Type… something. Er., this IS a long one, and I don’t feel quite sure where to begin, so I will share firstly with you the answers to some of the questions I tasked myself with this week, from @Laurapashby’s Book ‘Little Stories of Your Life’, I highly recommend this book for those looking to find more meaning in the every day and how to communicate and capture this through simple, mindful storytelling. This book has taken me somewhere else during an extremely difficult week and made me write down my thoughts, to remember this small part of my journey I am experiencing right now and has shifted my attention when reading this book, to just be in the moment. Thank you Laura for your beautiful writing style.
Laura asks in Chapter 3, how do you feel right now? What scents you can smell right now? What have you tasted today? Which textures can you feel?
Here was a moment I wrote of today to capture those feelings, which I feel starts this story off greatly.
A crunched up, new Christmas duvet cover
Velvety Soft
The bubble of the essential oil water has a soft therapeutic sound
The folds in the covers as I snuggle up warm
I feel healing from my surroundings
I smell cinnamon in the air
A soft dim orange light washes the room
It feels warming, and home
03/01/22
I cant quite believe I’m writing this blog, titled my miscarriage. I don’t really like the breakdown of the word as although is part of nature, brings great suffering to many. However, I will refer to my story using the word miscarriage, as I feel no other words will reach the audience I would like it to.
“Even those that never fully blossom bring beauty into the world.” – Unknown
The necklace my lovely Mum sent to me, to hold close any time I feel any pain, I feel its the heart of my little angel baby. Who I dedicate this story to.
I’ve decided to deal with this pain on day 5 of grieving, in no other way than I feel comforts me the most, to create and share. I have previous came from a vulnerable place in writing, or dancing, or whatever art I feel like expressing as an outlet to help me process difficult times in my life which I feel helps greatly.
I’ve felt drawn to writing this blog, as an outlet of healing, and in hope of reaching out and helping as many other mothers heal who have been through or are currently also going through a loss at any stage of pregnancy.
I wish to help you feel possibly less alone and comforted by a similar story.
Finding the light after dark/ My Miscarriage/ Part 1
Miscarriage is not spoke of enough in terms of the aftermath both physically and mentally. I’m not a medical doctor, nor a counsellor or psychologist. I have trained in aspects of psychology within health promotion but this blog will be purely personal. I will share my story as real as it has been for myself and partner. I believe in peer support as a healing method, to connect with others who have been through a similar experience in life to share inner knowledge, life experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other from our individual paths.
I know reading and connecting with other woman’s stories whether it has been on blogs, forums or among social media, how the many worldwide strangers have kept me going mentally over the last 5 days, I have felt a deep connection to those who have shared their story to the world.
I would like to say I do feel generally a pretty strong person psychologically, or so I believe myself to be as I’ve moved into my mid twenties. I feel like I have been giving many life lessons and deep pain in this body, like all of us have in our own unique ways. I had never yet though, felt grief until now.
I have been aware that grief is a part of the life cycle, a feeling we will all have at some point our lives. I had over time built up quite an exterior and… how do I explain this… a sort of an inner feeling that everything is unfolding just as it should be in each moment. The bad, the magical, the mysteries and the tragedies, it all makes up of this moving circle we call life.
Well, that was until December 30th 2021, when I heard the 5 words “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat”.
I questioned every single thing in life I thought I had figured out. I felt like my life had just been ripped up, moving in a whirling circle.. torn into pieces as I was just floating through nothingness, aimlessly looking to be saved.
Everything froze in time from hearing those 5 words.
I never knew how much I was ready and wanted to be a mother, until I became one.
I’ve questioned and questioned whether or not I was ready to share this very personal story, as I don’t usually write too much in depth on my personal life. This piece of writing will most definitely be spread over a period of time to piece together, as I gather my thoughts together on sharing my raw experience of pregnancy loss. I may not be ready to share every detail, but I’m ready to put my story out there for any woman, family, or friend of someone experiencing a miscarriage. You are not alone, and you are not rare. If you do find yourself on this blog as someone who has just experienced or has ever been through a miscarriage. Know my heart is with you, and I am all ears for anyone to get contact as someone to listen and understand what you are or have been going through mentally and physically.
From one human, mother and woman to another, I promise you’re not alone x
Trauma hits everyone differently, but is a universal feeling we will all feel at one point of our lives, this has been my first. So here is my story of preparing to be a mum, to losing my baby at just over 7 weeks.
—————Please note *Contains real life graphic information on the human body and may be difficult for some to read.*————————-
Finding the light after dark/ My Miscarriage/ Part 2
It was just after dinner time, a cold rainy night and I lay on the couch feeling a little bit unsettled, lack of energy and just a bit meh. My partner, (who I will refer to as K) was at work, we had had an argument before he left which left me feeling down and frustrated as I feel we were at a battle over such little things over the previous weeks. Just that off energy between us that we both know when is present, there are lessons to be learned and communication to be spoken.
So I decided to watch something on YouTube to keep my mind busy until he returned home, I lay and thought of all the things I loved about our relationship and why arguing over silly things was just exhausting and unnecessary. I pictured K’s face and all the details that I never get bored of exploring, I imagined all the things we had planned for the future and I reminded myself that love can be hard when its real.
To put things in short, since K and I met we quickly realised how much we were learning through one another beautifully and at times how difficult this can be. K is a great processer, he takes his time in life and I know I fell in love mostly with his approach in taking his own rhythm and appreciation of life itself. He is a watcher, a thinker but never too much into the future, as clique as it may be – he really is the yin to my yang. However, Yin and Yang are not 100% opposites as each carries within itself a small portion of the other. Notice how the black swirl has a small circle of white in it and vice versa?
Possessing a bit of their counterpart makes these two forces interconnected and flexible. They are complementary rather than opposing. And are relative to each other depending on the surroundings.
“First you meet someone—someone who is completely different from everyone around you. Someone who sees everything in a different light and forces you to shift, change your angle of vision, observe everything anew, within and without. You think you can keep a safe distance from him. You think you can navigate your way through this beautiful storm until you realize, much too suddenly, you are thrust out into the open and in fact, you control nothing.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul
As I lay down on the couch, I had the realisation in this moment of how aching sore my boobs felt!! (A little TMI but know the nature of this blog). I had realised and mentioned to my partner over the previous 2 days how sore they had been feeling. We both jumped to the idea that maybe it was the new shower gel we had purchased was making them irritated? *this does make me giggle to look back on*. I just put it down to my period being a little late and showing normal signs of arrival…
Laying down seem to make them hurt even more, so I done the usual thing I always say I wont when I feel a bit off and confused by it. I google it. I don’t remember even thinking pregnancy would be the first thing to come up on this night, but of course it would! It does for every other symptom of anything right!
Yep. There it was.. Could you be pregnant?
I questioned a lot in that moment and remember instantly jumping up to go to the shop, to buy some tests and take a test straight away to illuminate the idea of pregnancy. It wasn’t in the “plans” and although myself and partner weren’t trying, we decided together to let nature decide when for us. It definitely was a could but I certainly didn’t think it was reality. So we weren’t completely off the idea of becoming parents right now, but the plans were to wait a few years until we felt more “ready”. I put this in speech marks, as in the most straight forward way possible to add a little humour of how lienor I thought life was.
When I came back from the shop to take the test, I had thought about the other few experiences of being in this same similar situation before of thinking symptoms may be pregnancy, to then expect and view the negative result and move on with life without much second thought of it ever being positive any time soon.
Little little did I know, how 2 positive lines a pregnancy test would change my entire life, forever.
But there it was. Positive. Staring me right in the face and deep down in that moment, I just knew it was right. I was in a bit of disbelief to begin with, so left it an hour as I was alone and couldn’t process it. I took another test 1 hour later which came up positive. Okay, so as much as being in conscious denial, I subconsciously flashed back to all the little signs over the previous 2 weeks, and it all just made sense. I knew deep down that I had a little bean inside of me that was half me and half K. Holy shit.
K returned home and I forgot we had even argued, I think that was more on his mind and we began to communicate our feelings, understanding why we felt so snappy with one each other. I couldn’t help but just want to tell K straight away on the test, so my body just came out with it. “I think I am pregnant” I said. A little bit of slience and a while of disbelief with K thinking it was maybe a false positives. We got the test that showed 2-3 weeks positive in how far along my HCG levels were showing. That was the 4th test. We knew it was definitely real.
Ahhh! We hugged and cried and to be honest, spoke about becoming parents in most our conversations from that moment. It felt a lot like how I would explain and feel a fairy tale from then on, like we had created a miracle that was bringing joy to everyone we told. We couldn’t hold in telling our closest family and friends, we both have very close family that we felt we needed support from on the beginning as everything was so unexpected, amongst complete excitement. We also had fears that felt comforting to share with those closest to us.
Something took over me from that night from finding out, I had what I would say another shift in consciousness at this point in my life and felt an unconditional love for someone so small inside of me that moved me in ways I didn’t know possible. I have always been quite an adventure seeker, go getter and generally lover of life leading me to meet and travel to different parts of the world. I fell in love with my career as a dance and wellness coach, helping people with the idea of treating every day as an opportunity to better ourselves and feel alive. Although this sounds like a great mindset, I don’t want to paint a pretty picture to you that doesn’t portray true emotion, as I also carry some deep feelings of trauma inside of me that I work in every day. I share this to highlight the nature ecstasy that I felt ran through my veins when I found out I was carrying a baby, felt like nothing else I could ever compare to in my life to this point. I had my fears of becoming a mum unexpectedly, but the sunshine that I felt was placed on top of my head followed me in everything I done. Everything else previous in my life that I felt was difficult, felt very small, insignificant. Having this baby, a family, was everything.
I was looking up virtually everything on what was best to eat during the first trimester, what not to eat, vitamins to take, breastfeeding tips, natural home births. I went in fully and felt like I was on this beautiful gold path of motherhood, with my head held high ready for the highs and the lows. I booked a spa for my Mum for just after Christmas, and was ready to skip any treatments or heat luxury that I was usually have, research I found stated overheating wasn’t healthy for the fetus, so that was enough for me to leave it out. I bought a new wardrobe of cosy clothes. I joined a new gym to start swimming at nights, me and K planned the nursery and how we might paint the room rainbows to keep it neutral as we didn’t want to find out the gender. I already felt like we were becoming parents. It was a really exciting time.
The following month of mostly December, I couldn’t help but think that next Christmas we would have a baby!
In heinseight, I do know I have always been destined to me a mum.
At 5, I looked after my baby dolls like they were family, taking trips to everywhere possible to feel like a real life mum. Yep, you probably get the point and if you were or had one of those girls who cherish their baby dolls, that was me. When I turned 17, my Mum gave birth to my youngest Sister. I saw the majority of the labour and helped to care and raise my baby Sister with my Mum until I left for uni. With a similar story the on my Dads side, I helped care for my youngest brother, lets say I was most definitely prepped on the physical side be a Mum by 18! I quickly learned how calm energy would soothe a baby and how to create it, I knew how to rock them to sleep, feed, change, and love them deeply.
This manifested in many areas where children where in my life into my twenties, my family grew and I became and auntie to the most amazing nephew, literally babies everywhere in my family is what I always been among. Let’s just say a big family was and is most definitely for me when the time is mine.
I spent my time from 19 moving away from family, to focus on my career and I the one thing I missed the most was being among the madness of a big family with children everywhere. Maybe why my first long term partner had children, something I didn’t mind at the time and felt naturally close to the children as my own family as I loved kids. Although that relationship didn’t bloom into anything further than a lesson, having a relationship with my partner at the times children, ultimately shaped me into part of who I am today, l continue to see how they are doing now and always will. If there is anything I have learned from life, is that children are angels that need nothing but love and guidance.
I knew that my main focus wasn’t to have children as soon as possible. I wanted a strong foundation to to raise a baby with, most importantly feeling like I had a life long partner my side to share the amazing joy of raising a family with.
