We've all been asked difficult or painful questions, some more painful than others. What is the best way to shut down these inquiries quickly and politely?
Hello Lizzie and Dan,
I'm a mother to a wonderful eighteen-month-old girl. In February, I suffered a rather traumatic miscarriage with my second child. It is true that our society doesn't know how to react to a loss that has never been.
But in general, I found people to be supportive with the exception of my parents. My parents were incredibly angry with me that I opted out of a family get together because I had to have emergency surgery.
This experience has made me wary about telling other family members about my loss. I was always very open about wanting a large family and my daughter is in an age that everyone seems to be asking me about a sibling. Questions such as "Are you pregnant yet?" or "When is Olivia getting a little brother?" are a daily occurrence. These come from both people who know and don't know about my loss. While I no longer cry when asked the question, I need a short answer to make people realize that they do not have the right to know about the state of my uterus.
My husband thinks it's all well-meaning especially from people who don't know about my miscarriage but it causes an incredible amount of pain for me. I need to shut it down without being rude. Should I have a different response to both groups?
Any help will be most welcome.
The answer:
Miscarriage is a really hard thing to deal with and it is hard because you don't always want to tell everybody. It's really hard when you have talked a lot about wanting a big family and then you have one child because it makes it okay for people to ask about future children.
People have good intentions about wanting to connect with you about something that is positive in your life. At the same time, if they don't know what happened you can't hold it against them and if they do know what happened they're trying to get to the positive side of things for you.
It's so hard when you're not ready to hear any of these things or talk about it and you have every right to be able to say straight up "I'd really rather not talk about it right now." You can also acknowledge that their intention is probably coming from a place of being encouraging. Saying "I don't want to talk about it right now but I know you're coming from a great place" lets people know you understand their intentions.
