Why you should never say “maybe it’s for the best”

Has a friend or relative or someone dear to you lost something or someone special to them?

Do you want to comfort them and think that saying “maybe it’s for the best” might help them see things from another perspective?

Please don’t say it. Not ever.

It’s tempting if a person you care about is grieving, to try and help them through it by finding reason in their loss. To provide some sense in a senseless situation. But it doesn’t help. It’s never for the best.

It’s half past two in the morning. I pant as the the contraction grows to it’s climax quashing the overwhelming urge to push while my baby’s head crowns. The contraction subsides to be followed almost immediately by the next.

“Push” comes the doctor’s instruction and a few seconds later I see my baby daughter for the first time.

I’m allowed the briefest of contact before she is rushed away to to intensive care.

I knew Jasmine would be poorly when she arrived. I had been given the news at 32 weeks gestation that she had hydrocephalus and that she may have serious difficulties throughout her life.

We had accepted that and knew we would have to seek all the help we could find to make life the best it possibly could be for her. She was already loved and the whole family would be there for her.

Just a week later and only 33 weeks into my pregnancy she was born. It was the next morning before I was allowed to go and see her.

Nothing could have prepared me for the shock. She was in a crib surrounded by electronic equipment flashing and bleeping. She lay on her back, motionless except for the rise and fall of her chest, a steady rhythm supplied not by herself, but by the machines.

I held her tiny hand but was not allowed to cradle her.

The consultant gave me the devastating news of her condition. She had suffered a brain haemorrhage while in the womb which had led to her hydrocephalus. At the moment the machines were taking over her breathing because her blood oxygen was too low. To enable this she had been put on morphine. Tears streamed down my face as I tried to comprehend what was happening. I felt completely and utterly helpless and had to put my trust in the team who looking after her.