A Match Made in Heaven - My Personal Story of Pregnancy Loss

I had been thinking of writing this blog for a very long time.  But it is an extremely personal one and so the ‘right time’ was a little elusive in its arrival.  However, this story is one of the most defining experiences of my life - the one which marked the beginning of my journey back to myself and the beginning of my work with Circles and then From the Feminine. Everyday in my work, I am asking women (and some men), to reach deep inside to reconnect with their heart. This is not always the easiest process, in our world where we have shielded our hearts so strongly - sometimes we don’t know what we are going to find under those shields - and in our society, where we love well structured outcomes and control, that can be a scary process. It feels only fair, that given I am inviting these amazing souls, deeply into their personal unknown, to share the critical experience which broke me open, broke the armour off my heart and reconnected me so deeply to myself, my world, my gifts and passions.

When today I awoke to discover it was International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, the timing finally seemed right … and so here is my story …

I remember all the dates like it was just yesterday. They seem emblazoned in my mind, though I suspect that it is more, that they are imprinted on my heart … a record of an important event which was inscribed on my soul long before this physical journey began. 

The estimated ovulation date … so we knew when to ‘try’.  The estimated due date … if indeed this was “the month”. The anticipated first day of my cycle … so I knew when to take the test. The date I actually took the test … and we began celebrating. 

The date I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this tiny little new life inside of me was not meant to be.

The date I was told what I already knew.

The date of the emergency D&C.

The date he would have been born. 

We already had one beautiful little girl. She was 14 months old when we fell pregnant for the second time and I had been so ill with hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) during my first pregnancy, that I had spent a couple of months preparing my body energetically, emotionally and physically, to do all I could to ensure a gentle, safe pregnancy this time around. It was a beautiful and sacred time. 

I was totally shocked when we fell pregnant straight away. I was so terribly nervous about the potential of another 9 months of 24 hour nausea and vomiting, hospital stays, IV drips and looking after my beautiful daughter through it all. But I was also so excited to be bringing another little life into our family. 

All was moving along beautifully and then the overwhelming sickness kicked in. It was much harder on my body the second time around, but emotionally, having been there before and surviving, it wasn’t quite as hard. On the upside, my obstetrician kept reminding me, this level of sickness was a “good clinical sign” of a very strong pregnancy. 

I was exactly 6 weeks and we were at my nephew’s first birthday party when we announced to our family we were expecting number 2. It was so much fun and we relished every moment. Later that same evening, things changed however. I can still see the room so clearly, the wooden floors, parents chatting, kids playing pass the parcel, Wiggles music blaring … just for a moment, all went very quiet in my awareness, and without any emotion, a very gentle, but very deep knowing washed over me. It was as clear as a voice speaking directly in my ear … but there was no voice. And it simply stated that the little baby inside of me would either not make it or be very ill at birth. I remembered feeling shocked, not so much by the information I had received, but by the gentleness, clarity and authenticity with which it was delivered .. and the fact that it did not evoke any anxiety or fear or shock in me.

I felt a little confused and having gone through the HG pregnancy and being naturally the nervous type, I soothed myself, saying I was just being an anxious mummy. The clinical signs are all good right? It’s all ok. In the following weeks I had odd pains and severe bouts of HG which led me to the maternity emergency department. Each time I noted my concern that something was wrong, but each time they reassured me - there was a perfect little heartbeat, good hormone levels and strong clinical signs - stop being anxious and just relax. So, by about week 12, I had started to buy the story. No big intuition here - all is fine and I’m just being a little crazy. All good. 

Then, just a few days before my 13 week ultrasound, I started spotting. Again I was reassured it was probably all very normal, given how sick I still was, and not to worry. But this time I knew I had been right and I requested an immediate ultrasound, to discover that yes, the little one had passed away - a ‘missed miscarriage’ in clinical terms, which could be very dangerous to me and so I had to have an emergency D&C. Again, it was the strangest of experiences - on one hand I was so very sad, and on the other, I felt relief that what I had known so deeply to be true, was actually true. My body and heart had known something and had communicated it to me with such love and tenderness - it was very powerful to feel so deeply connected to the deep knowing within me. 

And then I experienced my first conscious and truly tangible connection to something ‘out there’. To spirit, or something so much bigger than me … and it was my little angel boy. While I did not give birth to him in the traditional sense, I awoke from the D&C anaesthetic feeling such deep love and peace, feeling his presence so strongly that I felt that I had indeed given birth to him. He has stayed with me ever since. 

When he left, on January 9th 2008, he told me he was so sorry he could not stay but that he was called away to help another. He would always be with me and that he has made way in my body and heart for something great to flow through me and into the world. These were his gentle parting words. I felt soothed, but did not understand them at the time. I just remember shedding tears - of joy for this amazing presence in which I was enveloped and of grief because I would not get to meet him until I left this world and shared his.

It was only looking back many years later that, just as he had said, he had opened my heart up to allow something greater to flow through me - my passion - my Circles and womens’ work.  

It was in the weeks after the miscarriage that I continued to feel this reawakened deep connection to myself and to spirit and the uniquely feminine experience of pregnancy loss. I was desperate to find a Circle of women with whom I could share my experience, learn more about my awakenings, heal, grieve and celebrate with. I couldn’t find any such group and so it came to be that I decided to start a Wise Women Circle of my own - to recreate a community of women, committed to each others’ growth, healing and evolution. To holding each other as we navigate the heights and depths of womanhood. As we celebrate our blossoming, lie together on the ground as we grieve and uplift each other to be our greatest self. And from a beautiful group of friends gathering together in this way, years later sprung my passion, my soul’s calling.

For all these years, and in many varied ways, I have not grieved a ‘loss’, for my experience was one of such huge transformation and so many gains. This angel baby who was with me in so many tangible and intangible ways, transformed me and grew me into a bigger presence in this world … and so loss never really felt like the right word. It was very confusing, as intellectually, logically, I knew I had “lost a baby”, but I did not resonate with much of the literature I found myself reading. It was a rather unique experience and one which I have been hesitant to share more broadly than a few very special confidantes.

But for some reason, today, it felt like the right time to share it .. and maybe because now, as my daughters (I went on to have another beautiful little girl in 2010!) are more grown up, I actually have the mental, physical and emotional space, to process the loss in a deeper way. Sometimes recently, as I watch my two beautiful daughters, aged 5 and 9, playing together on the beach, I can feel … and even see .. him there. My little 7 year old angel playing right there with them. With him there, the picture is complete.

And today - 8 years to the month, when he was conceived, I am crying for the first time in a very very long time, as I feel him with me more than ever, yet for the first time, truly miss his physical presence … One I had never even met in this realm. 

Who could imagine you could miss someone you hadn’t really met?

So today, while I nourish myself and love myself through the sadness, I give such deep gratitude for my little angel baby.  He led me through a big experience of simultaneous loss and gain, pure love and devastation. 

He opened me up in the most gentle and loving way to infinity … to the the eternal nature of spirit, of energy, of life, of my connection to it all. And in so doing, he reconnected me to myself … to my heart. To my body. To my soul. He reawakened within me the remembrance of who I am, my soul’s dreams, my divine gifts. And he gave me the chance to reclaim the light I had unwittingly dimmed on my journey so far. 

His presence enlivened me to my own spectacular radiance. To my shining.

Everyone’s journey is so unique and I wish all of you, wherever you may be on this path, such love and light, compassion and gentleness with yourselves. 

If you would like to share your story of how pregnancy loss has affected you in different ways, please feel free to email me on sasha@fromthefeminine.com or please post below with this community if this style of sharing feels right for you.