The hardest part of a miscarriage in my opinion is the emptiness and the feeling that no one understands. There is no way a father can totally understand because the miscarriage is not physical for him. He can empathize with the emotional loss but many men feel that a child is not real until they can see and hold that child. Many women feel that the man doesn't care or doesn't feel the loss, when in reality the man doesn't know how to express his true feeling which is that he really doesn't understand. Most men that do comfort their wives do so because they see her hurt and not that they themselves hurt. If a man would think about the miscarried baby as a life and think about what he and his wife are missing over the next 18 to 20 years, he sill begin to feel the loss on the same scale as his wife.

What does your wife need?

• Tenderness
  Women need to be touched and caressed. Sometimes, they want to be held and touched but then when you reach out, they pull away. Be persistent. They want you to break the barrier. You see, women need to feel that you really want to hold them, not that you're doing it because it's your duty.
• Empathy
  Tell her it was your child too. Express the fact that you miss the baby too.
• Sentiments
  Do whatever you have to do to remember the date the baby died and the date of the baby's birthday. Most women have to remind men each year of the anniversary of the baby's death and birthdays. Women view this as an "I don't care" attitude and take it very personally.
• Acceptance
  Most women feel that the baby's death was their fault in one way or another. Maybe if they had done this of hadn't done that or maybe if they had loved the baby more, it wouldn't have gone away. I have heard women say that they believed if they could deliver the child and hold the child in their arms, then nothing could go wrong. Mothers have a innate desire to protect their children from harm. She needs to believe that you don't blame her and that it wasn't her fault.
• Grief
  Men tend to believe that the sooner life can return to normal the better. Women who lose a child need to grieve. For how long? It differs from woman to woman and even from loss to loss for the same woman. For me, each loss was different and came to me at different times in my life. Many factors, outside of the miscarriage, play a role in the grieving process. Don't rush your wife to return to normalcy. Let her grieve and grieve with her. I would think the normal grieving process would be a few weeks to a few months. If you think grief is turing into depression, you may want to seek professional help.
  

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