Two Life Changing Insights That Helped Me Deal with Pregnancy Loss

I stayed quiet during October and the messages around Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month. I saw a lot of references of women being "1 in 4" and rainbow babies.

My first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage just shy of 10 weeks, and the days to follow were some of my darkest days. We found out we were pregnant on December 24, 2019 and we lost the pregnancy in early February 2020.

In my grief, I found myself looking for something - anything - that would make me feel better.

Here's what helped me, if this at all helps you or someone else you know:

1️. Change the language & understand the science of pregnancy loss

I had a hard time with the language of "women" being 1 in 4... It made me feel like I got it wrong and I think this isolates many of us. What did make me feel better was changing the language and honoring the science too. The science reads that 1 in 4 "pregnancies" ends in miscarriage. So for any woman who will have kids, and have multiple, the likelihood of experiencing at least one miscarriage is possible.

Diving deeper into the science, in most cases the cells divide at such a rapid rate during the early days of conception and the female body is smart. If something doesn't divide correctly, your body will pick up on it and take over when something isn't quite right.

By looking at it that 1 in 4 pregnancies ends this way and not labeling it the other way as me being "1 in 4", made me feel more grounded in the way our bodies work sometimes. Plus, I wasn't the only one who lost a pregnancy, my husband did too.

Did this take away the grief?

No.

But it did make me feel a bit better and gave us hope for the future.

2️. Lean on the Buddhist belief around pregnancy loss

While processing my emotions, I stumbled across the Buddhist belief in pregnancy loss. It states you lose the physical form of the baby but its spirit goes back to wait with its parents until another physical form is ready. I hung on to this uplifting thought.

There aren't words for losing a pregnancy, however it happens. And in our strive for awareness and opening up, we also need to find what does bring comfort.

To bring it full circle, exactly one year later, Dylan surprised us 2 weeks early on December 24, 2020 - he was there the whole time💕