Hello, my name is Azmina Lakhani, and I'm a family counsellor for the Alberta Health Services Pregnancy and Infant Loss Program.

After the loss of a baby, everyone grieves differently.

In this video, parents talk about their grief and the grief of their family members.

Grief journeys can be very different, even between parents.

Initially, parents may feel very close to one another, then they may feel no one understands them.

Many things can impact your grief journey like gender, culture, and family dynamics.

[Desiree]

Like, literally a week ago, I was online looking at a stroller and now I have no baby. Like it just... I think that was tough, is then, like, when it starts to really hit you.

So you're dealing then with the emotional part.

And, for me it was the physical part, healing, too.

The physical part was almost the easier part.

That part, in a week or two, physically, I was feeling better.

Mentally, I don't know if I can ever say it's ever going to be… it took a few months before then it was easier for me to talk about it, but I still am not in a position to ever, like… if I talk about it, I cry.

That is the reality at this point.

[Bobby and Jasmeen]

Well, when it first happened, we were on the same page.

We were very supportive of each other, but then came a time where we were grieving differently.

And I feel like that's really important to know that not everybody grieves the same way, even though both of us being parents, losing the same child, we grieved very differently.

It came to a point where we just started accepting that this is how I grieve and this is how you grieve. And we tried supporting each other in that way.

I think it's very important to know that there needs to be a mutual understanding, respect for each other, because not both parents are going to grieve the same way.

But it doesn't mean that if one isn't expressing or talking about it, that they're not grieving.

And eventually, as time goes on, I feel like you come back to that same page. But it does take time.

[Sin and Yuqi]

I started a new job and I have to be very rational, very calm.

I have to handle my new job and at the same time, I have to handle her emotion.

I have to be strong.

So it doesn't matter what gender you are. Be strong is to be strong.

[Saleh and Helena]

I get to learn that we're both going to grieve differently, right?

But we also have to communicate, because that's the only one person that you went through the process with that understands what happened, what went wrong.

For most of those things, I was unconscious.

But then guess who had to hold those babies? It was him.

So I know that the trauma doesn't only extend to me, it extends to him, too.

[Shadow grief / Triggers]

[Zain and Soraya]

Yeah, in terms of kind of the grief that sort of pops up.

Sometimes music, there's certain songs that I would listen to – not really with any intention, they were just songs I was listening to a lot when I was pregnant – and so sometimes I'll hear those and there is a very powerful association of where I was at last time I was listening to this song and what I thought my life was going to be.

[Bobby and Jasmeen]

Certain smells, because they were just associated to that day.

And at that point and at that time, it was simple things: it was like walking past something as simple as Toys R Us and seeing a whole section with strollers…

Or even commercials, I think...

Commercials were really hard.

You turn on the TV and you see diaper commercials or toy store commercials.

And back then we used to get those flyers at home, you would open them up and they'd have all these baby things and, as I mentioned, there's triggers all over the place.

[Desiree]

And one of my friends had to go for surgery at that hospital, and I haven't been near that hospital since.

And I'm like, I don't think I can take you. I actually don't know if I can do it.

And I'm like, I remember talking to my therapist and she's like, that's normal, you had a very traumatic experience.

This isn't because I'm crazy.

The idea of walking in that hospital terrifies me.

There's all this stuff that comes up in places like you would never think.

And I don't think, myself included, like people realize that a miscarriage isn't just a miscarriage.

It's all this: (A) you've lost a child, and it's all this stuff that comes up after that you can't even prepare for, it just kind of pops up.

[Grief counselling]

[Saleh and Helena]

It was not easy, it was actually his idea to push us to do the counselling, because I just was done.

I was not interested in any of it at that time.

[Zain and Soraya]

It was important to me that we start counselling very early on, so we had our first counselling session probably 2 or 3 weeks after the loss.

And I think that was really, really important as well, for both of us to have that conversation and to sort of see where we were at in that way.

[Bobby and Jasmeen]

And I'll be honest, initially I thought: we'd do it, I thought it would help Jasmeen more than me.

We went and, once again, we were at 2 different places at that point.

And I just had to talk to someone about something, and I was like: it was my baby and she was gone and I didn't know what to do.

And so I ended up going to the counselling, and that felt weird for me to be doing that for a long time just going by myself.

If you had asked me before, I would've thought that was all nonsense, to be honest with you.

But there's something about being around people who understand what you're feeling.

And so as difficult as it is to be vulnerable in front of strangers and talk to people about what you want to, I can see how it's very helpful for people.

It's not me. I just can't go out in a group and even though all these other parents have gone through a similar situation and just sit there and talk about it and expect them to understand what I'm going through, that's just how I've dealt with it.

This is how it's worked for me.

And, I guess it's more of just how I am as a person.

[Telling your children]

[Bobby and Jasmeen]

We were just looking for the right time.

So, we did introduce her to her a few years ago, and they were in shock.

My older son when we told him that, technically you're the second baby, you would've had an older sister.

First thing he did, was he started, he asked what year she was born: 'Oh, she would've been this old now.' and 'she would've been in this grade', 'she would've been going to the same school as us'.

But, at the same time, his reaction, he got sad.

He's an emotional boy and I think, even when he watches movies, he gets very upset.

So, we knew telling something about this, that he would take it. But we knew we had to, we knew it is obviously something that he had to be aware of.

The thing he said that really stuck with me is: 'that's so sad, I never got to meet her.'

[Saleh and Helena]

Grief is not something you get over.

You don't get over burying your kids. You don't get over losing your kids.

We managed to put one foot ahead of the other.

We managed to cope with it one day at a time.

I have my good days.

He has his good and bad days.

But the most important thing is seeking support.

Society thinks that you have to deal with loss alone, but I think that's the biggest mistake.

Because I tell friends when I lost the twins, the amount of friends and coworkers that came up to me to talk about their own loss, I was shocked, that we don't discuss it.

[Azmina]

Thank you for watching this video.

We want to remind you that there are many resources available to you and your support people, including counselling, support groups, and books.

You can also talk to friends and family members who have experienced a loss to find out what helped them heal.

You can also visit myhealth.alberta.ca and search under services for the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Program in your area.​