How are things going? How do you talk to each other? What is it like for you?

Jason and I don't talk much about things anymore. I'll ask occasionally or he will, how the other is doing. When something comes up, we talk. But if I'm honest, I don't usually quite know where he is. He often feels like he has to be my rock and I think he tucks his pain away.

But I know he feels it and acutely - I said something last night about no one remembering and he immediately said what I'd been thinking but left unsaid - that tomorrow (today) is 6 months. And he talked about how much he still misses Gabe.

I just wonder how it goes for others.

Good question.

Us, we talk about everything else, and he knows I'm still having a horrible time trying to come to terms with this. And he supports me as much as he can... but I don't think he knows how a lot of the time :( We talk around the subject, not really *about* it. If I'm honest, I'm scared that if I ask I'll find out that he's OK about what happened now. Which I don't think is necessarily true, but... it's possible.

He knows how much I'm obsessing about getting pregnant again and finds that really difficult. I told him it's harder for me... he gets a break from me obsessing while he's at work, but I live it 24/7. And I am driving myself insane.

And I have no idea if he realises it's three months tomorrow. I really hope he does.

I think we have a great relationship, but... when I'm thinking about this sometimes I wonder.

But I really love him and he really loves me, and so I hope and believe that we'll make it through.

I'm glad you know that Jason misses Gabe too, eliza. That must really help.

I think we have a good relationship. I wonder sometimes too, but I think it's because we do talk about it when there is reason, if that makes sense. We check in with each other. But we acknowledged early on that it was different for both of us and that to some extent we had to process separately.

I don't feel cut off from him and I don't feel like it's a taboo topic. I guess I feel like it's as comfortable a topic as our marriage. Not something we need to actively discuss short of a reason coming up. It just is, a piece of our background, I guess.

Sorry, I posted too soon.

It does help to know he misses him.

Are you comfortable asking him if it's on his mind tomorrow, since it's been three months? It might lead to a painful conversation, and I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing.

I do think continuing to love each other is a big chunk of it.

I think it's really hard for some men to accept this grief. My husband definitely has grieved for Henry, but I can tell that he's more than ready to stop crying, to start looking for brighter days ahead (something I so wish I could do). We are just so different in our perspectives of what happened to Henry that sometimes we just can't meet in the middle. He believes Henry was never meant to live, and I believe he was never meant to die. It's a sticky philosophical/destiny question that neither of us really has the answer to.

Since I got pregnant again we've actually stopped having sex altogether. I just feel so raw and emotional all the time that I feel like I can't give myself up to him that way right now. I feel terrible about it but I dont know what else to do. I want to be close, and he wants that very much, that connection, but for me I just have to curl myself up into this little protective ball just to get through my day, and to undo that when the day is done is very hard.

Thanks for asking Eliza...love to you

Oh yeah, Mark and I are processing this so differently. Mark and I both greived 'hard' for about two weeks. Then, while I sank deeper in my greif, Mark said he didn't feel like crying all the time anymore. Luckily, he continued to talk to me and listen to my own deep hurt, though he didn't share his as much (I imagine that he felt also he needed to be strong).

Mark is such an internalizer, I'm actually completely amazed we continue to connect about Will. I wonder if it isn't somewhat 'easier' (maybe that's not the right word) b/c our situation is so drawn out. As hard as it is to have this situation, it has given us time to talk about our plans for their birth, and for Will's service. Lately, we've talked a lot about how to continue to honor Will's memory while not ever putting the 'shadow' of Will over Abby's life. I enjoy these conversations immensely. It has also been incredibly healing to do the maternity pictures and the 3-D u/s together. I've mentioned this before, but I continue to be on pelvic rest for the length of my pregnancy...and I'm glad that we don't have that issue to have to address yet. I feel like I can cuddle with him and hug him and not worry about it 'always' steering its way toward sex.

eliza, i don't like bringing up the subject of the baby to him, because although he knows i'm having a really hard time, i don't really know how it is for him. but every so often he does mention it (and he tends to actually say 'the baby' whereas i tend to say 'what happened' or 'the miscarriage'.... everywhere but here actually, i don't know why) and it's such a relief when he does. it's such a relief to know that he hasn't locked it away in a box, as he has a tendency to do with most of his negative experiences and emotions.

but i said last night 'do you realise it's three months tomorrow?' and he didn't, and we didn't really talk about it, but he's been looking after me last night and so far this morning. so i know it's still on his mind, even if it's through the filter of looking after me on a tough day.

that must be so, so hard mindy. i've read and read your post and i don't know what to say :( I wish i could make it better.

eve - i'm glad mark can talk and listen even when his own grief is different to yours. and it's so good to hear that you can talk about honouring will while protecting abby - getting that balance will be so hard, but i'm sure you can do it as a family.

One of the first things we heard after we lost our daughter nearly 3 years ago was that "men and women grieve differently" and we should be gentle and patient with each other. Although it is practically a cliche, I realize now, it was news to me at the time. I thought to myself, "this person doesn't know us." But, she wasn't wrong about us either. There was a period of time, particularly in the first year, when my husband and I were in different places emotionally and psychologically. He pushed himself to work hard, to run, to excel. Me, I was barely surviving. We had to just give each other a bit more space in that time than we were used to, but eventually that feeling faded. I guess what I am saying is that my hope and expectation for you is that while this is a grueling time, made no less difficult by the differences in your grieving, it's not forever. You will, I believe, be able to bridge the distance that exists now and might develop from time to time. Gentleness and a lot of rope are needed.

I don't know if you were writing that for me, Audrey, but it's really reassuring to me either way. Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm new. It's just about five weeks since we lost our son at 22 weeks. At first my husband and I felt so close, so bonded in this horrible way, but right now there is a terrible distance and coldness between us and I can't bridge it. I don't know what to do.

We just had a consult to determine how high risk a future pregnancy would be, and while the medical news was good, the emotional aftermath has been brutal. Even though we've been talking about this consult for weeks and I had started to see a little hope for the future, my husband told me after the appointment that he did not want to try again. He did that by picking a fight with me (I still don't understand what started it; he says I picked the fight but it was just a conversation and then, bam, we were fighting) and eventually telling me that he did not want to have another baby with me because he thinks I can't handle the toddler we have. He does not think I am a good mother so he does not want to have another baby with me. He said he felt the same way during my pregnancy, that he was afraid that I would not be able to handle two kids and that I would be mean to both of them.

I don't know how to move forward. He thinks I would have been a bad mother to the baby we lost. I can't express how much it hurts to hear him say that. He is barely speaking to me now and I don't know what to do. We have a counseling appointment for next week but I am not expecting miracles.

Thanks for reading. I probably should not even post this but I am just so lost right now.

Oh, H. That is such a cruel kick in the guts. It took the wind out of me to read it, so I know it has to be a thousand times worse to hear it from the man you love.

It is a perfectly valid and valuable post. Come back - post again. Let us have your worst. At such a terrible, lost, lonely and frightening time in your life, you naturally look to the one person you think will understand.. and when he doesn't - can't - you just want to stop existing. Not die, exactly, because that would require energy and planning and the wilful desertion of those you love. You just want to cease to be because this world is just so empty and cruel and hopeless and pointless.

You may not feel like that, H. I don't mean to put words in your mouth. But I have felt that way since losing my baby.

My husband and I were close during the first fallout of our son's death. Then we, too, passed through this terrible cold period. So cold. I remember sitting up in bed, turning on the light to force his attention, sobbing and shaking, begging him to help me - just cuddle me - anything. He could barely, barely do it. I could feel the revulsion seeping out of him. I really thought that had to be the end of us, right then and there. It was a horribly sad, desperate time.

This, I think, is something we don't talk about enough, even here. I remember thinking I didn't properly fit this community because my marriage wasn't watertight before the pregnancy, and it certainly isn't watertight afterwards. We are rarely united on any sort of joint mission - even to the supermarket, or our son's grave. I wonder how many others lurk here, afraid to post, because they think this or that makes them something of a freak, even among the babylost.

But it is so important to be heard, to talk, to be supported and valued and validated. You are so welcome here. Your voice can help others who feel as you do, and I hope that we can help you.

Things did get better for me. My husband and I didn't do anything to make them better, but that dreadful hostility passed. Now we alternate between the God-I-love-you, nobody-else-gets-this, and the devastating fights which spring from nowhere. Well, I know where they come from - they are acts of sabotage to deal with something too painful to face. We are trying again, and our plan is to have sex just three times during the fertile window, on every second day. Inevitably there is a fight after the first or second time and that's it for the month. Ground that we've covered has to be re-established: why I want a baby, whether I really love him or just view him as a sperm donor, how well I would look after the baby (same as you, he thinks I have some case to answer - but has other times admitted he's worried he can't do it). During sex his behaviour is bizarre - he either laughs, lies there like a log waiting to be 'seduced', or talks like a child, or talks gutter talk. Anything, really, to kill the mood without being 'obvious' about it. I get so frustrated because I think we should be well past all of this - we were having a baby once before, after all - and at other times of the month, we ARE past all of it. He does want another baby, but sometimes you'd never believe it to listen to him.

So what I'm trying to say, H, is that I know from experience that the husband you knew can disappear into his pain, and be replaced by a nasty or unknowable person. It comes from grief, confusion - from wanting to step up as the man in the relationship but not knowing how to shoulder the burden - from wanting to be loved and cherished and healed by some fantasy version of you: superwoman, supermum, super lover - even though he knows, intellectually, you were crushed by the bigger weight when your baby died.

Don't place too much store by the things he says now. These are very early days. Much can change, and will change. I'm betting there'll come a day, in a quiet moment, when he will say to you, "You know, I was wrong. You're a good mum. You're so smart and so strong. You put up with me when I was an a**hole."

I can hear the intelligence and the softness in your words. I don't believe for a second that you're a bad or mean mother. Stay with us, H, and let us know how you're doing.

H, I am so sorry that your husband's words have been so hurtful. What a cutting thing for him to say. As M said, I can only hope that it is his grief speaking. Until one is living it, no one knows how ugly grief can be. Sure, you hear all of the poetic things, the "I now live each day to the fullest," "Iove is all that matters," blah, blah, blah. While those beautiful alterations in perception can occur, they usually must first find their way through the anger, guilt, fear, and betrayal. Frankly, some people handle grief with more apparent grace than others. But it is not a contest. We're all trying to get through it the best we can, even when our ways of coping are ugly, messy and, at times, hurtful to others.

Your husband is going through this is an ugly, messy and hurtful way. Yet, that doesn't mean that, when the dust settles, you can't find your way back to each other. Hopefully counseling will guide you both through that process.

In the meantime, you are safe here. Don't be afraid to post. We're all lost here, but we are helping each other through.

Thank you, scm and m. He's mostly not lashing out at me, I think it was just a really terrible day. And I've done some lashing out of my own.

This is the hardest thing I've ever done, just getting from day to day.

Keep plodding. Every step carries you a little further through the valley. You will make it, I promise.

The hardest thing you've ever done, and quite possibly the hardest thing you'll ever do.

Your baby will always come with you, so don't be afraid to keep walking.