A few days ago we explained what should never be said to a woman who has suffered an abortion and in my inner jurisdiction I believed that this entry covered all the problems that could be caused to a woman who has aborted, or at least the most important .
However, something I should have left when Transi Álvarez, a friend who, unfortunately, has suffered more than one abortion, told me that she should not only talk about what should not be said, but also of what should not be done.
We talked a little and it seemed so interesting what I had to say, especially for having lived it in the first person, that this dialogue ended in this interview.
To put ourselves a little, could you briefly tell your story?
I suffered three abortions in two years. The first when my daughter was a new year. According to the doctors who treated me in the first two losses, an abortion is common and two is "bad luck," so even the third one did not do any tests for my repeat abortions. In my case, my heart stopped between week 6 and 8 and began to have losses 2 weeks later. When I went to the Hospital I was admitted or they made me return the next day to lose it.
A few days ago we commented on Babies and more the most typical phrases that are usually said to women who have suffered an abortion. Do you agree with what we said?
Totally. Unfortunately, most people try to downplay or evade the issue. In summary, the advice you would give to family and friends of a woman who has just lost a baby (be it during the week of gestation) would be: “Do not tell him anything you would not tell him if whoever died was his husband instead of his son". No one would think of telling a widow "Better now that you had just got married than not later" or "Don't worry, you are young, you will surely have another husband soon" ...
Do you think that in that post we left some phrase?
The unwanted advice, such as: "As life is, better stay only with what you have and do not keep looking for more." I think the decision to have or not have more children is something so personal that no one should comment. A friend whose husband was unemployed was told that it had been fortunate that she had lost him as the situation posed. Or "That's what you wanted as a child and, being the other, it's gone" ... Humor, in these cases, does not proceed.
Before a woman who has suffered an abortion, the best thing someone can do is…
Hear and a little more. Be available but respecting The mourning process In that process there is a state of "guilt", where women ask ourselves if it was because of something we did or did not do. It is important not to increase that state with insinuations that have no basis ("because you were working" or "because you took your oldest child in your arms" ...) and have patience. You don't need to disappear if he tells you that he doesn't want to talk now, only that maybe he needs more time to be able to undo that lump in his throat. Two mothers in the same situation may need different things and bring different duels: there are those who need to speak and there are those who do not; who prefers to stay at home and who wants to return to work the next day. The keyword is respect.
You say that in addition to talking about what cannot be said there is to explain “what not to do” when a woman has suffered an abortion. What do you mean?
Well, to a long list of things that we discuss among mothers that we have suffered some, such as from the Hospital, many times they do not inform you that you can wait to expel it for yourself instead of having a curettage or that day cause the expulsion. Especially the first time, it does not give you time to say goodbye to your baby and it is something that helps many mothers: say goodbye and thank you for such enthusiasm towards that little person who is now going to leave you. Or stay in the room next to a mother who has just given birth, listening to her baby's cry all night. Or that nobody has the detail of Remove from the room that empty crib that your child will not use. Or that the environment is angry that you do not want to receive visits or phone calls ...
You mean people get angry if you don't attend to them because you're in a bad time?
Sometimes yes. It will be because they love you so much that they cannot stand that you are wrong, or because in this society we cover the bitter moments and we do not know how to treat someone who is going through such a trance. Although there are also those who lose common sense: they want to call you to tell them with hairs and signs how your loss has been and 15 days before it was your birthday and they didn't call you !! Is that not morbid? Or that they ask you to call someone to explain what happened ... If I didn't call to tell you that I was pregnant, do I have to do it now to tell you that I am not? And may they be angry at all!
Of all the people who found out when you had an abortion, do you think that those who made you feel good were more than those who, trying to cheer you up, did perhaps do more harm than good?
Sorry to say no, that in my case, I found more people than trying to help (or sometimes just looking good) hurt you more. But in the third one I was lucky to find very respectful people who understood the process of my loss and great people who helped me a lot, like Inma Marcos who sent me the forum link “Overcoming an abortion” and recommended the book “The Empty Cradle “by M. Àngels Claramunt; my friend María Durán, who gave me an angel caller and realized that what I needed was not to look the other way, but learn to live accepting what had happened; M. Àngels Claramunt herself, whom I met in person and He gave me a hug that comforted me more than all the phrases made in the world; and above all, my husband, who has always been my great guardian angel, protector, understanding and patient. M. Àngels told me that if after repeated abortions he was still by my side it was that he had chosen well, for a lifetime; I'm sure he wasn't wrong. It has been the pillar of my emotional support.
I have been able to read in your blog that you even had to comfort others ...
Yes, it is inevitable to want to protect the people you love. Sometimes you think more of them than your own needs and my intention was not to suffer for me, especially my mother, who also had an abortion before having her three children, and I didn't want her pain to come back. But it pays dearly. At that moment you need all that energy to take on your duel and also It is very difficult to try to please others when you cannot breathe without your soul aches.
They usually want to come to see you, ask you how it happened, that you go out into the street ... and you surely only have the strength to endure the crying or the desire to stay alone to cry without being tried to comfort you with a phrase made.
Were there differences in the response of people around you in the different abortions?
Yes. People also learn and realize that some things they told you the first time hurt you too much to repeat them again. Although there is always someone who does not understand your moment of mourning and tries to impose that you speak, leave or believe the answer they have chosen (“that is because you still give the older tit” or “you have an unsolved childhood trauma” or "is that you really didn't want to have another child" ...). To go crazy.
Could it also be that the third abortion no longer seems so important to others?
Surely. I guess they took it for granted that I had "gotten used to it," but sometimes you prefer not to talk about it, because as I said, to hear certain phrases, you better pretend that nothing has happened and you on your own already You are looking for comfort in people you know that comfort you.
Finally, the story has a happy ending, right?
Happy? I think even more: last Sunday, Mother's Day, it was a year ago that I suffered my last abortion. Thanks to him they made me a karyotype and we knew that the reason for repeated abortions was a Robertsonian Translocation (a disorder in the chromosomes). When they told me I was 8 weeks pregnant and they explained to me that it was a lottery, that I could have the chromosomes ordered and that it would be fine or that they had that translocation and would stop like the other times.
Imagine how we cried with emotion when this time he came to stay. I leave accounts for the same date that a year before I left the Hospital with my empty body and this time I hope to receive my daughter Ana with a party: a home birth accompanied by my husband, my friend and midwife Inma Marcos, my best friend María Durán and my daughter Nerea. Can you have more enthusiasm in this life?
As I told you once: Hope is stored in very small places. And mine has grown for her.
