Fausse couche, vrai deuil

A dream took shape in their minds months, even years before coming to life in their wombs.
A dream that dissolved when miscarriage occurred.
A dream of founding a new family, extinguished.
Is it possible to feel so much pain for the loss of a dream?

Every year, 20,000 women experience a miscarriage in Quebec. Experts estimate that approximately half of these women (and many of their husbands and partners) then go through a period of mourning. The documentary Fausse couche, vrai deuil sheds new light on this phenomenon through the portraits of five women for whom the trial of miscarriage proved to be very painful.

Pain that is felt from the inside, but also from the outside. It comes from a healthcare system that is not always fully equipped to provide support for couples who have experienced a miscarriage, but also from attitudes that tend to minimize the emotional trauma of the experience. “Pull yourself together;” “it’s nature’s way;” “it happens to everyone”…How can the pain of loss be externalized and justified without palpable memories, and with neither a body nor a coffin to say good-bye to. In a society in which everything is based on image, how can people be made to understand the importance of grieving for a miscarriage, when there is no concrete image to refer to? This documentary is the echo of the voices and the stories of these people’s lives—stories that brought drama, stories lived secretly, stories met with indifference. All of these stories ask only to be heard at last so that, out of a dashed dream, hope might be born.