Asking for Rainbow Pregnancy Help When You’re Still in Denial

Asking for help is hard. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, it’s hard. But it is even harder when you aren’t sure what to ask for.

During my own pregnancy after loss, my denial was so intense that I didn’t even know I needed help. But I can look back and see just how much I could have used some.

And now that I am here, looking back, I am hoping my hindsight might help someone else. You will not find any “here is exactly what to do for everything to work out perfectly” advice in this post.

But I have gained a lot of clarity since I was where you are now and I know what I wish someone would have told me back then.

So, even though you might not feel ready, or that you even need any help, we are going to go over some tiny steps you can take toward building up some strong support for this wild rainbow pregnancy ride you’re on.

The Invisible Weight of Denial

I can see now that for the majority of my rainbow pregnancy, I was just existing. Time marched on and dragged me with it, but I was just… there.

My story feels like one of survival. I was just making it through one day, one moment at a time. I knew another loss would break me, so I couldn’t look ahead to what might be (good or bad), and I couldn’t look behind me at what had been.

I merely existed in the moment. In each new moment, I was still pregnant, and everything was fine.

But in that state of protective denial, I wasn’t processing any feelings, I wasn’t preparing for having a baby in my home, or leave from work, or any of the things.

And I wasn’t necessarily actively pushing those things off. In my little moment-to-moment bubble, they didn’t exist.

So if anyone around me asked what they could do for me, they were usually met with a blank stare and a slow blink.

If I Could Go Back: Advice I’d Give to My Past Self

Most of my problems stemmed from being completely out of touch with how I felt.

That protective denial kept me from melting into a puddle of anxiety for the whole of my pregnancy (this is not to say that the anxiety wasn’t there, it was with me all of the time, but the denial kept it from driving out my sanity), but it also kept me in a pretty isolated space.

What I really needed was for someone to normalize everything I was going through. To tell me I wasn’t alone in my denial or any of the mixed-up feelings that sometimes snuck past the denial.

So with all of the clarity my hindsight brought me, here are the ways I wish I would have reached out for that normalizing reassurance:

Join Support Groups/Community

Hear me out. The number of women who have gone or are going through experiences that are very similar to the one you are in now is astounding.

I won’t go into statistics here because you don’t need that sort of worry in your life right now (here are the March of Dimes articles on Early Pregnancy Loss, Stillbirth, and Infant Death to back up my claim, but seriously, don’t look at these).

But you are not alone in what you’re going through. And I cannot think of a group more suited to normalizing your experience than the many women experiencing it alongside you.

And if you don’t want to join in or speak, you don’t have to. Just hearing their stories and observing their journeys can be a big help.

Postpartum Support International and Pregnancy After Loss Support both have good online support group programs for loss and pregnancy after loss.

If you are looking for a safe space to find some community and connect with others in your situation, please come find us in our private, supportive Facebook group. I hope to be able to offer support group services myself in the near future.

Start Therapy Yesterday

In all honesty, I should have been in therapy long before I became pregnant with my rainbow. All the stuff they say about how clear hindsight is is true.

But without the benefit of that hindsight, I did not end up in counseling until the very end of my rainbow pregnancy. My midwife suggested I establish care with a therapist before birth so I would already have mental health support if I developed postpartum depression or anxiety.

It was wonderful advice because Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (or PMADs) are fairly common and even more likely when one has experienced previous loss. Therapy can offer early tools to help if you’re struggling—especially since perinatal depression and anxiety are common and treatable.

But the work I have done with my trauma-informed counselor since then really highlights how I could have benefited from it much sooner.

It can feel like a lot to add looking for a therapist when you are already dealing with so much. But the benefits are worth it if you find the right one.

For more about counseling for your rainbow pregnancy journey, see
When to Seek Therapy During a Rainbow Pregnancy.

Journaling

Personally, I struggle with this one. I am not sure if it is because I almost always have big breakthroughs when I can get myself to sit down and journal (and those can be scary), but I am usually pretty resistant to it.

Denial is a safe place for me to hide, and a part of me knows journaling can pull me out of it. It can feel scary. But it is so beneficial. I discover so much about myself when I sit down with that pen and paper.

Sometimes it’s messy, other times I write directly to my angel babies. The cool thing about journaling is it can be whatever you want it to be. Grab a pen and let it all fall out.

Even small journaling habits can help you process those tangled feelings—this journaling to ease pregnancy-after-loss anxiety study shows that putting words on paper really helps.

It is incredibly hard to ask for help when you don’t know what you need. And more than that, if you can’t articulate how you are feeling, your support person/people be able to offer the best support for where you’re at.

Here are some journaling prompts you can try as a starting point, if you’d like.

These prompts are optional tools for exploring your own feelings and decisions about your rainbow pregnancy.

There’s no pressure to engage with them – they’re simply here if you find writing helpful or want to give it a try.

Think of them as a quiet space to explore your thoughts at your own pace, with no right or wrong answers. Whether you prefer to write, reflect silently, or simply keep reading, the choice is yours.

📝Who has offered to help that I wish I could let in — and what might a first small step with them look like?

📝What am I afraid to feel or tell someone that I feel?

📝What is one thing my support system could do for me to help me feel less overwhelmed/tired/afraid/alone?

When Everyone Wants to Help. . .But No One Knows How

I was lucky enough to have several people in my life who knew I was struggling and wanted to help. But the answer to “What can I do?” doesn’t come easy when you don’t know it yourself.

Because we don’t talk about pregnancy and infant loss enough as a society, it is difficult for someone who has never been where you are to guess what the best version of support looks like.

When they’re at a loss for what else to do, perfectly well-meaning friends and family will often try to lift your spirits or make you feel better. And this usually shows up in the form of filling silences with pretty unhelpful things like:

• “Everything happens for a reason.”
• “Didn’t you want this? Why aren’t you excited?”
• “This baby will heal you.”
• “You need to relax and stay positive. Stress is bad for the baby.”

These kinds of statements and questions invalidate your feelings and put pressure on you to feel differently. You don’t need any of this in your life right now so please try to keep in mind that this is a them problem, not a you problem.

There is nothing wrong about how you are feeling right now.

If you have support you don’t know what to do with, I do offer a workbook series that helps rainbow parents and their support people get to the bottom of what might be helpful together:

What Did Help Me (Eventually)

As I mentioned earlier, I cannot recommend therapy with a good counselor enough. I wish I had done it sooner.

The key here is a good counselor, though. Some are far more helpful than others. You will want to look for someone who specializes in perinatal matters and/or trauma.

I didn’t know what to look for, but I got lucky again. The first one I spoke to was the whole bag of nuts, we were not a good fit. But the second one I tried specializes in trauma and has been a lifeline for me ever since. I am still with them, and I don’t know where I’d be without them.

The other thing I really needed was just someone to tell me what to do. In my state of denial, existing from one moment to the next, things really snuck up on me.

There is so much the pregnancy and baby industries tell you you need to take care of while you are pregnant that you can actually just let go of.

You don’t need a perfectly decorated nursery or to have your hospital bag busting at the seams with all 75 items on a checklist that suggests you buy a bunch of new stuff.

But there are some things you do need to take care of before Baby arrives and I was not good at paying attention to what those were.

I was good at taking direction, though, as long as it wasn’t something that was going to pull me too far out of my denial.

My mom, my husband, and my midwives all helped here. But if I had recognized how helpful this was for me at the time, I might have been able to tap into it and ask for more of it.

For more about what has to happen before Baby arrives and what can wait (or be forgotten), see:

Essential vs Optional: A Framework for Rainbow Pregnancy Preparation

When Time Won’t Wait: Handling Urgent Tasks in Rainbow Pregnancy

Your Terms, Your Time: Rainbow Pregnancy Tasks You Can Say No To

You Are Not the Problem – The System is Unprepared

Baby loss is far more prevalent than any of us know before it happens to us or someone close to us. And even when it is someone close to us, we won’t always know. I was absolutely floored by the number of women in my life who could relate to my pain after my first loss.

And no one who hasn’t gone through it can truly understand the abject terror you feel during your next pregnancy.

The fixation on any twinge, the intense focus on baby movement and kick counts, the waiting for bad news at each new appointment (or every time you go to the bathroom).

And because your experience is so misunderstood (under-understood?), you are saddled with the dual burden of needing help and needing to first educate your support system before you can receive that help.

I am currently working on some resources to help with the educational side of things so you don’t have to, so stay tuned. And in the meantime, the workbooks I linked to above do handle some of that, so check them out.

And support groups, therapy, and journaling are all good places to start to figure out how to find the best possible support for this wild ride through pregnancy after loss.

You don’t need to try them all at once if it feels like too much. Start small with one tiny step. Afew suggestions (again, just start with one):

• Answer just one of the journaling prompts above, or save it to try answering later.
• Look through the support group lists I linked above and bookmark one you might try later.
• Join our private, supportive Facebook group.
• Read one more blog post today or plan to read another one tomorrow

You deserve support that actually supports you. And it is attainable with a little time and little pushing. You’ve got this, Momma, and I am here if you need me.

Reach out through my contact page or through the Facebook group if you could use a listening ear.

Before you go, I want to reiterate VERY CLEARLY that I am neither a Medical Health Care Provider nor a Mental Health Care Provider. Nothing I have written here should be taken as medical advice. PLEASE seek help from a professional if you have any questions or concerns about your pregnancy or your emotional state.