MISCARRIAGE – Unmet need for compassion, care and prayer

While society recognizes the need for grieving, consolation and recovery for women who have lost a child either at or soon after birth, there is relatively little recognition of the impact that miscarriage can have on the mother of the unborn child, let alone on the father. No special prayers or Mass cards. No ceremonies. No time off from work or household chores. No grief counselling. No one in public says, “I am sorry for your loss.”

Here is my personal experience:

My wife, Leonie, was about halfway through her fourth pregnancy, many years ago, when she suddenly experienced heavy bleeding and cramping. We were living then on an Army base at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I rushed her to the emergency room at nearby Ireland Army Hospital. Leonie was losing a lot of blood and needed a transfusion. The doctors explained that she was having a miscarriage. It was necessary to take her to the operating room, right away in the middle of the night, and remove the fetus and placenta (afterbirth) surgically, in order to stop the life-threatening hemorrhage. Since I was an Army doctor, I was allowed to accompany Leonie to the surgical suite. I waited at the nursing station down the hall from the operating room. At one point, one of the surgical nurses brought a large specimen jar containing “products of conception” to the nursing station. She assured me that Leonie was doing well. Then she left the container there for the lab to pick up and she went back to the operating room. Since it was very late, the OR suite was otherwise closed, and I was alone for the moment with the container.

Somehow, perhaps moved by the Spirit, I decided to carefully lift the lid. The little fetus was completely surrounded by bloody fluid and placental tissue. I could not see the fetus itself. Rather than further stir things around, I had a sudden impulse to just sprinkle a little tap water on all the contents of the container and say, “I baptize you, Agnes, in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. See you in Heaven!”

I named her Agnes, although I did not know for certain whether our baby was a girl or boy. The pathology report later just stated that these were “products of conception.”

The next day, I told our three young boys what had happened, and I told them that we all needed to try extra-hard to be really good all the rest of our lives. That way, we could get to Heaven together. Not long after we get there, it might be that a large, muscular, hairy-chested angel will come running toward us from around the corner of a nearby cloud and say, “Hi, guys! I’m Agnes! Pleased to meet you all. At last!” And then he would laugh with us.

Meanwhile, whenever we would say our evening prayers together, we were sure to remember our ‘Agnes’.

Dr. Richard Watson

Past President Catholic Medical Association USA

MISCARRIAGE CONTACTS

Below are several online centers that aim at providing support for women who have experienced a miscarriage.

Red Bird Ministries – based in Louisiana – provides online support and counselling – approved by USCCB

https://www.redbird.love/team

Catholic Miscarriage Support – contains an impressive list of online resources

Organizations and Services

MIS Share: Miscarriage, Infant Death and Stillbirth – online resource, monthly meetings, secular, based in Washington DC

https://misshare.org/

Neonatal Comfort Care:

For babies expected be stillborn or to die soon after birth. At Columbia Medical Center, NYC.

https://www.neonatalcomfortcare.com/

Patrons Saints to pray against or console after miscarriage

Saint Catherine of Siena
Saint Catherine of Sweden
Saint Gianna Beretta Molla
Saint Gerard Majella

https://www.catholicprayercards.org/page/subpage/new-items/st-catherine-of-sienna-prevent-mc.htm

https://www.redbird.love/miscarriage-prayers

https://shopmercy.org/miscarriage-prayer.html

The Institute for Reproductive Grief Care:

Here is an extraordinary resource, specifically designed to provide guidance and mentorship to emergency room personnel, for whenever they need to help women who are experiencing a miscarriage.