One in five women suffers a miscarriage. This can be very intense and drastic. Annemarie de Bruin also suffered seven miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy. Now it’s her mission to make the pregnancy loss less fraught. As a coach, she provides miscarriage counseling to other women and their partners. In Fuel talk further with Eunice about this intense topic.
Loss in pregnancy; it is something that is still taboo. Annemarie wants to break that taboo. Her wish is that we feel less uncomfortable and that we pay more attention to each other and to a quiet life.
Solitary
Coping with the loss of a miscarriage can be very lonely: “Early in your pregnancy you don’t tell everyone yet. But with pregnancy, desire and hope also grow. Sometimes nobody knows. It really only happens in your head or together with your partner. Because he’s so close to you, don’t tell yourself he’s doing badly. It’s something very fragile.”
It’s not easy to talk about it with others, while this is very nice and useful in such a difficult period. This is one of the reasons why Annemarie is so busy making this topic a topic of discussion.
Seven miscarriages
Annemarie is now the mother of two children aged eleven and nine. Before the eldest and after the youngest, she suffered seven miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy.
Every woman experiences a miscarriage in her own way. The (emotional) experience can be very different for everyone. Annemarie also experienced each abortion differently. The first time was the most intense for her: “It was before I had a baby. Everything was new, so even the miscarriage was very intense. Every miscarriage has its own story. One went ‘according to the rules’, with the other you didn’t know what to expect at all. You end up in something very uncertain. Although she Annemarie received help from the midwife and the hospital, she felt very searching at the time.
‘Never again’
When a miscarriage occurs over and over again, a lot of uncertainty arises: “After a miscarriage you think: never again. I thought so too. So you go through a depth and that’s heavy and difficult. But at the same time there was also hope and you think: maybe next time will be good. You have no control.”
Annemarie experienced that process of sadness and hope over and over. Every positive pregnancy test restored hope, but at one point she no longer dared to admit it: “You know from experience that things can go wrong again. It always happened. It doesn’t make you more open-minded.
In the hand of God
As a Christian, Annemarie believes that God gives new life. Yet she – despite all her pain – she has never been angry with God: “I asked myself why: what goes wrong every time? These questions still remain. Maybe we won’t have an answer to that either, I’m not looking for that anymore either.”
One of the things that has helped Annemarie is music. Especially the song “Until we see each other”. Eline wrote the song two days after having a miscarriage herself. She believes she got it from God himself. It also means a lot to Annemarie: “The song is about the sadness that is there, but it also says that you can know that it is with God. It is in his hand. This just gives you peace of mind.
You can listen to the entire conversation and the “Until We See You” song below:
