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I haven’t experienced a loss personally, but I worked with a number of women who did as a hospital chaplain. I remind myself that usually telling the story of what happened and what it means to someone is helpful in grieving, and usually people have to tell their stories a lot of times to process what happened. And also depending on the day and your relationship with the person, it may or may not be a moment when they want to talk about it. Losses can also mean extremely different things to different people.

You could open the conversation first by asking if they want to talk about it and then if they do by asking something like, “what was this pregnancy like for you?” or “would you tell me the story about how your loss happened?” Or “I would love to hear more about what happened, whatever you want to share.” Try to use more neutral language until you hear how they are referring to their loss, and then refer to the loss the same way that they do, they might say “pregnancy” or “baby” or call their child by name. They might say “loss,” or they might say, “died”.

Even if it has been years since the loss happened, people still often appreciate being asked about it. Other people may have moved on, but for the person who had the loss most directly, it is often a part of their life forever. It can be hard for people to know who and when they can talk about something so sensitive, and once you’ve opened the conversation, the best thing to do is listen, even though it may feel uncomfortable for you, rather than trying to make them feel better or different. They feel how they feel and you won’t be able to convince them to feel differently, but you can be with them as they fee those things so that they feel less alone.

Asking directly about details based on your own curiosity, giving advice, or telling a story about something you experienced that feels similar are things you generally want to avoid, or at least not start with. Although if you genuinely have a very similar experience, like a pregnancy loss, you might mention that and see if they want to hear more about it. People want to know they’re not the only one going through something, but they also want to feel that you understand what they specifically are going through, rather than assuming that you already know how they feel.

Yes! I feel this so hard! So many parents of older or grown children felt the need to complain about toddlers or teenagers or even children of other ages, but for me at least, the newborn stage with not enough sleep and lots of anxiety was. the. hardest. It only got easier!

Yes, yes, same! I got so caught up in all the breastfeeding propaganda that I forgot (even though I had the information) that lots of people just aren’t able to make enough milk, or have some other problem; that I didn’t have to prove that it was literally impossible for me to breastfeed before giving up.

That even in the past, lots of people needed other people to nurse their babies for them – and, in the past, lots of babies died. Breastfeeding and pregnancy are natural, but not magical and perfect; they are a compromise between the needs of the parent and the needs of the child, and sometimes that doesn’t work out well for one or more of those people

Yes! I was so determined to do it and into the idea that it was really hard for me to let go of, and I banged my head against a brick wall very painfully for a month and a half. Maybe if I had heard from my future self that it was in fact *SO* OK not to breastfeed that my main post-partum regret was not quitting breastfeeding earlier, and that you can still get that magical rush of oxytocin people talk about if you bottle feed skin-to-skin.