Barbara Kingsolver Quotes

It's [a miscarriage] all very thief-in-the-night. No one really knows what to say. You go into the emergency room, you think you're going to be a mum and you walk out empty. It's all neat and tidy, there's this potential being in your life and you're empty - all cleaned up and put back together, but completely shattered.

Before I gave birth to Hope, I had a miscarriage. The pain was so enormous, I had to write myself out of it. I kept a diary and did not feel entirely complete until Hope was born.

I lost twins at 14 weeks, and I had to have an D and C on my birthday.

We had a miscarriage.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

My mother died, and I couldn't stand to look at her bedroom any more. I'd get sick. I've always been a momma's boy.

Often, women who lose babies are blamed for the loss of those children and are ostracised.

My mother had lots and lots of children who didn't survive.

I loved and protected my own children like a fierce mama bear, but one of them died anyway. It was a dark day when I realized that part of my responsibility in Casey's death was that I did not love all the children of the world in that same real, not abstract, way.

During my grief, I realised there was nothing I could do for my mother, but I did have a child.

You always hear about people going through miscarriages and you never understand what one is like unless you go through it.

Those who have lost an infant are never, in a way, without an infant.

I think the worst kind of grief is unacknowledged grief.

When you've opened your heart to a child as you have to, there's always the fear that you may discover that the child is not viable. Losing that child is not a position you want to find yourself in.

There's a false perception that women in Africa somehow don't love their babies they way we do, don't grieve their loss the way we would. That is simply not true.

Such is my experience - not that I ever mourned the loss of a child, but that I consider myself as lost!

When you've lost a baby, everyone around you expects you to be fine once the new baby is born, as though that somehow takes away the pain of losing the first child. I needed to express how wrong that was.

People don't say they're pregnant until the second trimester. I intellectually understand that you don't want the whole world to know your business, but at the same time, what does that mean? You don't tell your employers you're pregnant, but then when you miscarry, no one knows you miscarried. Miscarrying is a horrible, painful event.

I think any woman who has lost a child and certainly lost more than one child, there's going to be a part of them that they keep closed off forever.

To lose two babies is really scary. It really caught on me emotionally, physically, everything. It took me at least 15 years to get over it and still, to this day, I miss my son.

It makes you tougher. And when you lose a child, no one can say anything that is ever going to impact you.

Dad was wiped from our lives. The day after he died, every photo of him disappeared from the house. It was as if he'd never existed. Me and my brothers weren't even allowed to go to his funeral. His death was made absolute.

I don't think any mother who has lost a child is ever the same.

Where can one find a profounder desolation than in the poor child who has lost its mother?

When a child loses his parent, they are called an orphan. When a spouse loses her or his partner, they are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, their isn't a word to describe them. This month recognizes the loss so many parents experience across the United States and around the world. It is also meant to inform and provide resources for parents who have lost children due to miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, stillbirths, birth defects, SIDS, and other causes.