The Often Silent Grief of Miscarriage
By Saff Mitten
Miscarriage is one of the most profound and painful experiences a person can endure. Whether it happened early in pregnancy or later, the truth remains: you lost a baby. And that truth carries a depth of grief that is often invisible to the outside world, yet deeply felt within.
This kind of loss can feel isolating. Friends and family may not know what to say. Society often struggles to acknowledge the emotional weight of miscarriage. But your grief is real. It matters. And it deserves space.
There’s no “right” way to grieve. For some, the pain is immediate and overwhelming. For others, it unfolds slowly, surfacing in quiet moments, in milestones that never came, in dreams that were never realised. However it shows up for you, it’s valid.
Mourning What Was - And What Could Have Been
Grief after miscarriage isn’t just about the physical loss. It’s about the future you imagined. The names you whispered. The hopes you held close. It’s about the nursery you never decorated, the due date that passed quietly, the love that had already begun to grow.
Giving yourself permission to mourn both the reality and the possibility is a vital part of healing.
You may find yourself cycling through waves of sadness, confusion, anger, and guilt. These emotions can feel disorienting, especially when the world around you seems to move on. But your grief doesn’t need to be justified or compared. It simply needs space.
This Was Not Your Fault
One of the most painful myths surrounding miscarriage is the idea that it could have been prevented. The truth is: it wasn’t your fault.
You did nothing wrong. Your body did not fail you. You deserve tenderness, not blame. Understanding, not silence.
Healing begins when we allow ourselves to feel, to speak, and to be held in our pain. Whether you choose to talk to a therapist, write in a journal, or simply sit with your emotions - please know that your experience matters.
The Challenge of Sharing Your Loss
Opening up about miscarriage can be incredibly difficult, especially during the early weeks of pregnancy. Many people choose to keep their pregnancy private before the 12-week mark, which can make the experience of loss feel even more isolating.
Well-meaning comments from others, including medical professionals and even family or friends, can often unintentionally cause pain. Phrases like “it wasn’t meant to be,” or “you can try again,” or “at least it was early,” may come from a place of perceived kindness, but they can feel dismissive of your loss, and at times even feel cruel.
You can be left feeling like nobody understands, and as though you need to grieve silently and get on with things - pretending you're ok, when you're not.
How Therapy Can Help
Therapy provides an opportunity for you to share and process your grief, and to have it acknowledged by someone who recognises just how devastating this loss can be.
Supporting women through fertility challenges - including miscarriage and loss - is one of my specialist areas. I bring a depth of understanding and experience to this work, grounded in empathy and emotional attunement. Whether your grief is fresh or something you’ve been carrying for some time, you deserve support that honours the complexity of your experience.
As an integrative counsellor and psychotherapist experienced in this area, I respect the individuality of each woman’s experience of grief and loss, and I will seek to tailor my approach to help you navigate this deeply personal journey in the way that feels most right for you.
If it feels appropriate, together we can:
- Explore the emotional impact of your loss.
- Gently untangle feelings of guilt, isolation, or confusion.
- Rebuild a sense of safety, self-compassion, and emotional clarity.
- Honour your experience in a way that feels authentic to you.
You don’t need to carry this alone. Therapy can support you in finding your way through. Your grief matters. Your healing matters. And you deserve support that meets you with kindness.
Pregnancy Envy is Normal When Facing Infertility
By Saff Mitten
The constant stream of pregnancy announcements, baby bumps and baby showers, can feel like a relentless assault when you're navigating infertility.
Everyone is talking about joy and excitement. But for you, seeing those perfect little ultrasound photos or hearing about another friend getting pregnant, seemingly easily, might trigger something else entirely: a sudden, sharp, and deeply unwelcome feeling of pregnancy envy.
And then comes the shame.
If you’ve felt that painful tug of jealousy, quickly followed by the thought, "What kind of horrible friend am I?" - stop right there. We need to talk about this.
Why We Don’t Talk About It
Pregnancy envy and fertility envy are emotions people rarely, if ever, admit to feeling. It can feel dark, mean, and goes against the societal expectation that we must always be happy for others, especially those we care about.
Because of this, it becomes a secret source of shame. We bottle it up, put on a brave face, and silently struggle with the guilt of feeling a complicated mix of sadness for ourselves and a very real tinge of jealousy, envy or even resentment toward others.
You Are Not a Bad Person - You Are Human
Let's be perfectly clear: feeling pregnancy envy does not make you a bad friend, a bad person, or someone undeserving of motherhood.
It makes you human.
This emotion is a totally normal and understandable response to a very difficult situation. Infertility is a chronic grief. When you are dealing with profound loss, disappointment, and the sense that your body is betraying you, seeing others achieve your most longed-for goal, seemingly with ease, is agonizing and like a slap in the face.
Those feelings of envy, jealousy, and even, at times, anger or resentment, are the raw, protective reactions of a hurting heart. They stem from a place of deep pain and longing, not malice.
Your feelings are valid.
What Pregnancy Envy Really Is
When you feel that pang, it’s not really about the pregnant person. It’s about what they represent
- Loss: The loss of the life you pictured for yourself—the easy, assumed path to parenthood.
- Injustice: The deep, frustrating feeling that the world is unfair and that you are being punished.
- Yearning: The acute pain of watching your own dream be realized by someone else while you wait, month after month, cycle after cycle, sometimes through rounds of IVF or other treatments.
This is a form of infertility grief, and you deserve compassion for going through it.
Creating a Safe Space for Difficult Emotions
The most crucial step in managing these feelings is acknowledging them. You need and deserve a safe space to express what you are truly feeling and have it acknowledged as normal, not shameful.
This is often where professional support comes in. A therapist who specialises in infertility can offer that safe, confidential space where:
- Your feelings are validated: There is no judgment. We understand that this is a gut-wrenching experience.
- Coping strategies are developed: We can explore ways to manage the emotional triggers and protect your mental health while still maintaining healthy relationships.
- Grief is processed: We can work through the layers of grief that underpin the envy, allowing you to move toward acceptance and peace.
If the struggle to be happy for others is consuming your energy, leading to social isolation, or causing intense distress, please know that you do not have to carry this burden alone.
If you would like confidential support from a therapist who really understands the complexities of the infertility journey, please reach out. You deserve to be seen, heard, and supported through every difficult emotion this path brings.
If this article resonated with you…
I'm Saff Mitten, a specialist counsellor and psychotherapist supporting women through IVF, infertility and miscarriage.
My approach is shaped by my professional training and experience, together with the personal understanding I bring from my own journey through IVF, infertility and miscarriage.
Through both my therapeutic work and my writing, I explore the emotional and psychological impact of these experiences to help women make sense of feelings that can often be difficult to put into words and feel less alone.
If you're looking for support with infertility, IVF or miscarriage, you can follow the link below to learn more about how I support women through these experiences. I work online and support women across the UK.