Guest Author - Krissi Danielsson

I've written about miscarriages and the holidays in the past. Obviously Thanksgiving and Christmas can be tough for anyone facing miscarriages, particularly if you have had a recent loss. Everywhere you look you see emphasis on families and joy when you may just want to crawl up into a ball and hide someplace.

This might be particularly true if you have an extended family tradition of getting together for the holidays -- resulting in you having to listen to your Fertile Myrtle pregnant sister in law complain about her morning sickness with her fourth pregnancy in five years and laugh about her husband just having to look at her to get her pregnant. And your coworkers of course sending you baby shower invites left and right.

So I wanted to address the subject again and discuss how to cope with the holidays when you're going through loss.

First and foremost, know that you do not have to apologize for your feelings. Probably the hardest part of surviving the holidays is surviving other people. You don't have to explain yourself, and you don't have to justify it to anyone if you're not feeling up to being cheerful. In some cases, it may be easier to try to put on a brave face for your relatives and not talk about your losses at all. Obviously I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't talk about it if you want to, but if you know beforehand that your relatives just don't get it, you might just be subjecting yourself to unnecessary grief by trying to explain it to them in the first place. Few people truly understand what you go through with pregnancy loss but even fewer people seem understand that you don't always have to say something as far as advice, and that sometimes listening is enough. If your relatives are hopeless cases, perhaps changing the subject and ducking out early is the best solution to family gathering heartache.

If your relatives don't understand what you're going through but seem to want to support you, don't be afraid to tell them what you need as far as support. Sometimes people want to help but don't know how.

And consider reading a grief coping book. Several new books of personal stories have been published recently that might help.

If you feel you need to hide from the world a bit during the holidays, that's okay -- but be on the lookout for signs of depression and please find someone to talk to rather than keeping everything bottled up inside. If you don't have understanding "real life" friends, consider joining an Internet discussion board (such as the one on this site) to network with others who are facing similar hardships. Having someone to talk to (or type to, as the case may be) will help you to feel less alone.

Try to find something about your life to be thankful about, also, and focus on that as much as possible to keep your spirits up. Perhaps you have a living child, a wonderful spouse, a really great job, or a fun hobby? Not that any of these things mean you shouldn't be grieving your loss, but it can sometimes help to remember when going through a rough time that not everything in your life is bad.

Support your partner through the holidays, also. Your partner may not always be forthcoming about his (or her) feelings and may need your support more than you know. And tell him or her what you need as far as support if you need more than you're getting. Know also that sometimes the partner who was not the ones who went through the pregnancy may not have been as connected to the baby and remember that people grieve differently.

If you haven't already done so, consider doing something to honor your baby as a part of the holidays. Plant a tree, or buy a toy for a needy child. One coping strategy I heard once upon a time from a mother grieving her stillborn daughter was that she planned to donate a toy every Christmas for a child the age her daughter would have been that year (although I can imagine this causing more grief in some cases, depending on where you are in the process). Or perhaps a special angel ornament for your Christmas tree with a date of your loss or any other memento of your baby.

Don't feel guilty if you are happy, which might sound odd, but sometimes we may come to feel that by enjoying ourselves we are somehow dishonoring the memory of our babies. Just as it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to be happy.

And when the new year comes, know that it is indeed a new year and the new year may bring new opportunities.