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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Everybody will have a different answer. It depends in part on religion and upbringing. I’m Jewish so I was raised that there is no afterlife. I think believing in one can be very comforting though. I suggest talking to your clergy. [/quote]

I didn't realize that. I'm not necessarily looking for a definitive answer, but just what others believe. I have a hard time conceptualizing what it means to meet someone in an afterlife that you didn't really meet alive. [/quote]

I am agnostic but feel that if there is an afterlife with souls that we would most likely be reincarnated to be around our family/the other souls we like to travel with through eternity.  I also like the idea of children seeking to be born to their family.  So I would wonder if unborn children would be fewer than the number of pregnancies because maybe it would be just one or two souls looking for a chance to rejoin you in the physical world.  I think if you met your children in the afterlife you would feel a sense of love.  However souls commune.  Babies in the womb do start to recognize aspects of their mother as they develop.  Also, mothers apparently carry some fetal cells for life (fetal microchimerism).  I can see there being amazing possibilities for recognition.

I wish you peace of mind and the reunion you seek.[/quote]

The Catholic Church would likely say that since the miscarriages hadn't been baptized, they would be in hell.  Or maybe they just go nowhere.  Don't know.  Best for you to ask a clergy person of your particular faith, as faiths vary as to where the unborn babies end up.

It's very simple for atheists, we just die, like Jews apparently do and like all other living things.  Seems like no one worries about the dead animals, except maybe some dogs that they were attached to. [/quote]
I was raised Catholic and was told the unborn babies are in purgatory.[/quote]

What? Terrible. I'm so glad I left the Catholic Church. [/quote]

I think the Catholic Church thinking on this has been in flux and is not totally coherent.  My extremely faithful and Catholic grandmother and mother had miscarriages (I think early second trimester) in 1931 and 1966.  No one suggested to either of them that the miscarriage should be mourned in the way that a stillbirth should be or that anyone should be thinking about the soul of either miscarriage.  It wasn't until after Roe v Wage when the Catholic church got heavily onto the pro-life movement that they started to encourage things like memorials for miscarriages.  I had a miscarriage at 14 weeks -- for me, I just can't feel that embryo had a soul or anything.  I have friends that feel differently, and one that had a service for her miscarriage at 20 weeks, which I attended and grieved with her.  I think everyone just needs to find their own way here.  None of us can really know the answers so I think you can figure it out for yourself based on what feels comforting and right to you.

I do feel like my deceased dogs had souls and that I will see them in Heaven.  I know that's not popular and not totally consistent with Catholic theology.  I don't think this about any other animals.  Just dogs.  (Will hold out judgment for horses and cats.)    I know someone will be grossed out that I feel that way about my dogs and not my 14-week old embryo, but that's where I am.  I guess I could also get behind reincarnation for dog souls.  Maybe embryo souls are reincarnated and reused since they don't get a real chance to develop?   That could make some sense to me.[/quote]

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