My journey throughout pregnancy wasn’t easy to say the least. It began with doing a lot of prep work health wise to make sure that there would be minimal health risks for our baby before we even began trying. After a few months of making sure everything was “perfect” we started trying and to our surprise we got pregnant just over a month later. We found out in late October and were absolutely over the moon. All of a sudden you start planning absolutely everything because you are so excited, right down to how we would announce it to our families on Christmas. Little did we know our world would come crashing down in early December and no one talks about having to prepare for the worst case scenario during the happiest moments of your life.
No one really talks about those first moments where deep down you know what is happening but you just kind of freeze. You try to hold onto any little shred of hope but that lingering little bit quickly comes and goes. At least that’s what I experienced on that early December morning when I experienced my miscarriage. To say it was the most devastating experience of my life would be an understatement. To go crashing from the absolute highest of highs to a place so low as you grieve the loss of someone you will never know is indescribable. I was only 6 weeks pregnant and I only knew about it for about 4 but I often still think about who that little one would have become, even now that we have our beautiful 7 month old daughter. The pain may get quieter but it never leaves and I feel like that is the hardest part to come to terms with, at least for me it was.
After we came to terms with what we went through we had to relive it throughout the holidays as we had to replace everyone’s announcement gifts with other presents. My husband and I decided to take a break from actively trying as we were still trying to process our emotions and how to move forward from the miscarriage. To our surprise almost 2 months later, I found out I was pregnant again, just a few days before my birthday. While I was absolutely elated, that excitement was quickly replaced with a lot of fear and unresolved feelings. I was terrified all over again and nothing could have prepared me for that influx of emotions. All of the “what if” thoughts quickly started going through my mind and as tough as it was, I knew I had to make a choice in that moment. I knew I wanted to share and be open about my journey that time around. No waiting until 12 weeks to announce it to anyone “just in case”, because let’s be honest, if something did happen again, I needed those supports around me to know what was going on, and I also just wanted to cherish every single second together.
I’m not going to pretend it was easy to just push those thoughts out and continue on throughout the pregnancy. The thoughts often clouded all the appointments, especially early on. But making a conscious effort to push them to the side was liberating and I felt like I could finally live in the moment and enjoy this little miracle that I was creating. I felt like I could finally fully feel those feelings of excitement at those appointments and start to enjoy planning things like the nursery, baby showers and all the exciting stuff that comes with it.
I feel like this is such a common experience that so many women unfortunately share, yet when I was going through it I had never felt more alone, even with the amazing support of my husband and our families. It’s just a very strange place to be, where you know you need to talk about it but don’t really know where to begin and besides who wants to hear it all. All of that is even true once you get pregnant again, it’s almost a feeling of you can’t be sad about it anymore because you’re finally there… you are pregnant and about to meet your baby, you made it, but for me those feelings never went away and I don’t think they ever will. I’m beyond grateful to have gotten pregnant again and now have my beautiful baby but that will never be a replacement for the first time around.
So to all the mamas out there who have experienced loss in any way, I feel you. I don’t think anyone could ever put it into words because every experience is so different. There are still many times where I think about what could have been even as I sit here playing with my 7 month old daughter. So to anyone who is struggling with this, please know it gets so much better and easier as time goes on. While it will never fully go away there are so many women who have gone through something similar and are here to support you.
If anyone feels comfortable sharing, I would love to hear your stories on this. Maybe writing it out will help you heal a little bit, maybe it will just be a good distraction or maybe you will find comfort in the support of others who have been through something similar. Even something as small as sharing little things that helped you get through could help so many other mamas!