Men are often expected to support their grieving female partners after a pregnancy loss, but who’s supporting them?
Chris had a miscarriage.
We were about nine weeks in when the doctor unceremoniously announced he could no longer detect a heartbeat in our pea-sized bundle to be. I stared and stared at the ultrasound monitor, willing it to show movement, to emit that rhythmic whoo-whoo-whoo sound we’d heard the last time we were there, hoping the doctor was wrong. But he wasn’t.
And that, of course, was when the grieving began.
Not for Chris, though. After months of us trying to conceive via the help of procedures like IUI and IVF, which required countless trips to the doctor and the administration of drugs, often via a needle to the stomach—then suffering through a miscarriage—Chris wasn’t allowed to grieve. Because it was Chris’s role to be supportive, to—in the coming weeks—be the one to respond stoically to probing, sometimes inappropriate questions and comments by well-meaning family members and friends. Chris had to be strong.
Outrageous, right?
Especially since you probably thought Chris was the female in this scenario. Well he’s not. He’s my husband. And even though this miscarriage—this devastating problem of infertility—was just as much his as it was mine, he didn’t feel like he could express his grief.
What kind of fresh hell was that?
That of a would-be father.
Ask any man who’s had to endure both the physical and emotional roller coaster of infertility and/or miscarriage along with his female counterpart—especially if the issue lies on her side of things—and he’ll tell you (after some prodding) that really his feelings don’t matter.
It’s all about her.
Because—like us—he’s been told one way or another, over and over again that having babies is very important…to women. Procreation is what we women are here for, after all; it’s the end-all, be-all for us. And his role as the father is to provide support in whatever way, shape or form he can. Period.
Now, I realize it’s 2013 and times have changed. But deeply emotional experiences like infertility—and the loss of an unborn child—tend to make those involved revert back to deeply ingrained learnings. So no matter how many times they’re told otherwise, women feel like failures, while men—with seemingly no other recourse—slip into the roles provided to them by their parents (and grandparents) like a battered old suit of armor. As the man, they need to be “strong.”
And silent.
And so it went. My husband consoled me every morning, at random times during the day, and before we went to bed—for weeks—but never cried himself, so as not to upset me.
When the Thanksgiving holiday came along (and we decided to abstain from participating lest we expose ourselves to even more well-meaning comments like “it just wasn’t meant to be” and “God has a plan”), Chris finally broke down (I learned later), but did so quietly, squirreling himself away so as not to upset me.
And when we finally felt ready to face everyone at Christmas, it was me they hugged and soothed while he kept an ear out from the other room. That night, while he surrounded himself with liquid courage and listened to me vent to others, he kept his own feelings under wraps, so as not to upset me.
Months passed, during which I would occasionally overhear one of our friends ask him how I was doing. Some even went so far as to suggest he plan an expensive getaway for us in an attempt to get my mind off of things. Maybe surprise me with a nice piece of jewelry. Nevermind the mounting bills that came with our situation, it was his job to do whatever it took to make me feel better.
Then a couple of years went by…quickly. And after enduring multiple birth announcements and first-year birthday parties while we continued to fail at conceiving again, Chris finally opened up about his feelings.
During an argument.
“I’m not going, OK?” he yelled at me in our kitchen one bright, sunny morning. “Why do you RSVP for these things without asking me anyway?”
“They’re two of our closest friends!” I yelled back, incredulous. “How could we not go to their baby’s christening?”
“Because I’m sick of it. Don’t you understand how hard it is for me to keep going to these things? To see all the little babies and kids running around and none of them are ours?”
Oops. There it was.
The weight of his words filled the room as I stood, silent and staring, part of me elated that he’d finally been honest with me, but part of me stricken after hearing this confirmation of pain. So I cried. But this time, he cried too.
And talked.
He was suffering…yes, this whole time. No, he hadn’t given up hope, but he agreed, it was getting really difficult not to. And oh my God, yes—he totally hated the chore-like feeling we’d somehow managed over the years to attach to baby-making sex, even more than I did.
And for once, instead of separating us into roles, our infertility pulled us together, making the challenges we’ve faced since then so much more surmountable, so much more a testament of our determination and love for each other that I’ve come to welcome the anger and frustration he now openly brings to our devastating problem. I’ve come to welcome his tears.
They keep us strong.
Kim Christensen is a freelance advertising executive and copywriter living in Chicago, where she spends most of her days obsessing over her novel, Shift—a supernatural murder mystery set in the Windy City—and trying to find an agent.
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