What do you say?

[Lizard]

So I'm having one of those "there's no Hallmark card for that" situations.

One of my staff and her husband have been trying for a second baby for a while. I have known for a while that it wasn't happening easily. But she recently let me know that in fact she had been pregnant for most of the past year, several times, but had lost them all. She told me this in the context of telling me a few days ago that this time she had got to 12 weeks, things were looking good so she was pretty happy. Yesterday though she was told that in fact there is a 1/13 chance of the kid having a chromosomal defect like Downs. That's probably shittier news than I have ever had to deal with. Losing a non-viable pregnancy is pretty awful but at least you know where you stand. Having gone through so much, with apparent success, only to have this uncertainty thrust upon you must be terrible. I presume she'll have diagnostic tests and so forth but bloody hell, what do you say in the meantime?

I hate it when there is literally nothing you can do for someone you care about.

Sorry for dumping this on a rugby site but I needed to get it off my chest in a relatively anonymous forum. No one else at work apart from our PA knows (although some people are starting to guess she is pregnant).

Heavy shit, man. Normal cynical service will resume shortly.

[Big D]

There is nothing you can say that will make them feel better. I have 2 very good friends who are going through a tough time after losing a baby halfway during pregnancy. It is awful for them.

Make sure she is aware that you/your company will do what they can to accommodate any requirements in the corporate responsibility sense. Do you have confidential care lines/support etc?

As a friend, make sure she knows she can talk to you if need be. Let her take the lead on any potential chromosomal defect related conversations as ultimately it is for her/her husband to talk about if they want. I would try and act as if the pregnancy is normal until told otherwise, there is a 12/13 chance this will be a wonderful thing for her at the end of the pregnancy.

As someone who has a wife who miscarried before having a beautiful boy (and T-10 days on No.2) I really hope they get good news. Struggling to get pregnant and losing them is a horrible thing to go through.

[morepork]

Tell her to hang tight and wait for the diagnostic. 1/13 is not definitive. She and/or her husband possibly has a congenital condition that predisposes to chromosome abnormalities, hence the unfortunate lack of success. A decent geneticist can help them out in nailing down actual risk, and help them plan. Auckland hospital used to have a fantastic resident geneticist, Ingrid Winship, but she has sadly moved on. They shouldn't be shy of getting more than one informed clinical opinion either, and I don't mean some snot-faced administrator with an on-line degree. Get up in the face of actual physicians.

[Lizard]

Thanks. That's pretty much what I've done. She's having a test on Monday for chromosomal defects, but apparently there's other possible issues that won't pick up.

[Lizard]

Well, just to round this off, the diagnostic moved it from 1/13 to 99% trisomy 21. She's taken indefinite compassionate leave to make/deal with the difficult decision. I think I know what they will do and I just hope that they genuinely agreed on it and she didn't just go along with her husband's preference (to be blunt, he doesn't seem to be one for sharing the joys of childcare and could quite possibly be a bit of an arse).

Hell of a time for HR to ask me about her annual review.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Feck. I was just about to say that there's no right thing to say about the miscarriages. We had 3 before the wee man. It's bloody depressing. Don't use phrases like "non-viable" if you are speaking to her either. Some people get quite full on about their miscarriages, including naming the baby and having memorial services and the like. Everyone deals with them differently because to me that's just weird.

As for the new situation that really sucks balls. At least they already have a child, but under no circumstances say that to her either.

As a boss ask her what the firm could do for her and tell her you'll do your best to make sure she gets it. As a friend there's little more to do than that.

[morepork]

That sucks balls. The two of them together almost definitely have a congenital issue going on.

Not that that is any comfort.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

That sucks balls. The two of them together almost definitely have a congenital issue going on.

Not that that is any comfort.

If they've had 1 baby then maybe not. They don't even start doing investigation into miscarriages in the UK until you've had 3. They are much more common than you'd suppose. Once I started to tell friends about our miscarriages many of them said that they had had at least 1.

[morepork]

That sucks balls. The two of them together almost definitely have a congenital issue going on.

Not that that is any comfort.

If they've had 1 baby then maybe not. They don't even start doing investigation into miscarriages in the UK until you've had 3. They are much more common than you'd suppose. Once I started to tell friends about our miscarriages many of them said that they had had at least 1.

...several times I believe this poor soul has been hit with it.

[Lizard]

Yes, we had one as well before No. 1. Mrs Liz had quite a different way of dealing with it than me, but that's fine.

It is surprising how common it is once people start to talk about it.

[Sandydragon]

There is next to nothing that can be said to make them feel any better, this is a horrible situation. When staff of mine have had similar issues in the past, Ive just let them take what time they need, told them not to worry about work, and told HR to f*ck off. I used to give them a call once a week to see if there was anything that we could do to help them out, but thats in a military environment where that level of interest is expected, its not always cross transferable. Its obvious that you take her welfare seriously, as long as she knows that, I would suggest that you are doing the right thing.

Some friends of ours are undergoing IVF for the umpteenth time. Its really sad for them as they would be great parents but its just not happening. Even then they do conceive, the fetus is lost in the first trimester. My wife and I found it really difficult when we had our son; how would everyone react when their latest attempt failed and we had a baby boy at first attempt? Thankfully it all turned out alright but we were treading on egg shells at first.

[kk67]

I hate it when there is literally nothing you can do for someone you care about.

Tell her that.
It'll probably mean more to her than any amount of advice she'll get from anyone else.