PARENTS PERCEPTIONS OF THE MISCARRIAGE EXPERIENCE

This study was conducted to examine parents' perceptions of miscarriage. Participants were six married couples who experienced a miscarriage 12-18 months prior to data collection. Data were collected during three open-ended interviews with each subject. The analysis process involved identifying miscarriage events and their significance and the standard of the desirable against which the experience was evaluated. Participants who experienced the most intense grief appeared to be those for whom the pregnancy and baby were real, whose actual miscarriage was widely divergent from their epistemic orientation, and who perceived themselves as unable to act in ways to decrease this divergence.