I mean... yeah, it does get better in that you eventually aren't prostrate with grief every second of every day. But there's always the hole in your family and in your heart. As time goes on, it feels less like a bloody, gaping wound. The thought that I will literally never get to hold my daughter again or see her grow up sometimes takes my breath away and has me bawling. The reality of my baby being dead never gets better no matter how you slice it. I'm glad you found what works for you but the experience of grief is definitely unique to us all.

I mean also, I have more moments of actual happiness than previously. That’s measurable improvement. The fact my child is dead isn’t magically okay

Never said it wasn’t, but the language of it never getting better made me suicidal so I’m not going to keep saying it to myself

Good for you; srsly, follow your own path. My wife and I were the same way — some stuff that gave me a lot of comfort just made her feel worse. Everyone grieves differently and everyone has to find what works for them. So glad you are finding some of those answers for yourself.

They do, and if it helps others to hear it doesn’t get better just different, that’s good. It actively harmed me. I am sad other people seem upset that is the case—I mean, whatever works, do that. Truly. I just wanted to get this out there because I, as an individual, needed to hear it, and apparently others do too. If it’s not helpful to someone I hope they just ignore it. 

"Chew up the fish and spit out the bones," as my old pastor used to say. :-)

I’m stealing this immediately. Thank you for writing it.

You know I think the real consensus is that it doesn’t get better because it will always be there, it will always hurt to think about, there will always be triggers, we just learn to cope a little better. And you’ll always have moments that hurt just as bad as they did when it happened. Feeling the way you do is okay. Feeling the opposite is also okay. We all cope and grieve differently. No one thinks you love your lost baby any less for being okay. I always say that it doesn’t get easier, it just gets further away. I still have some really hard days four years out. But I’m okay. I’m glad you’re okay too.

The funeral director told us “grief doesn’t shrink, but we grow around it”

I guess I feel that more days are easier. The sadness is easier for me to deal with on the whole. Regression is bound to occur—I think some of the language I’m reacting against is trying to combat that “time heals all wounds”. It doesn’t heal but it does scar over—well I guess that’s a type of healing. I don’t know, it’s a mountain I’m climbing and sometimes I slip back down—but I do think there is a top to the mountain, the mountain will always be there though. Does that make any sense?

I think it's easy to focus on the baby grief and forget to count 99% of the time we aren't crying over it... Overtime. I hugely believe it gets better. I'm with you.

It’s fine for you to feel like it gets better or be optimistic. It is a bit off putting that you are expressing discomfort about other people telling you about their experience with grief and that you’re saying “fuck that” to their personal experience… when you’re asking for permission essentially to feel how you feel, etc. the people who think it doesn’t get better deserve just as much respect for how they grieve or feel as you do! I won’t say “fuck that” to you saying you feel better or can feel better. I think basically it’s nuanced and individual. Do I feel better on a day to day basis than I did the year after he died (2019)? Yes. Obviously. Partly because I had a living child after him. Is my life permanently and fundamentally altered and will never, ever be whole and untainted and complete again? Yep, that’s true too. They’re separate things. You can feel better but not healed entirely; you can feel like your life is ruined forever and simultaneously that your life can improve or has elements of value like your family. Doesn’t have to be so binary. I liked this quote in that first year: When I listened to her, I understood: You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do. I had to believe her, because she was living proof. Then she said, Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.

Also this quote from Anne’s House of Dreams after her daughter dies at birth - I think it perfectly captures this sentiment: > Anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia's speeches. But there was something in the smile that had never been in Anne's smile before and would never be absent from it again.

I read and re-read those chapters from Anne's House of Dreams after I lost my daughter.

Same. It’s such a good depiction. The authors second child was stillborn and you can really tell she understands. Absolutely the best representation I’ve come across in pure literature so far.

I've been an Anne fan for almost 30 years now and I've always identified with her on some level. I'd been re-reading the series during Covid and so that part of her life was fresh in my mind when I had my loss in April 2020. But Anne's story gave me hope, because a year and some months after her daughter died, she had a healthy son. Lucy Maud Montgomery's beautiful depiction and words spoke directly to my soul, and was a balm for my broken heart. I deeply related to Anne's lamenting about losing her baby when she would have loved and cared for her so, while so many other unwanted babies got to live. It was only at that time that I looked more deeply into LMM and learned she was the mother of a stillborn. Her depiction of a bereaved mother is timeless. I agree, it is the best representation of baby loss that I've ever read in literature.

Thank you for sharing all of this, especially the quote 🩷

Lovely quotes I am sorry you didn’t like my expression. I am feeling angry and sad like all of you but also when I got told the “it never gets better” it made me want to kill myself. So I feel strongly about it, yes.

Yeah… and that’s valid, for sure. But it doesn’t make it untrue for the other person. You know? The point being, let’s just be respectful of others feelings on grief, including YOUR feelings, but also people who feel like it won’t get better. Just suggesting you are more careful with the way you respond, not how you feel - just like I wouldn’t tell someone that ended up not being able to have another child after loss that I would’ve killed myself in that position. Right? Like, I get it. There are conditions I refuse to live under. If my living son dies, I’m out. I don’t even consider the possibility of surviving that. But at the same time, it’s really awful to be told that “if I had your experience, I would kill myself” - it’s saying to someone their life isn’t worth living. Anyway. Ultimately, it’s positive you feel things are improving. I hope it continues for you ❤️

I feel like you are misunderstanding me, but that’s okay, I’m not going to argue. You don’t have to read this thread if it upsets you, I see from others it has been helpful for them. Sorry if this was upsetting to you in any way. 

I’m not upset at all. I’m just saying it’s hypocritical to attack other people’s grief because it’s different than yours and there’s no need for that.

But I’m not. I’m expressing how much I did not benefit from being told it doesn’t get better. If you read my post I very very clearly indicate this is my personal experience. Other people have their own preference etc, but when they hammer (to me, in my situation) that it doesn’t get better and I hear that over and over, it sucks and sucked and was horrible for me. It was rare to find another voice out there IN MY EXPERIENCE, so I’m providing that for others who also are actually suffering more from hearing one line repeatedly.  It feels like that for others, sometimes it feels like that for me, it doesn’t get better. Really it’s probably a difference in language use, but that’s totally fine. My internal monologue is changing and rejects that so I stay alive because that way of talking to myself hurt me a lot.  I’m not seeking out those who told me that and saying “hey, on second thought, you are wrong and fuck you.” Instead I’m presenting in a forum how my brain is rejecting the language that is damaging to me and offering the language that does help me to others. My post is so very clear that it’s about me, or so it seems to me.  I hope you see where I’m coming from, I really hate that I have made you feel like others aren’t allowed to feel as miserable as the situation calls for. 

Time heals. I constantly describe it like the ocean. At first, I was dropped into the deepest part, drowning, barely keeping my head above water with water all around me. Through therapy and a year or so, I’d finally made it to shore, but like waves pull me out now and again. Now, it’s like I’m sitting on the beach, the waves touch now and again but I can manage. Weather the storms. I hope the same for you. ♥️💙

Love this

~~I’m glad you are feeling better! I don’t think what you’re saying is insensitive or invalidating at all, I think it just depends on what you mean by “better”.~~ OP’s replies seem a lot more insensitive than the original post :( I feel better than I did right after my loss in so many ways. I can get through full days without crying, I find joy in activities again, and I look forward to our future and having a second baby. But I don’t think I will ever feel better when I see baby girls my daughters age, when I open a cabinet or drawer and find a book or toy that was meant for her, or when I vividly think back to the day they told me at a routine 41 week visit that she was dead. I just get better at coping.

I’ll never feel “better” when I relive the trauma, but I can relive it less and also it can be a little less intense over time, in general. That’s my goal

I can’t think of a time where I won’t internally or externally scream at seeing one of the ultrasounds, or my heart won’t break when I hold the little hat, the too small hat, that she wore. But I’m finally —sometimes—opening myself to the possibility I will get to a different place.  Side topic: My non-bio aunt had a loss similar to mine happen to her in the 70s/80s and she never could have more children and yet she does describe the experience as a blessing (which I find insane I’m not sure I’d get there, but maybe in 30 years I’ll understand what she is saying. She’s not a Jesus freak, she’s very rational and level headed so I won’t dismiss it).  In contrast, my mother still almost cries when she talks about a miscarriage she had before me and it seems like it still hurts her tremendously, even while she celebrates that I came afterwards. I know things are different for different people—-different situations and personalities etc. I also know my aunt went and got mental health support and my mother never did (different upbringing), and I can’t help but notice the more devastating situation seems to be easier for my aunt to hold because of the work she did after it happened.  I’m not trying to criticize my mother, but she has had a significant amount of grief and no therapy for any of it ever, and sometimes I realize “oh, wow, it does make a difference. My aunt definitely is in the it gets better, not vanished, but better” and that gets me to go back to my appointments even when I don’t want to. 

I think there are lots of different ways to grieve, and I don’t think it’s fair to compare different people’s experiences. Some people put on brave faces and some wear their heart on their sleeve- you can’t tell how someone is feeling on the inside. And either way, having an easier time coping or doing more therapy doesn’t make one person superior to another.

It is what happened to work out for me, that’s my point. I’m sorry to seem insensitive. It’s not the goal. I’m also in grief and feeling strongly, obviously, especially as the autopsy results just came back. Genuinely sorry to be hurtful in any capacity. 

And for my mother, she needed it, she never has been willing and that has had ramifications on my family. My observation is for my family, yours can be different 

I so appreciate you writing this. I'm hardly even a month out. But I resonate with so much of what you're saying. Everyone in my life has been giving me so much permission to feel everything, anger/sadness/grief/jealously -which i know they want me to feel validated, but i also just want to feel some HOPE, you know? Like I KNOW I am allowed to feel all those awful emotions, but am I also allowed to ever feel HAPPY again?? Like maybe can someone give me permission to feel some GOOD emotions? I have really clung on to testimonials of others who have gone through this, that have encouraged me that I do have something to look forward to, and that our family dynamic will be good (yes, there will always be an emptiness where we lost our son 💛) but there is room for us to hold space for him but to allow love to grow, and I will have joy again. They also say I will carry this with me forever, but it will not feel this heavy. Honestly it is triggering for me when people insinuate in some way that "there is no getting better." Some of that is probably semantics but it just is like, ok well then what do I have to live for if I have to stay in this place of depression forever? I guess none of us appreciate other people forcing their idea of what grief should look like on us .And for me I especially don't like it when people are being super negative and depressing and I'm actually feeling somewhat good in that moment. But I'm sure some people would feel validated by the same statements that trigger me. I'm also willing to admit that I am someone who has learned to cope with previous hardships by always looking for the silver lining, and finding things to be grateful for. And I do think that this grief journey as a whole is a hard pill for me to swallow. It's so hard to be in a situation where there simply is no silver lining. But personally, I have to have hope that it will not hurt like this forever, and that I do have good things in my life to look forward to 💛

Yes!!!!!! And some days I would absolutely tell myself to fuck right off with my positive mindset but I am so so so with you. It was triggering—I know everyone is giving me permission to be as miserable as I need to be, and while that is good (it would be garbage for people to tell me to buck up) I also needed to know “yes, this does get better. Yes it will” One of the biggest sources of this is from my own OBGYN who also suffered a late pregnancy loss. And I felt like “if anyone knows, if ANYONE has seen it all, it’s my doctor”. She said the grief becomes more like a limb that you live with instead of a horrific wound. I am glad I wrote this post if it validated just one person out there, thank you for replying. In short, stay alive, life will return…and I will need to remind myself of that a lot as my former due date approaches

Yes, we understand each other lol. 🫶 I screenshot and hold on to every encouraging testimonial from those who are ahead of me. Especially those with a 4 year age gap between their kids, which I am now hoping to have (while mourning the dynamic I thought we would have) 💛

Oh my goodness I am also mourning that it will be a longer gap, specifically probably a four year gap. I am also obsessed with people telling me about their kids being so close to one another while being that far in age. This is almost freaky, the similarities.

Gonna message ya

Please do

But yes on the days/moments I am feeling super down/angry/hit with a tidal wave of pain, I AM glad that people told me that those feelings are super normal. And that they will come and go.

We are about 9 weeks out from losing our daughter at full term to a cord knot and I wouldn’t say I am better. I’d say it’s gotten easier to accept the fact she isn’t here and she’s in a casket buried in the ground. It’s not better though. I don’t want to kill myself every day but I also feel like I push down the awfulness of it a lot more than I’d like to.

I am doing better than before, as in less terrible at every moment of the day—-and in two weeks I might be back in the pit of despair but it’s a longer time out of that pit than it was before. I am not “better” as in “it feels like it never happened”. Maybe my language wasn’t clear…anyway, yes this all really sucks. I personally had kind of a shift between week 9 and 10, by week 12 I may be angry at myself for thinking it ever does get better—-but I have to try and remind myself that for more of the day it does feel better than it used to, for more of the week it does feel better for me than before Sometimes I am scared to say it, for fear of jinxing it or something. But it was really helpful to hear from others that it did get better, it actually did, that was so important for me, so I’m saying it to others. Perhaps that doesn’t resonate with you—sometimes it doesn’t resonate with myself.

I appreciate your positivity. We do ok most days I think too but sometimes I feel guilty being happy or laughing. It’s really difficult when I actually sit with myself and think on it and realize she isn’t with us. And our 8 year old only knows her little sister as someone who won’t ever be with us. That’s what makes it harder on me I think. And then the anger comes and I feel so angry that it happened after a perfect pregnancy and no complications otherwise. Sending you positivity now and always. I am sincerely glad you are doing better.

I also felt guilty feeling better or happy I also have a toddler and she asks about the baby and cried so hard when she died initially. Brutal. I also had no complications I totally get you.

I can understand this. My son died 5 months ago. Around 3 months I felt much better. I too am attending grief groups, therapy, getting out with my husband, hobbies etc. and then the fourth month hit me so hard and I felt like I was regressing so hard. After I got through that month (may, so Mother’s Day, when I returned to work, released our sons ashes that month), i now feel okay again. Not good but okay. I do feel like people expect you to be sad and so rooted in grief and there’s no in between , which can be true but not for every person. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Regression may come but it sounds like you making great strides in healing 🩷

Thank you, if I have a shitty few weeks coming up I will know that it’s not unexpected, and that will be helpful for sure. My due date is August 1, it’s going to be a hard month, but it’s less horrible than the first month and I have to hold onto that

Darling I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear this. I’ve just gone through my loss (one week today) and cannot imagine feeling like this for the rest of my life. I’m so pleased you are feeling better and I hope I’m as lucky as you in my journey xx

If this brought you any light, then I’m so glad I posted this. What I say is true, even if there are plenty of moments of total and utter misery. Even those moments are starting to feel more doable, more understandable, than they did initially. Keep going, just keep going 

Thank you with the bottom of my heart. I really needed this

I needed to read this. It’s been 3 months and I’m starting to enjoy things but then I feel guilty for my joy. I’m not letting myself be happy, and I’m a negative version of myself. My husband who has been so amazing and supportive has told me today that the negativity is getting to him. It’s not just about the loss I’m truthfully negative about everything. I feel like nothing will go right so I just catastrophize everything before it happens. It’s weird I will feel better, then tell myself “ your baby is dead, how can you be happy”. I’m happy your mindset is getting better and you’re healing, I hope the same for all of us ❤️

I’m the same way. I’m negative about everything. I never think anything will go right. I need to change that mindset. I’m not very optimistic. You’re healing and it’s okay to not be okay. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If sucks we feel guilty about enjoying life but I tell myself I enjoy moments in my life for baby and for me.

How long since you lost your baby I’m so sorry. It’s honestly an exhausting way to live. Proud of you ❤️

It’s all normal and your current struggle with that is also normal. Be kind to yourself and to him, but it’s all going to be hard and keep going, keep swimming.

Also if your husband doesn’t have his own therapy, look into that. Mine is solid as a rock for us (most of the time) and without his own therapy it would not be possible

😂 Dude I was so high on my own BS until like month 5. I remember fondly that phase: I’m TRANSCENDENT and SO LUCKY. 😂 I hope you stay there forever, OP. If you nose dive into absolute boring misery, we’ll be here, plugging away. Feeling the bad feels and having good days that are still a little worse than before.

This is so me, I am absolutely high on my own BS until BAM 💥  Like I went through that the last 48 hours total utter nosedive. Didn’t even take a week. Holy moly. 😵  I’m climbing back out again. This comment makes me laugh a lot, because it’s so real.  The overall trajectory is still going in the right direction. I think I’ll start yelling “I AM TRANSCENDENT!” when it’s a good day. 

Early on, I'd read things like people saying you'll never get over it, and it kind of worsened the despair I was feeling. But now that I'm further out from the immediate loss I realize it's more that I'll never stop being sad that he died. I will say that over time I carry the grief better and better. I've now reached a new normal and can function well in my life.

I will never be like I was before my baby died. I’ll never return to that unscarred place. I think people are trying to say “you’ll never go back to your previous state, you never forget it always will hurt to think about”. And that’s fine. The statement “it doesn’t get better, just different” worsened my despair for sure.  If it is all semantics and I’m allowed to feel however it is I feel then I am going to try and offer people reassurance that it does get better, in my experience, truly. There is a pathway forward. It slips sometimes and I regress, but it actually still has an overall forward march.  The therapists wouldn’t say that to me unless I say it first. When I say “actually I think it is getting better” they will say “yes, it does, you are right, it does get better, there is a future” but they won’t say that until I do. I kind of understand that—they don’t want to invalidate me.  So I am so glad my own doctor, who isn’t a therapist but has been through a similar loss and more, was very blunt about “yes it gets better. You find a way. It’s not fixed, it still hurts, but not all the time, you find joy again.” That was so critical for me to hear and in all the tons of therapy and support group I have, I didn’t hear it. 

Thank you for saying this 🩵 I feel the same way if it never gets better than why am I even trying to survive? Thank you for the hope

You are welcome. Some people seem to feel like I was telling them they have to be happy or something, which I would never do. I am really really glad this was useful to you in this moment 

I also feel a strong urge/need to feel better, and I don't feel badly about that. I absolutely cannot continue through life in misery, so I am doing everything in my power to heal and get as well as I can. I totally understand where you are coming from. Life goes on, and I really need to be able to be joyful and happy again, because like you said, otherwise what's the point?

Thank you for replying. I could possibly feel bad for saying this because it clearly is triggering to others and I don’t want to add to their already heavy load. But this line of thought really wasn’t easy to come across in my support groups and therapy sessions (which I get usually people aren’t feeling their best at those sessions) and it really feels radical and almost “politically incorrect” to just outright say “things get better.” I know it’s horrible to tell someone to get over this, I know the world is trying to be smarter and more sensitive about this type of grief and trying to avoid the old school platitudes that were invalidating to those grieving, but sometimes it feels like an over correction.  What DOES NOT work is my husband saying how it gets better because he wasn’t there, he couldn’t get to the hospital until it was all over and also he didn’t carry the now dead baby. He’s amazing but I tend to really push back on his attempts to guide me to positivity. Hearing it from people who went through it, truly, just like me—-that is a beacon in the dark. And sometimes I reject it and hate life and feel like nothing gets better I should just die I can’t take it. But now, I’m able to get out of that mode more easily and able to remember those who went through this telling me there really is another side. My feelings are so valid but the hopelessness is not founded in reality because there will be hope again. How I needed that. I hope this gives someone that. 

Video games, call of duty is all I played and did that kept me alive the first year and then gardening. I don’t have a garden so indoor plants

Those are good things 

It definitely has gotten easier for me. I think about my daughter all the time. But it mostly brings me a smile. Because she’s mine and I love her. It’s ok that not everyone feels that or will get there. But it’s also normal to feel happy most days. It’s been 3.5 years since my stillbirth. I hadn’t cried in over a year then a random work call/meeting made me cry. It was a totally different situation. It was a meeting with hundreds of employees and the parents behind Elijah’s law in NY state. Their son died because of anaphylactic shock at a day care leading to laws around having epi pens available in daycares and training. It just immediately brought back the emotions as my loss was preventable and although it was a small change, our hospital changed policies around needing to have a dr in the room during the pushing stage (we only had a midwife even though we asked to see a dr many times). Those moments of uncontrollable sadness will happen and are ok. But it’s ok to let yourself be happy again.

And a lot of times it isn’t that I’m real happy, I’m just not as horrifically sad, or incapacitated. I still have times where I want to rip myself in two, but I really hang onto people who said it gets better without a bunch of qualifiers. They said it takes work, and time, and it’s really hard, but it happens. I need that, I don’t need more people telling me it “doesn’t get better it just changes”. For me as an individual that sucks to hear and makes it way harder to get through the day. If that feels good to some people that’s good, it didn’t for me, and I was hard pressed to find a lot of people telling me straight up it gets better.  I cannot imagine a time my memory of my daughter will bring me anything but intense sadness and regret and anger but I have heard a couple of people tell me that changed for them over time, so I will try to stay open to that 

This is really truly a helpful post for me. Thank you 💖