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Different types of loss can be experienced equally...or not. Sadness is sadness. It affects our core being. The amount you experience is personal to the person. No one can determine the ‘appropriate’ amount of sadness one feels because it is so unique to the whole makeup and prior experiences of the person. I have lost early on and I feel I experienced such deep sadness because of what it meant to me. I don’t want anyone to compare or downgrade the depth of my pain. It would aim to invalidate the truth of my struggle and heartbreak if judged as a ‘less worse’ situation.

I think there are levels, I guess - I had a loss at 6 weeks that was heartbreaking but it was more the loss of an idea, as compared to a late term loss or still birth, which I cannot imagine.

A loss is a loss but I think everyone deals with them in varying degrees.

But that's like saying it hurts less to loose a child at age one compared to loosing a teenager.

I'll admit it, I think there are levels. That's not to say a six week loss cannot be absolutely devastating, but I feel like as far as pregnancy goes the further along the harder I would find it. I would be HEARTBROKEN if something happened to my current pregnancy (30w) but even I think not *as* crushed as if something happened to my living children.

I think loss is not comparable- One person’s early loss might hit her harder than someone else’s later loss. Loss is so personal and we all process it so differently that it is impossible to create a universal scale.

I don't think it's helpful to compare across people, because as other's have said what a loss means is very personal and will interact with other life circumstances and painful experiences that people have had. So if I'm interacting with someone else, I'm going to take the position that a loss is a loss and not make assumptions about what it's like for them, or how they should feel. A given person might well experience losses at different points very differently - I have had two first trimester losses and they were devastating in different ways, but I recovered from the one that happened earlier much more quickly. But under different life circumstances, that might not have been the case...

I can only speak for my own experience but I do think there are "levels" of loss. We lost our third pregnancy at seven weeks (miscarriage completed at ten weeks) but it feels like I lost a pregnancy rather than a baby. Was I sad and was it shitty and miserable? Absolutely but to be honest I haven't really dwelled on it and it's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. The biggest thing to come out of it is the presence of a constant feeling that I'm just waiting for something to go wrong with my current pregnancy.

I think everybody has the right to grieve and process loss differently and there isn't a right or wrong way to do it but I understand why you asked the question!

I think there are levels of loss, but this is only based on personal experience. I had a miscarriage at 9 weeks and I was totally devastated, but then my next pregnancy ended with my son being stillborn and that totally destroyed me. I don't say that to invalidate anyone else's experience with an early loss or chemical pregnancy- I just know first hand that going through labor and delivery and holding my dead son was worse than my D&C. But I also know that losing my living children would be so much worse than anything.

@LulaBee: So painful beyond words.

I do think there are levels of loss. Maybe it would be more accurate to say depth of grief. Like how deep the pool of grief feels - which is personal to each person and each circumstance.

@808love: Agreed - you said it perfectly.

You can never help the way you feel, and all of your feelings are valid regardless of if you were pregnant for 5 weeks, went full term and had a still born, or had a child who was 3 and lost him/her. I don't like to think of things as levels. It's just different. It's like saying you don't have a right to be sad due to losing your foot because I lost a leg. You still lost something that is dear to you, and you have a right to grieve in a way that helps you.

@LindsayInNY: Over the course of my quest to become a mom, I had 6 pregnancies and 2 live births. I was talking to my therapist about this the other day. I feel like I should be happy that I was lucky enough to have my 2, and she stopped me. If we continue to compare ourselves to others who we think have it worse off than us, we'll never truly be able to process our feelings of grief over what we have felt we lost, and it's ok to do that.

I think a loss is a loss, and I think there are levels determined by more than just how far along a pregnancy was. Ultimately it doesn't really matter what we think, though, because each woman will experience and grieve in her own way regardless of the world's expectation. We are assured of that, if nothing else.

@LindsayInNY: so, I’m part of a support group for moms who have experienced loss, whether that be me who lost my son after he was born at 5.5 weeks, or a woman who miscarried at 5.5 weeks, or a woman who had a still birth. Our rule is that all loss is seen as equal. What I can say after being a part of this group for 3.5 years is, there are “better” things about certain situations, but they all suck. I think most people would agree that losing a living child is the worst imaginable thing. I completely agree, but for women who delivered babies who never lived outside the womb, they may have given anything to see their baby’s eyes or heard hem cry just one time. So in that way, my situation is “better”. Now for me, I could say, at least other babies didn’t suffer. I watched my perfectly healthy son suffer for a month before he passed, so in that way, other situations are “better”. But would I trade my situation ? No, I’m glad for the time I did get.

@everbee: @LAZB:

@periwinklebee: yes, 100% your statement "So if I'm interacting with someone else, I'm going to take the position that a loss is a loss and not make assumptions about what it's like for them, or how they should feel."

I had a mc @ 6.5wks with my 1st pregnancy & was so devastated bc I was already up against being 40. I mourned the child that would've been, as well as my naiveté around getting/staying pregnant. Now that I have my DD, I can't imagine not having her, so it seems like it was meant to be. For others who've had late losses, stillbirth or the loss of a child, I do feel like they have more significant losses in my own estimation of their loss & grief, though.

This is a tough one. I always come back to: a loss is loss and who is to say that one person's loss is worse, more sad, and deeper than another's?

I've suffered several pregnancy losses: 5 early miscarriages and one later term pregnancy loss at 18.5 weeks. I can say that they all affected me very differently. The first miscarriage was truly upsetting for me. It was early, but we had been trying for a bit and everyone around me was pregnant or having babies. So, it really affected me. My other early miscarriages were sad, but I could rationalize them. Loss upon loss is really difficult, however, so there was that. My 18 week loss (like someone else wrote) destroyed me. I birthed my son and held him and saw him. I've never been through something so unbelievably awful in my life. It's been 17 months and I have had my "rainbow" baby, who is truly amazing. However, I still think about the son we lost every single day. I still grieve for him. I still cry for him. His loss changed me forever.

Gah, reading about everyone's losses brings tears to my eyes.

I don't know, I think there are "levels," but one of the worst parts of my early loss was it's dismissal--by friends/family who I told, dh, and even myself--and feeling like it didn't count because it WAS so early. Like, my mom's take-away when I told her I was miscarrying was "oh yay you're ttc" (insert massive eye roll here...). or even more recently, my dad actually forgot that I had had a miscarriage...I wouldn't compare it to other losses, per se, like my sil lost a pregnancy at 20 weeks, or a friend at 12, and that would be "worse" because you become more and more invested each day...but it was still a loss, and I found the impulse to minimize it really hurtful when I was going through it and after.