Oftentimes after someone experiences a miscarriage, they are expected to just pick up and move on with their life. This is minimizing and dismissive of what they are experiencing, and the grief they may be feeling.
Jump ahead to these sections:
- Is It Common to Lose Hope After a Miscarriage?
- Tips for Keeping Up Hope after a Miscarriage
- Tips for Helping a Loved One Keep Up Hope After a Miscarriage
If you or a loved one have had a miscarriage recently, know that any emotions that you’re feeling are normal. Whether that’s grief, acceptance, sadness, understanding, despair, or some combination of all of these.
Another thing you might be feeling is a loss of hope or motivation to carry on with your life. You may have to dig deep to find hope after miscarriage, but it is absolutely there. We’re here to help you find it again.
Is It Common to Lose Hope After a Miscarriage?
Hope feels like purpose, or like you have a longing and trust in where your life is going. You had this idea of what your future looked like and now it feels like it’s been shattered.
Not to mention the grief and physical experience of having a miscarriage. Losing hope after a miscarriage is extremely common. Whether it’s hope in your family, your future, yourself, or something else entirely.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can and will find hope again. Life after a miscarriage can be full of joy, connection, and yes—hope.
Tips for Keeping Up Hope after a Miscarriage
Keeping up or rediscovering your sense of hope isn’t always easy. Sometimes it takes work, like any healing process. Here are some tips to help you do that.
1. Give yourself time
Life can feel like a time warp when you’re grieving; moving too fast and too slow at the same time.
After a miscarriage, you might feel like you want to rush through the healing process, and just “feel like yourself again”. While there are things you can do to help speed this process along, you can’t just skip over it.
Grief has its own timeline, and every individual’s healing process will look different. One of the ways you can help keep up hope is by not pressuring yourself to move too quickly through the healing process.
Giving yourself time means taking time off of work if you’re able to, being careful about how you’re spending your energy, and taking breaks when you need to.
2. Seek professional support
Coping with emotions after a miscarriage isn’t something that you have to do alone. Or should do alone for that matter. You can find professional mental health support after a miscarriage from a psychologist, therapist, counselor, as well as a full-spectrum doula or midwife.
A professional who is trained in reproductive loss and/or grief can help give you practical tools to feel more hope and provide a listening ear for whatever is going through your mind and heart.
3. Join a support group
You might feel alone after a miscarriage, but you’re not. Miscarriages are more common than you might think, and other people are going through or have been through what you’re experiencing. You might not feel like you can relate to your friends or other people in your life right now; that’s what pregnancy loss support groups are for.
Support groups, whether in person or online, give people the space they need to share their experiences and give each other support, as well as tools and resources to help participants through their grief.
Support groups are a place where you don’t have to worry about burdening your loved ones with what’s going on in your head. You’re never a burden, but sometimes it can feel like that if you’re isolated in your experience. A support group may be just the place where you’re able to find hope.
4. Lean on your hobbies
When we lose hope, we often lose sight of our passions and what’s important to us. Joy is a pathway to hope. Think about what brought you joy before your miscarriage.
That may be a hobby that you have. Our hobbies bring us into a state of joy and help us get in touch with our purpose and feeling of belonging in the world. They can also serve as a great distraction from any sadness, pain, or grief you’re feeling. Sometimes distractions help to keep you going!
5. Remember your community
People are meant to heal in a community. Community is the salve to an aching heart. Being with people that lift you up and support you helps you remember what hope looks and feels like.
Who do you feel the most supported by? Loved by? Who do you enjoy spending time with? Who feels like a safe space you can come to when you’re feeling down? Who makes you feel hopeful?
A community can come from all sorts of different places. It may be your family, close friends, clubs you’re in, or just people you talk to online.
6. Find inspiration
Inspiration is one of the key components to hope. When you feel inspired, you remember what sparks you up, what drives you, and what makes you feel alive. This all helps you feel more hopeful.
Now, what inspires you? You may feel inspired by hearing other people’s miscarriage or fertility journeys in an online blog, a book, or by listening to a podcast.
Maybe your inspiration has nothing to do with miscarriages or pregnancy and comes from something different like a movie you love or music that speaks to your soul. Maybe you feel inspired when you go outside, or garden, or talk with a certain friend.
Making a little effort to remember what inspires you can help you feel a glimmer of hope.
Tips for Helping a Loved One Keep Up Hope After a Miscarriage
It can be so difficult to see a loved one struggling after a painful experience. You might feel like you want to just fix them, but it’s not always that simple.
There are still plenty of things you can do, however, to help them feel better on their healing journey. If you are looking for ways to help a loved one keep up hope after a miscarriage, here are some ideas.
1. Remember what lifts them up
When people lose hope, they often forget what lifts them up and brings them joy. Sometimes they need a loved one to come in and remind them what those things are. What normally lifts your loved one up? Try bringing those things to them, making it easier for them to access joy.
That might include:
- Encouraging them to enjoy their passions
- Inviting over supportive family or friends
- Making their favorite meal or taking them out to dinner
- Making them laugh
- Putting on their favorite music
- Going for a walk or a hike
- Going on a weekend getaway
No matter how big or small, every little thing can help lift their spirits a little more. This might not make their pain go away, but can lift their spirit and give them glimmers of hope.
2. Make their life easier
When you’re in the midst of grief, sometimes the burden of everyday tasks can make it that much harder to feel hopeful. They might be overwhelmed and just need some extra space to relax and just be. You can help make their life easier by taking care of the little things on their to-do lists.
Here are some ideas:
- Doing the laundry
- Washing the dishes
- Meal prepping or ordering a meal service for the week
- Picking up kids from school
- Cleaning the house
- Walking the dog
- Getting groceries
- Organize cabinets
Never underestimate the power of these little steps to help your loved one feel more hopeful!
3. Change the scenery
When you’re feeling down or grieving, it’s easy to get stuck in the house. This might be happening to your loved one. Sometimes keeping up hope can be as simple as not staring at the same walls.
Without pushing them too hard, try to encourage your loved one to get a change of scenery. This might mean going somewhere new or familiar. Fresh air is a game changer too!
Here are some places you can take your loved one:
- The backyard—seriously, it can be that easy!
- A beautiful local hike
- The house of a friend or family member
- Shopping—there’s nothing like retail therapy
- Running errands in a different town
- The park
If your loved one isn’t up for an adventure, that’s alright. They might just need rest. If they are down for a change of scenery, make it easy on them by driving, packing snacks and other necessities, and telling them what to expect from the outing.
You Will Find Hope After a Miscarriage
Miscarriages are a loss, and with that, it may feel like you’re losing part of yourself, including your sense of hopefulness. It can take time, but each little step you take towards your healing will help you feel more hope. Little by little, you will start to feel like yourself again, and remember what it feels like to be hopeful.