E39: The Elephant in the Room (Narrative pt. 2)

Welcome to the Narrative Series, a poetic frame exploring the father's perspective of pregnancy and pregnancy loss experience.

Often times during a bereavement, the dad's experience of loss is drastically different than that of the mother.

A study titled, “Men’s grief following pregnancy loss and neonatal loss: a systematic review and emerging theoretical model” published in January 2020 found, “… that in comparison to women, men may face different challenges including expectations to support female partners, and a lack of social recognition for their grief and subsequent needs. Men may face double-disenfranchised grief in relation to the pregnancy/neonatal loss experience.”

The Journal of Neonatal Nursing (vol 29, Issue 3) published another study June 2023 titled “Father’s Perception of the NICU Experience” which states that: “Research has revealed that more than 50% of NICU fathers experience feelings of inadequate emotional support and a lack of essential information regarding caring for their premature infants. Fathers reported that frequently, healthcare workers tend to approach the mother when discussing prognosis and determining medical decisions, which makes the fathers feel like an observer and not an active participant in their infant's care. These experiences caused the fathers to feel helpless, in the way, and excluded, which can add to the father's distress.” 

Overall, these studies only begin to scratch the surface of the multifaceted issues complicating fathers' disenfranchisement in hospital settings and during a bereavements. 

If you're a bereaved dad struggling with your loss (miscarriage, stillbirth, any neonatal) and want to discover your strength in grief, send an email to the address or a DM to either of the accounts below. 

CONTACT
info@dadalways.com

INSTAGRAM
@_dadalways
@themiscarriagedads

Dad Always is the community you don't know you need.

Narrated by: Kelly Jean-Philippe

Music: Every Part Of You by Solitude

From: Podcastle.ai

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

The most defining event in your life has just occurred. In that moment, you suddenly become acutely aware that nothing will be the same again. You don't quite know how you know this, or if it even matters that you do, but the why is painfully obvious. To even be in this position is something you always dreamed about and your mind, like a womb, birthed unending exciting possibilities of things to come, possibilities that introduced you to a version of yourself you'd never even known before. That's what makes this event, this moment, so devastating and unsettling. There's nothing else that compares to it. It's definitive by nature and, as you're beginning to intuit, it's already reshaping and redefining the way you see everything and everyone. But you can't talk about it, and it's not because you don't want to. Like an invisible anchor suddenly chained to your soul, it's beginning to feel like something is plunging you into a deeper abyss of silence and solitude. You're feeling trapped within the confines of your own mind, as though your lips are hostage to an invisible force rendering you mute in the face of the horrific truth that there no longer will be a little voice that calls you daddy. You find yourself surrounded by people, yet feel utterly alone. The more gravity weighs you down. The seconds, minutes, the hours all mesh into a muddled blur of fragmented thoughts and unspoken sentiments. The solitude in the space you occupy is both a comfort and a curse. Your ears become sharply attuned to the sounds and the silence, the silence of the room, the silence of irreverent nearby whisperers occasionally defiling the solemnity of your space and the sacredness of this moment.

Speaker 1: 3:05

And the sacredness of this moment, you're wondering if anyone can see the turmoil behind your quasi-composed exterior. Can anyone sense your pain, anger, rage? Are you allowed to, or are you expected to, capitulate to the role of being the man unbothered by being the non-carrier of life, completely detached from any real connection to such a profound loss and grief In grief? The isolation is suffocating, yet you cling to it as a shield against the vulnerability that comes with exposing that you're hurt. You're deeply hurt Because you also lost something, because you too lost something, because you too lost someone.

Speaker 1: 4:09

And what you desire in this moment is connection and empathy. And your instinct to isolate and put up a facade is your own way of communicating that you're afraid. Afraid of being made to feel that your experience is invalid and illegitimate. The fear of being misunderstood and judged in that moment thrusts you into the unforgiving cycle where silence is both your ally and your nemesis. So you start fading into the background, your mind rehearsing non-truths you've picked up along the way, lies that depreciate who you truly are and what you're experiencing. You're experiencing the most defining event in your life has just occurred, and here you like the elephant in the room. Thank you.