Miscarriage and Infant Clothing: Theorising the Hopeful Object

This article explores the dynamic relationship formed with a collection of infant clothes against the backdrop of experiences related to foetal loss and infertility. Expanding on existing research that examines the tangibility of objects as affective devices and tools that allow for emotional expression, autoethnography-as-method is employed to examine the role that clothes played in the negotiation of the post-miscarriage experience. This article is situated within the sociology of hope and bereavement to expand research concerned with the capacity of material objects to evoke feelings of hope. In the case examined here, infant clothing existed as a precarious ‘presence’ that signified the mourned infant. But beyond representing bereavement and loss solely , the research shows that these objects held capacity to inspire hope beyond the immediate bereavement. In this sense, these items of clothing fulfilled a function as ‘hopeful’ objects. A theorisation of hopeful objects is offered in this article. It argues that hopeful objects are physical sources (items to touch, cradle or smell, for example) of inspiration to persevere in moments of uncertainty. Objects become hopeful in their potential for an aspiration beyond immediate grief and bereavement. Further, hopeful objects are generative in their ability to inspire and orient towards a future. Commencing with the exploration of the author’s first-hand experiences of miscarriage, an analysis of infant clothes is provided across the following stages: (1) objects acquired to demarcate a major life moment, (2) liminal objects that signified an attendant loss and (3) objects that evolved to signal more hopeful futures.