And a miscarriage is the egg doing a "Oops. Got that one wrong"?

You cannot throw this kind of jokes around given how this subject can be hard to read for people to which it happened. HN is a community with people of lot of different backgrounds so it's important to be careful.

Please don't speak for other people we don't need your protection.

Edit: miscarriages are incredibly common. This will/has affected people of almost all backgrounds. The culture of silence on the topic leaves you totally unprepared for it as a reality.

The problem is that 'miscarriage' covers everything from what seems like just a late period to something really quite awful.

I agree that silence doesn't help and on HN is most likely unnecessary. But in general conversation it is reasonable to be a bit more circumspect.

I've talked to people who have miscarried, and the parent post is actually a fine, lighthearted summary of the most reassuring conclusion that they came to: there was something off genetically and the potential child would have had severe health issues. I don't think it's out of place or off color in a discussion of conception.

That's quite the generalization you're making. It doesn't apply nearly to all people, especially for couples who miscarry at a very late stage in the pregnancy.

A friend of mine to who had the misfortune of this happening to him described it as the "worst thing he could ever image happening to a person" - they were mentally broken for months. So I wouldn't say this is a lighthearted comment to make, especially if you said it to them face-to-face.

Late in the pregnancy it is called a stillbirth rather than a miscarriage.

Stillbirth is rare. Miscarriage is incredibly common.

Both are painful I suspect a stillbirth far more so. The difference is that people shouldn't expect a stillbirth anymore than the death of a child - there is no need to prepare for it as a likely outcome. Meanwhile if you are intending to have more than one birth child you are more likely to experience miscarriage than not - it is better to be ready for it than have it come as a total surprise.

Edited slightly.

Good point, thanks for clarifying.

I don't think there was any joke intended. Often times someone will try to understand a murky topic by creating a (often personified) metaphor.

Apology aside, I'd like to add, I was also trying to suggest (perhaps poorly) there are times (e.g., miscarriage) when Mother Nature is actually do a positive. That is, it realizes something is off target.

Mind you, I get the couple is often guttes. But emotions aside, it's a biological positive.

While I don't like his politics, I am a proponent of Frank Luntz's "It's not what you say, it's what they hear."

I agree, on the surface my intent (from my POV) was not to offend. That said, I can see how my word / idea choice could have been better.

The apology is to acknowledge that yes I could have done better and then even if I didn't mean to offend the receiver's does still have value. Human to human, I wanted to acknowledge that.

Perhaps not very HN but I'm comfortable with that ;)

This is of course your prerogative. However, I would rather discuss this with someone who starts with a slightly off comment than not have it discussed at all.

I apologize. It wasn't a joke per se. Just a simple / casual way of getting the point across. My context was biology, not couples reproduction.

None the less, sorry about that.

We had this in biology in high school, don't remember the exact details but essentially some gene combinations just "don't work", and in mammals that manifests as a miscarriage.

DNA damage usually I think.