I want warning labels. On everything, please.
Movies, TV shows, books, you name it.
"Warning: Dead Baby Mentioned." A simple DBM would suffice.
I'm so tired of getting the wind knocked out of me when I rent a movie or turn on the television or open a book, and all of a sudden a baby dies, or someone mentions a previous loss. I know I'm particularly sensitive to it, but now that I've gotten back to some semblence of functional, that kind of thing really throws me. It pulls me immediately back down. I can't breathe, I feel like I'm drowning.
Not that there's not enough stuff in the world to remind me every single minute of the day - breathing, for example, and the fact that my son never did. That's enough to make me think of him. The fact is, he's with me all the time, just below the surface, and I'm using all my energy lately trying to keep it down. It's like holding a beach ball under water. It takes a lot of strength and energy, and eventually, I get tired and worn down and it comes up again.
So I know, eventually, I'll be reminded by something, someone, in some indirect way that's going to hurt. But the direct references to loss? Those are really too much, especially when I'm not expecting it. That feels more like someone coming up and hitting me in the gut with a baseball bat.
There should be a searchable database somewhere where babyloss mamas can check for a DBM.
Think "deadbabymentioned.com" is available?
(p.s. I've been warned there's a DBM in Marley & Me. There's also another in the Twilight series. And if you're watching The Tudors and didn't already know, historically... there's a DBM in there, too, in season two.)
****Please feel free to list your own and add to the DBM list!****
30 comments:
Benjamin Button.. I don't want to give any of it away, but it had Shaun and I both sobbing (like as much as in the immediate weeks after Dresden's birth)...
oof. i really hear you. this exactly is why i am only watching sports. baseball and nba playoffs and women's soccer. recorded, so i can fast forward through commercials. with everything else it's just avoid, avoid, avoid.
i love the idea of a dbm database. add the miniseries/series premiere of the new battlestar galactica. do not watch!
There is a DBM in Marley & Me. I cried in my popcorn at the theatre. As you know, I'm currently pregnant once again and was right around the same gestational age as the character was at her time of loss. I just *knew* it was a sign. Fortunately, it wasn't -- not yet, anyway.
Yep, I hear you. My boss recommended "Whale Rider" to my husband and I. We watched it and in the first 15 minutes of the movie a woman is in labour and one of her twins dies!!! Do you believe it???? What on earth was my boss thinking??? (Of course we all know that she didn't think at all.)
I know what you mean...
I've kept up with the Tudors and, even though I knew what was coming, I cried and cried and cried, to the point that we would have to turn it off and finish watching it later. Especially a certain episode of season 2.
I so agree! I want a warning label too! I love BONES, it was in that a few weeks ago. And House, and just about every other freaking show I watch! I'm so tired of it! The Twilight thing through me for a huge loop, and Benjamin Button...I was at the blasted Theatre! I didn't know!! There are far too many references. How is that even palapable for entertainment? I don't want to relate to fictional characters written by people who most likely don't have a flippin' clue what it was like!
Ghost Whisperer... I'm not 100% sure if it was season 3 or 4... the main character had a chemical pregnancy.
i saw this posting on LFCA. A few months ago, I posted this blog post about the Philadelphia Art Museum. There is a stillbirth painting in the American collection called "Rachel Weeping." It caught me off guard and I was a mess in the museum, but after a few days reflection, I realized that I was glad it existed. I just wished I had had a heads up about it.
What a great idea- I personally have never suffered a loss, but I could imagine it would be hard for the couples that have. I have heard the "Bodies" exhibit has a pregant woman in it. (ECK!) I agree with Jenni. The Stanley Cup Playoffs will be safe! :)
{{HUGS}}
LFCA
www.ttc-wildride.blogspot.com
I saw this on LFCA. I was out of work when I had my d&c and a friend had lent me a book which I decided to start reading called 'The War of the Flowers' by Tad Williams. Unfortunately it starts out a chapter or so in with a horrific 'blood on the bathroom walls' miscariage scene. Not the book to read while recovering from a loss.
Star Trek - the new one. Not a loss (of a baby), but a birth, at the very beginning. Might be a trigger.
I'm told Battle in Seattle has a miscarriage or a stillbirth at some point.
Warning: the new Disney Pixar movie Up has a pregnancy loss scene. It's very brief, but it depicts the pain and continued grief. A real surprise in a cartoon, I'll tell you that.
Anne of Green Gable series - the book - Anne's House of Dreams. Anne's first baby is born alive, but dies shortly thereafter.
To add to the books list:
The Time Traveller's Wife
To add to the film list:
The Constant Gardner
I seem to be able to comment again! I've been waiting for so long to be able to add these! xxxx
The book Edgar Sawtelle features multiple miscarriages and a stillbirth.
And the book I Know This Much Is True features a baby that dies od SIDS.
Just two I've read recently.
The Haunting of Julia (1977, with Mia Farrow). Her daughter chokes to death at the beginning.
I think this is wonderful for women and I thank you.
For some reason I am not afraid to watch these sorts of movies. I live the death of my babe every day. I feel like so many people stamp there feet wanting to know why babies dying is not spoken about. So in saying that as I want people to talk about this subject more, I welcome these things in movies. I believe they can give others a possible glimpse into what it is that we live every single day.
Although I am not afraid of these things I still cry every time. I welcome those tears, like it is the only time I can really cry.
I hope I do not upset anyone by writing this - just wanted to through a different light on the subject.
xxxx
I think it depends very much on the circumstances, mod, state of being, Carly, But I agree there is also another side to stories with death, loss etc. My dh hates anything sad, traumatic, while for me it's a release at times...
Anyway I'm adding to this list,
The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kinsolver...
Oh and was just going to add The Time Traveller's Wife, but it's up... repeat miscarriages, hard for anyone who's gone through it and ttc.
The film Seven Pounds is very, very sad. Lot's of heart breaking loss in that one. As I narrowly escaped a liver tr@nsplant last Xmas it was specially tough.
oh my god a disney movie has loss mentioned? what?
benjamin button - yes that triggered me HARD. Marley and me - not so much but at the end of Benjamin Button i was a mess. For about 2 hours. And I don't really cry anymore...
I know there are some I would add to this list but I'll have to think on it...
Season 4 Episode 18 of Battlestar Galactica. Caprica Six miscarries her baby.
I also found the very last episode of season 4 to be upsetting, when the president is dying. Even thought it wasn't a baby dying, Adama saying goodbye to her and wanting her to see things before she died just reminded me too much of saying goodbye to my baby.
julie and julia.
nothing overt, but - julia child wanted children. i don't know the nature of her infertility and/or losses. her feelings about it are touched on in a couple of short poignant scenes. in one, she finds out that her sister is pregnant.
i was probably the only person in the movie theater crying. i hope.
oh also, i should pass along that craig (who just suffered yet another horrible loss) wrote a wonderful post about the movie "away we go".
there is a character who is grieving her most recent of five miscarriages. apparently her grief is beautifully expressed but perhaps hard to watch.
It's an old movie, but Paradise, with Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson is about baby loss. Twenty-something years post loss, I still cried in the movie theater.
Thank you so much for starting this list.
I've not watched it since my miscarriage, but I've heard that Finding Nemo made a man whose wife had lost a baby have a complete meltdown in the cinema. Apparently he's someone who never cries. I got the film for Christmas as well :(
i don't even watch Veronica Mars, but there's an episode in which a pregnant girl is somehow given RU-486. It's from a couple of years back, and really kinda pissed me off when I didn't get up to turn the TV over quickly enough and was suddenly confronted with that storyline. Just what I needed!
One Foot In The Grave, season 2, episode 6. Victor and Margaret are talking in bed, and reminisce about their lost son Stuart. They talk about a friend of theirs who had their baby 4 days before Stuart, and wonder whether Stuart would be anything like their friend's son. It was actually done very nicely - I rewound the part and watched it again.
I thought I added these but turns out I didn't.
Astro Boy has serious triggers. I didn't realise the robot was created by a bereaved father trying to bring his son back. Came as a surprise and a shock. I would have liked a warning. It's handled beautifully and sensitively and I think thats what makes it more upsetting.
New Moon has a scene in it that I didn't like and which isn't in the book. When Bella is led away from the Volturi she passes a tour guide leading people to their doom. They focus upon two young children who we know are going to their deaths. Screams are heard.
The Duchess has at least one birth of a stillborn baby in it.
I don't think it's so much about not being able to watch movies like this, only that sometimes a bit of warning is nice. It stops that revolting shock to our systems that pull us straight back to reality. All of these movies were good, I just should have looked into them a bit more before watching them.
"frozen river" has a baby that *almost* dies- you think it is dead for a while- and the mothers grief was very very hard for me.
revolutionary road- dont dont watch this one! i had nightmares about fighting with my husband after this one- and the woman gives herself an abortion, which then ends up killing her
oh and desperate housewives this season (2010) , lynete loses one of her twins. they have been bringing it up each show and she is my favorite character :(
i am begining to realize that EVERY movie, and show i watch ends up having someone pregnant or a baby in it. it is like i can't escape the triggers...sigh
Junebug. I haven't seen it, but was thinking of adding it to my Netflix so I read what the plot was about first (just in case). The main character loses her baby when she goes into labor.
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