140: Why You Froze When They Said the Wrong Thing

You weren't being too sensitive. They were being thoughtless. Those are not the same thing.

You know the comment. The one your sister said at brunch. The one your best friend sent over text. "You can always try again." "At least you know you can get pregnant." "Maybe by this time next year you'll have your baby." When it comes from a stranger, you can write it off. But when it comes from someone your own age, someone who knew your baby, someone who was supposed to be in your corner, that's a different kind of wound.

In this episode, I'm talking about why those comments hit the way they do, and why it has nothing to do with you needing thicker skin. We'll get into the second sentence hiding underneath the words, the freeze response that keeps you from saying anything in the moment, and why your baby was never a rough draft or a practice round. I'm also sharing what someone said to me after I lost my girls, and how it quietly changed the way I let people in.

What you'll learn:

• Why a comment from your sister or best friend cuts so much deeper than one from a stranger at Target
• The unspoken second sentence underneath "next year you'll have your baby"  and why you're not imagining it
• Why your body freezes when someone says the wrong thing, and why that's survival, not weakness
• How to stop carrying shame about the things you didn't say in the moment
• Why your baby is not a stepping stone, a placeholder, or a first draft — and never will be
• How to hold two true things at once: they meant well, and it still hurt
• Three things you can actually do this week when someone wounds you this way
• Why you don't owe anyone a graceful response or an explanation
• How to make peace with the fact that some people will never fully understand, and why that's okay

Read the full blog post here: 

https://navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop

Free workshop for moms grieving stillbirth or pregnancy loss. Learn simple, trauma-informed practices to release guilt, calm the what-ifs, and honor your baby's memory with love instead of pain. Includes bonus Grief & Guilt Release Journal.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

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Transcript

Okay, we are gonna have a real conversation today, and I have a feeling some of you are gonna listen to this one twice, maybe even share it with someone, because the thing I'm gonna talk about, I know you've lived it, and you just didn't know what to do with it.

So I wanna talk today about the comment. You know the one. The one your sister said to you at brunch, or your best friend said over a text, or your cousin said when you finally worked up the nerve to give her a call back. Or your coworker who has known you for 10 years said in the break room like it was nothing. "You can always just try again. At least you know you can get pregnant. Maybe by this time next year you'll have your baby. You're young. There's still time." Whichever version of it you got, they're all saying the same thing.

If you've heard a version of this from someone close to you, from someone your age, from someone who is supposed to know you, and it has been sitting on your chest for weeks, months, or years, and you haven't been able to shake it, this episode is for you. Stay with me.

I get these messages all the time from moms about the things that people say. The stranger at the grocery store, the well-meaning aunt at Thanksgiving, the lady at church who asks if you've tried praying about it. Those comments hurt. They really do. But there's a specific kind of comment that hurts in a different way, and that's when the words come out of the mouth of someone who's your own age, someone who's supposed to be in your corner, someone who has known you forever.

And I wanna talk about them specifically today, because they're the ones that really hurt, and they're the ones that not a lot of people talk about. So let's talk about it.

That kind of comment hits the way it does for a reason. And it's not because you're too sensitive. It's not because you're reading too much into it. It's not because you need thicker skin. It's none of that. It's because of who said it.

When a stranger at Target says something stupid, you just write it off. They don't know you. They don't know your baby. They didn't sign up to be in your life. You can get in your car, mutter something under your breath, and just keep going. But when your sister says it, when your best friend since high school says it, when your cousin who grew up with you says it, when the friend who was in your wedding says it, that's a different thing. That's a wound.

And here's why. Because these people knew your baby. They knew about them as soon as you did. Maybe they came to a gender reveal or your baby shower, or they texted you to find out that you were pregnant and were like, "I am so excited. I can't wait for them to call me Aunt." Maybe they bought you something for the nursery. And probably you told them their name. They were gonna be aunts and uncles and family, and they were gonna be in your baby's life. And now they're talking about your baby like it was just a stepping stone, like it was the practice round, and the real thing is gonna be happening soon.

The other thing that nobody talks about is when the comment comes from someone your own age, it carries a second sentence underneath. A sentence that you're hearing, whether they mean it that way or not. If your sister has two kids and she says, "Next year you'll have your baby," what she's really saying is, "I'm a mom and you're not, but maybe you could be." If your best friend is pregnant with her second and she says, "He'll get here," what you're hearing is, "I have this and you don't." If your cousin who got married after you and got pregnant right away says, "Just keep trying," what is really in the air, that's not being said, is, "I have what you wanted and you just don't have it yet."

She doesn't say that out loud. She doesn't even mean to say it that way. Truly, they don't mean it this way. And she would probably be horrified if she knew that's what you heard. But that's what's being said, and you felt it. There is a comparison happening, whether anybody names it out loud or not.

She is sitting in the seat of motherhood, holding her toddler, scrolling her phone, casually telling you what to do with your life, and that someday this will get to be you. And the message is, "I'm there and you're not. We are not the same right now." And that is what makes this comment feel so unbearable. It's not just that she said something dismissive about your baby. It's that she said it from a place of having what you don't. And she didn't even seem to notice that the comment landed like a slap.

You aren't being too sensitive. The phrase "you can always try again" makes you feel like your friend thinks your baby was just a first draft, a first attempt. This version didn't work out, but the real one's coming soon. And "at least you know you can get pregnant" — what she might be saying is that the pregnancy itself was the win, and the baby at the end was just gonna be the bonus. And you proved that you can get the win, so next time it will work out. You've already done your trial run.

I know she didn't mean it that way. But that is what the sentence feels like to you.

"Next year you'll be a mom." I hate this one. Because what they're saying is that you're not a mom yet. That because you don't have a living child, you're not actually a mom, but you will be. And that the baby that you had and saw and held doesn't count. That motherhood is something that starts when you birth an alive baby that you get to bring home, and since you didn't get to do that, you're not actually a mother.

But you are. You have been since the moment you knew that they were coming. And someone you love just said casually over coffee that you're not. And it's hard. That's a wound, and you are allowed to feel wounded by it.

I think a lot of moms carry shame about their reaction, and I wanna take that off the table right now. Because when they say that, your body freezes. You feel your face flush. You feel your throat get tight. You feel this weird heat, and in that moment, you can't think of a single thing to say. You can't defend your baby that's not here. You can't say the right thing. You can't tell the person that they hurt you. You just sit there, because they can't understand it.

And then you get mad at yourself after, thinking, "Why didn't I say something? Why did I let them just sit there and talk about my baby like that?"

It's not a weakness. It's just a freeze response, and it is truly how your nervous system is protecting you. When your body is shocked by something painful, especially from someone you love, it goes still. It does not have time to try to process a rebuttal or come up with a reasoning that can help them understand how you're feeling. It just freezes. So the fact that that happened did not mean that you were letting them dismiss your baby. It's just a normal human response to something hurtful being said by someone that you trusted. Your body did exactly what it's meant to do. The processing happens later. The realization happens later. And that's hard. But give yourself grace for the freeze. It was not a failure. It was survival.

Here's the truth. Your baby was not a rough draft. They're not a stepping stone or a placeholder. They are not the practice round. They are your baby. They are one of your children, and they are part of who you are moving forward in your life from here on out. They are woven into the rest of your life.

There is no future baby who replaces them. There is no rainbow baby who fills their space. They have their own space, and they still have it and always will. If another baby comes, that baby will be their own person, their own story, their own miracle. They're not a do-over. They're not a second draft. And they will be a sibling already.

People do not intentionally say these things to try to hurt you. They love you. They watched you go through something that they can't imagine surviving, because they've never lived it. And they're desperate for you to have a happy ending, so they reach for one. They grab the nearest version of "how can I make this okay" that they can find, and they give it to you. Like they're trying to help. And the gift that they're handing you is a version of the future where your baby was just the thing that you had to get through before the real baby comes.

So they're not giving it to you to intentionally hurt you. They are doing it out of their discomfort. They can't sit in the truth that there is no happy ending from a baby you lost. So they just fast-forward. They jump ahead, and they try to make it all okay.

So they're not being malicious. And I'm not telling you this to let her off the hook. I'm just telling you this because so many moms walk around feeling like you have to make a choice. Either you accept that they meant well and you have to swallow what they say, or you let yourself be hurt and be furious forever and never speak to them, which happens a lot.

I want you to just consider the idea that you can feel both. You can know that they mean well and that their comment hurt. Both are true. They can be true for the same person at the same time. You don't have to forgive a comment to forgive the person. And you don't have to forget a comment to keep loving someone. You're allowed to love your sister and still be hurt by what she said, both at the same time.

After I lost my girls, someone in my life said, "At least you have your other kids." And I know it was supposed to be comforting. I think they thought they were reminding me of what I still had. Be grateful for your blessings. But what it felt like to me was that my girls didn't count. That they were disposable, because I already had kids. That I just didn't really need them. They were just extras. And so without them, it was still okay. And I was lucky.

I knew that. I was counting my blessings. But it really stuck with me. And I just froze, because it was so shocking. Because that's what you do when you have no idea. And then the longer I sat with it, I became angry. And then I just couldn't understand. But what I really came to was, this person has no idea. No idea what it's like. And I hope that they never do.

But it really changed something in me. I didn't cut them out. I didn't blow up. But I know that it forced me to isolate myself from people a little bit more, because I didn't wanna make myself as vulnerable to those sort of comments. And that couldn't happen if I just isolated myself and didn't talk about it, didn't open myself up. It's just what happens, whether you intend to or not. Your nervous system sometimes has you do things like this, and it is your body protecting you.

So if that's what you're doing right now, if you are retreating, isolating — know that this is you protecting yourself. It's okay to do that right now. And maybe at a different time, you can go back in with that person and let them know that was hurtful. "Here's how I heard you say this to me. Here's what I know you meant by this." But if that's not the time for you to do that right now, that's fine.

So here, I just wanna give you three things that you can do this week if someone does wound you in this way.

Here's the first one. You don't have to respond in the moment. I'm giving you permission to just not. When someone says something like this, you don't have to fix it. You don't have to educate them. You don't have to pretend you're okay so they'll stop feeling awkward. You can say nothing. You can change the subject. You can leave the room, go to the bathroom, say, "That's not how it really seems for me," and leave it there. You can end the phone call or leave. You don't owe anyone a graceful response.

The second thing is that not every person who said something hurtful gets a free pass forever. So you have to figure out which is which. Maybe you don't do it in the moment. Maybe you do circle back later on, when you have time to think, "Was this just a comment that they were trying to comfort me with, or do they really feel this way? Is this sort of a pattern that they keep doing to me? They keep minimizing this baby." Then you get to decide. Do you need to let them know that they owe you an apology? That, "This is how I really see this comment you said to me, and it's so hurtful." Or do you maybe distance yourself from them? You spend less time with them — not because you're punishing them, but because they have just shown you over and over that they really do not understand this piece of you.

And the third thing is truly accepting the fact that people who have never been through this will never get it. You can send them all the articles. You can explain it till you're blue in the face. You can never make them get it. And they will never all the way understand, because they did not experience the type of loss that you did. And so from their perspective, these comments seem like an okay thing to say. So you can either sap all of your energy trying to make them understand it, or just be accepting that they say these things because they love you, and they just don't understand.

And that's sometimes a big part of healing — the acceptance, and just knowing what is true for you, and what other people are capable of, and not having to be convincing to them, and just finding your people. You don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to make sure everyone is comfortable. And you can just be yourself.

If any of this is resonating with you, if any of this is something that you want to dive in a little deeper on, I have a free workshop called Practical Ways to Release Guilt and Navigate Grief. And in it, I give you tools that I talk to my clients about all the time, on how to manage your grief, how to navigate the guilt that eats you alive, and how to have these hard conversations with the people that you love so that they are able to show up and support you the way you need them to. You can check it out by going to my website at navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop.

And in the meantime, I want you to know that if someone said something to you, one of the "just try again" comments, and it's been sitting on your chest — you weren't being too sensitive. They were being thoughtless. And those are not the same thing.

You know that your daughter or son was not a first try, a rough draft. They are your child. They always will be. And no baby will ever replace her. And you may not ever make anybody in your life understand this. You just have to know it. And you have to surround yourself with people who already know that too.

Until next time, I am sending you so much love.