“I didn’t watch you go through it. I also went through it”

Daniel and I don’t talk about the miscarriages often, but last week we did and I learned something. From now on I will refer to them as our miscarriages instead of just mine.

I’ve encouraged people to think of men during miscarriage for a few years now. It’s a topic close to my heart, but I didn’t realize that verbally I was still referring to our experiences as mine until I talked with Daniel last week.

I interviewed him to better understand how he felt and learn what helped him after our first miscarriage. I wanted to know what he would say to fathers who are dealing with miscarriage and to friends and loved ones who want to help.

After the miscarriage what did people say or do that was helpful to you?

-When it happened you…

Lots of giggling.

That’s what I heard walking into the post office. Working there during my university years was a good job, but it wasn’t exciting enough for uncontrolled giggling so I wondered what on earth was going on.

My coworkers were staring. I closed the door behind me. More giggling. Apparently no one planned to let me in on the joke so I decided to get on with my pre-work routine. Drop my bag on the counter and look inside my own box before delivering campus mail to everyone else’s.

I liked checking my box from inside the post office walls. Everyone else had to open locks from the outside. I got to see what they were going to get just before it happened.

This was fun to watch. Sometimes it was a note saying they’d received a care package. I delivered love notes, surprise candy, and favorite magazines…