still got a lot to think about.