I've been asked a few times what a husband should do when you lose a baby. Unfortunately, my wife Krista and I have lost two babies still-born- Zoe in 2004, and Jonathan this past August. Just like all the advice you get showered with regarding marriage and raising kids, I can't say what is right for you or a friend of yours dealing with this, especially in even worse situations where the baby is lost during or just after birth, but I can say this is what helped with me. My wife Krista (www.HopeInTheWaiting.com) has written about this for women, and I thought I'd write down what might be helpful for guys.
I'd say the first thing is that
this is horrible and it sucks. There's no easy thing about it.
Next, I'd say you should be there for your wife. You're going through this emotionally, but she's going through it emotionally and physically. Just be there with her, give her time alone with friends or family while you go get a Coke, give her time alone- just see what she wants.
Should you see and hold the baby? I remember that after the doctor took the baby and did a quick examination, she asked me if I wanted to see her. For a weird Hollywood minute, I thought I shouldn't because some person in some movie I'd seen had been scarred by it. But I did say I wanted to, so the doctor showed me what had gone wrong (the cord had been wrapped around her neck), and then she wrapped up the baby. With both Zoe and Jonathan, after the nurses had wrapped them up, we held them both. With Jonathan, we took a picture with our camera phone of each other holding our baby, although really you can just see the cloth. We wanted to make sure we had at least one picture holding our child. With Zoe, the hospital had a special service where they took a few pictures of the baby in a little gown. The one with her feet was the most 'normal', so to speak, and the one I remember most after seven years. That might not be for everyone, but it seemed to be good for us.
I'd said earlier you should be there for your wife, but it also is really difficult for the guy, so get some time for yourself when she wants a break or when someone else is with her.
I don't know if 'comfort' is the right word, but what kept coming back to me as a source of direction and strength was how Jesus acted on one of the worst days of his life, when his cousin (and likely childhood best friend) was brutally murdered. I blogged about it here, but in short, Jesus did get away to be by himself and pray (and probably cry a bit), but in between hearing of his cousin's sudden death and his attempts for some 'alone time', he ended up doing two of his most famous miracles- feeding the five thousand, and walking on water. I didn't perform any miracles that day, but I did realize that in between my justified and natural mourning I still needed to be there for those who needed me.
As for what a friend should do, my friends had sent me some texts and emails and a few voice mails, and a couple came to visit after asking if it was OK to come to the hospital. I didn't respond to many of the calls and emails in the immediate aftermath because I was taking care of Krista or just wanting to be alone, but that didn't mean I appreciate them.
After we got home from the hospital, for a week or two afterwards, several friends from Sunday school and our neighbors brought over food. That was great, because we didn't feel like doing anything. Family helped do laundry.
Something I think that helped with us after Zoe is that when we came home, we didn't have a TV in our bedroom, so we just used the pull-out couch in the living room and started sleeping there, renting movies and watching whole seasons of TV shows. I decided on Monday or Tuesday that on the next Friday (I think 7 or 8 days after the hospital), we'd put up the pull-out bed and move back into our room, sort of an unofficial end to official mourning. You never stop mourning (it just changes), but having the physical change helped us in getting back to regular life. At the time, the mourning for Zoe was like an explosion, just shaking our world, but then suddenly 2 1/2 months later we were pregnant again. When we lost Jonathan the mourning was very different, as we'd had two daughters in between, we didn't want to lessen one of our daughter's birthday party right afterwards, and so the mourning has been more of a long, slow burn.
Above all, give yourself some time to think and pray and seek God's will what to do.
Brian
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