Motherhood is a time of great joy for many people, and for many people, can also bring grief. Oftentimes, people link “grief” and “death,” and although this can be true, this is a narrow definition of the word. Grief can occur whenever anything is lost, not just a person. Grief in motherhood is a very common experience, yet is rarely talked about. In many American cultures, people hesitate to discuss grief for fear that it will make things worse for the person grieving, but this can feel very isolating. My goal in this blog post is to spread some awareness and help moms not feel so alone in their grieving process.
Some examples of grief in motherhood include but are not limited to:
- Grieving your old life before becoming a mother
- Grieving your career if you have chosen to be a stay-at-home mom or go down to part-time
- Grieving a miscarriage or stillbirth
- Grieving your relationship with your partner before having kids
- Grieving the time you had your “body to yourself” (not pregnant, breastfeeding, or pumping)
- Grieving your experience of infertility while you watch others around you have children
- Grieving how you thought you would be/feel as a parent
- Grieving your pre-pregnancy body
- Grieving the birth you wanted but didn’t get
- Grieving the gender of your child
- Grieving outside factors (a family member died, you moved to a new house, you were fired)
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss American psychiatrist and pioneer of studies on dying people, explained the grieving process in five parts.
Denial
This is when you might experience shock and confusion about what is going on. You might avoid thinking about it or doing anything about it. For moms, this stage of grief might look like thinking, “I don’t need any help,” “everything is okay,” or “this isn’t happening to me.”
Anger
Once you have recognized that the situation is, in fact, happening, anger can come into play. Moms may have thoughts like, “How could this happen to me/our family?” “Who is to blame?” and “This isn’t fair.” These can be challenging thoughts to wrestle with because often, these questions have no answers.
Bargaining
In this stage of grief, moms may feel a sense of hope or false hope. They may try to negotiate with other people or a higher power to change the situation. Thoughts in this stage may look like, “Please don’t do this,” “I will do anything to change this,” or even, “make this happen to me instead.”
Depression
In this stage, sadness is a primary emotion. Both remaining silent or openly showing your emotions to others can be responses. Isolation can be very prevalent in this stage of grief in motherhood for a couple reasons. Firstly, becoming a parent is an isolating experience–often, at least with newborns, it is so challenging to get out that moms end up spending most of their time home alone. Secondly, the sadness that comes along with this stage is not accepted well in society. On top of regular societal norms that say to not talk about your grief, moms may feel extra pressure to be happy and grateful. Thoughts in this stage may look like, “what’s the point,” and “why even bother to hope?”
Acceptance
During this stage of grief, moms may feel a sense of peace and calm about what happened. Thoughts may look like, “everything happens for a reason,” “I can’t change the past,” “it is what it is,” and “it’s going to be okay.”
Grief in the motherhood stage looks different for everyone, and there is no “right” or “wrong” way to grieve. Everyone will not experience all of these stages at the same time or in the same order. Sometimes, these stages can be experienced at the same time. Some stages may pass quickly or you may not even notice yourself experiencing them. I encourage you to be curious with yourself as you experience the myriad of emotions that go along with grief in motherhood, and be patient with yourself.
If you would like to talk with someone about your experience with grief in motherhood, please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us for an appointment, and be sure to check out our other blog posts at riverrootcounseling.com/blog!
In health,
Denise Vukmanovich