We're often asked how someone can support a friend/spouse/family member who is grieving the loss of a baby and/or the monthly grief of infertility. While we wish we could give a simple five step answer, the truth is that everyone processes grief in different times, at different paces, and with different preferences. The number one frustration we hear is that people feel that others are rushing them through grief, as though there's a set-in-stone end date for grief. That's just not true. People also often feel pressured to "move on" - whatever that means! In most cases, those outside the grief experience have good hearts and want to help, but they're unsure what to do and, quite honestly, they feel uncomfortable being around the sadness/anger/grief of others.
Perhaps our best advice, besides praying, is to be present and make space.
Be present. Show up, either in person or via texts, calls, emails, or cards in the mail. Jot down the date of a due date, birthdate, or anniversary date, and reach out on those dates. Say the name of the baby who died. Be in your friend's life, and invite her into yours. Feeling isolated or rejected is really not helpful in the midst of grief.
Make space. Make space for all of the emotions of grief. Give your friend space to cry, yell, dissolve into sadness, feel happy for the day, want to do something, want to do nothing, feel kind of crazy for feeling so much at the same time...make space in your friendship for all of those things to be ok.
And by all means...please don't show frustration when she is STILL grieving, even years later. Grief is life-changing. As desperately we might want to go back to how things were before, we can't. Some things, some parts of us, are simply different. We're still trying to figure out what "normal" is going to be.
