Recurrent Loss: Too painful to watch?

I stumbled across an old blog entry on A Little Bit Pregnant called Why We Don't Stop? She was commenting on Andrea's blog where Andrea wrote:

"I am not losing empathy- I don't think that's possible- but I am beginning to lose my ability to understand how anyone could put herself through this, try after try, miscarriage after miscarriage, one grim prognosis after another... how can the body, how can the soul survive it? I wish you'd stop. I can't bear to watch any more."

I can't help it, my first smart aleck response is, "Then don't watch!"

You don't need to understand, or even empathize. It is not your journey, not your choice.

It seems that, as a society, we are terrified of pain. If it hurts, we should stop. Why is it considered wrong to push past the pain? Survive the unthinkable. Maybe even learn a lesson on how resilient we truly are? What would happen if we just kept going?

Perhaps not everyone is strong enough, not willing enough. They will make the choice to stop and go in a different direction. But some can and want to continue. Some come out of it a stronger person.

Does the strength of another person scare them? Are they afraid that, if someone else can continue, where they would have stopped - that others will think they didn't try hard enough?

Why do people assume that their comfort level has any place in another person's choices?

Would you tell a man struggling to find a job, only to be rejected again and again due to his age - why don't you stop, it is too painful to see you go through this?

Would you tell the mother of a handicapped child that it was too painful to watch her struggle and cope, that she should give up caring for her child?

Would you tell a cancer patient that it was too painful to watch them go through painful treatment after painful treatment - that it hurts you too much to watch them suffer? Why don't you just let go and die?

Only the person involved knows when they have reached their own limit. We all have different limits. Perhaps you are doing something that she would never do? Maybe you are considering medical intervention, adoption or DE. Maybe her limit is a genetic child conceived naturally. So should she tell you to stop, because it is too painful for her to watch you make choices she would not?

For some, their limit is two miscarriages. If I had stopped then, I would never have had my first two children. For some it is five miscarriages. I would not have had my youngest if I had stopped then.

Perhaps you think some should simply adopt? Tell that to the mom who lost two babies to birth-mothers who changed their minds. Lost foster children back to their abusive mothers. Some told her that she should stop. But if she hadn't kept trying, she would never have adopted her son.

Perhaps you think DE is a easy solution. Tell that to the couple that mortgaged their home to $100,000 - with no baby at the end of it. If you are a recurrent miscarrier, your chances of miscarrying a DE baby is much higher than losing your own baby.

We all make our choices, I make mine, you make yours. No-one should tell you when to stop. It is your journey, your path.

Not one of us is guaranteed a child at the end, not through pregnancy, not through adoption, not through DE. But I believe it is the journey that matters, and if there is a child at the end, that's a bonus...