Why would someone name the fetus after a miscarriage?

Question

I know this woman who has had two miscarriages, she lost one of the pregnancies at 4 weeks (2 days after she found out she was pregnant) and she said it was a baby girl and named it Anna Hope. The other pregnancy she lost at 6 weeks and said it was a baby boy named John Michael. She also has a son (alive) who was born a year before the miscarriages.

I am 8 weeks pregnant and if I did miscarry I would think it would be weird to tell people it was a boy or girl and give it a first and middle name. Is this a way for her to cope with her miscarriages? She didn’t know what sex the fetuses were, she just says she “knew” that they were a boy and a girl.

Do you understand this?

Answer 1

I personally had 3 miscarriages and , no, I didn't name them. I think some people get comfort by naming them and mourning them in their own way. I mourned my loss, yes. I just think it would have been harder for me if they would have been named. There is no "way" for someone to get over their miscarriage. Everyone goes about it in a different way. I personally was upset for awhile, my husband couldn't understand this, he said the baby was never born, so how could I be so upset. I didn't fault him for it, he just didn't understand. If this woman wants to mourn her loss by naming her unborn fetuses, then you have to just live and let live I guess.

Answer 2

First of all, if your friend told you that she did not know the sex of the children, then ok; but I want to make it clear that a child is just about full developed at three weeks...so yes, if the doctor were to look, they can tell the sex of the child.
Also I want to point out that you called these CHILDREN a fetus. Just be aware that they were children and not a fetus. I would name my child regardless simply because they became a child the second the sperm and the egg connected.
I honestly think your friend did a very honorary thing by giving her children names, not many people do and I think that it is very sad not to recognize the death of your child regardless how far along you were.

Answer 3

Grief is a very personal process that each person goes through differently. I have never had a miscarriage, but I know several women who have. It is very painful. For some, naming the baby helps with the grieving. To be able to give a name to a child who was never able to be born, held, and loved makes that baby a part of their family. It does not hurt anything for her to name her miscarried children as long as it is helping her move through her grief.

Answer 4

This is what psychologists often suggest women do to cope with the loss. To many women, having a miscarriage is comparable to having a stillborn or having a child die. To validate this, and allow women to better express their loss and its huge magnitude to them, they refer to it as their child. This includes a name, a sex, sometimes even a personality (she kicked a lot, so she was a fighter, etc.) By naming and assigning qualities to the fetus, women can make the first step towards coping with the loss of a child, even if it's only 6 weeks old.

Answer 5

I have had 2 miscarriages. The first one I was 8 weeks pregant, but the baby was no longer viable at 6 weeks. I didn't name him, but I knew he was a boy. With my second miscarriage, I was only 3 weeks. I rarely speak of it.

Answer 6

I understand it.

I've had four children. Three when I was much younger, one last year (she just turned a year old this week!). Within a week of my (then future) husband and I meeting, we had already talked about how big a family we would like.

On the day our daughter turned six months old, we found out that we were expecting again. We were so happy!

When I was 8 weeks along, I had a miscarriage. We found out that the baby had passed away (stopped developing) when I was 5 weeks along. I was devastated. I went into a depression that I wasn't sure I could get out of. My husband was wonderful. He took amazing care of the house, the baby... of me. I was a waste.

I searched out websites, called people that I knew, and even poured out my heart and hurt to strangers who had offered sympathy and told me about their miscarriages in an atempt to find a way out of the depression that I was in... to find someone that could tell me for certain that it wasn't my fault. A childbirth educator that we knew gave me a list of things that some people do to help ease the pain.

On that list was naming the baby. I thought she was nuts. I said good-bye and threw away the list I had written as she was talking. I could see planting a tree. I couldn't see placing a stone. I surely couldn't see naming the baby.

I thought naimg the baby would be just nuts. My husband and I have at least three names chosen for future children (boys names for family and a girl name that would be similar to our daughter's). We didn't know the gender, it was far too early to have known. Do we just pick one of the names that is so special to us and that we had pegged for our possible future children out of a hat and bestow it up this baby that we would never see? It just seemed so unfair. It just seemed like such a waste. If we are blessed with a boy, he will be named for my husband. Were we supposed to take that name and throw it away?

Then a little time passed. When we talked about the miscarriage it was in terms of "the last pregnancy", "what happened in August", "the miscarriage" or, rarely, "the baby". After a while I couldn't take it. We were blessed with this child... yes, it was only for a short time, but that life, that child we never got to hold, see, touch, or kiss... that life touched ours. When I referred to it all with the terms I mentioned above, it brought back memories of the depression, the pain, the loss, the hurt. I was tired of remembering it all that way.

One day I turned to my husband and, with tears in my eyes, said that I wanted to name the baby. I told him I didn't want to take the names that we had chosen for the future, but that I needed to call the child by a name. Immediately, he said, "how about Phoenix?". I knew right away that it was the perfect name for the baby.

So instead of referring to the miscarriage in terms of pain, depression and loss we refer to the child we had so close for such a short time in terms of hope and rebirth.

This has gone a long way towards helping me to cope and heal.

As for telling people about the miscarriage? Telling people that I had chosen a gender for the child we lost? We had decided when we found out that we were expecting that we weren't going to tell anyone about the pregnancy until we knew everything was ok. We were going to wait until after I'd reached 12 weeks along before telling anyone. So, with this pregnancy and this loss, those questions aren't something that we have to consider.

We've decided that in the future, we're not going to reveal any pregnancy until I reach 4-5 months. Personally, I want to wait until I can feel the baby kicking. That way will, hopefully, lessen the chances of having to explain to our family that we'd lost the baby.

Can I understand naming a child I had lost? Yes, I most certainly can. I can also appreciate that others might not understand it. I don't have a problem with that. It's a way of coping. It's one of the ways that we have chosen to try to heal. It's working for us.

Good luck and congratulations on your pregnancy!

Answer 7

Yes it is her way of coping. I thought about something like that the other day because I saw some really sad pictures of babies. I don't know if they were alive or not but they were so sad. I don't know what I would name miscarried fetuses but it would have to be a name that is very special to you because that fetus is very special to you.

My mom had 2 miscarrages before me and I don't think she named either of them they were to early to tell. It was way early in the pregnancy both times. They don't really talk about it though unless me or my sister mention it. Its usually about how they look what their doing in heaven. Will we know them? Is grandma playing with them? and so on...

Answer 8

Yeah, that's a grief-coping mechanism. Also, they used to do that sort of thing a long time ago, back in the 1800's and before. You named stillborns and miscarriages, in order to be able to pray for them to go to Heaven, rather than limbo. It's a little like the way the LDS/Mormon folks have post-mortem baptisms- sort of saving souls after they die. It's a sort of antiquated thing, but the intention is nice. Hope that helps! :)

Answer 9

To some, a baby is a baby at conception. Fetus is not in their vocabulary. Also, it's a sence of closure to name and bury the baby. I had a friend who held the baby after miscarry. She said it wasn't her first miscarry but it was easier for her to hold the baby and say goodbye. She did not name the baby.

Answer 10

Maybe she blieves like i do, that all "fetuses" are human beings. If I had miscarried I would have name mine, too. I work at the funeral home and this lady lost twins at 19 weeks. There wasn't much too them, but they could tell that they were boys. She didn't name them at first, so they were just twins A &B. Every time i look at our log book it makes me kinda sad. She eventually did name them, though and it made me feel better.