Acceptance.
In the journey to motherhood we often encounter many situations that are completely out of our control. It begins with trying to conceive; some couples have no problem getting pregnant right away, but for others it is treatments, experimenting, changing their diets and lifestyle and many cycles of hope and disappointment. Pregnancy for some is a beautiful experience, but for others it may come with extreme discomfort, nausea, aches and pains or complications that make the journey difficult. Birth is another experience where one may feel like they do not have control. The contractions and sensations of birth can be challenging and a laboring mother has to come terms with her body and allow acceptance to come in. Then there are circumstances or complications that may arise in birth that weren't planned or expected. The situations continue well into motherhood from recovering post-partum, breastfeeding and of course parenting itself. There are many normal experiences where we have to learn to be okay with where we are. Acceptance. Acceptance doesn't mean we have to like our circumstances. Acceptance means we are allowing ourselves to stop fighting so hard against things that are out of our control. It is allowing ourselves to feel the emotions that come with it. The good, the bad and the ugly. This can be challenging even when everything is normal, but what happens when it isn't? Hardships, complications can happen in all stages. I recently experienced this with a pregnancy. I had a miscarriage.
Miscarriage. Statistically 1 in 4 women experience Pregnancy or Infant loss. It's common and I personally knew quite a few people affected by it prior to my own, but nothing can prepare you for it. It was something that I never personally expected. My first pregnancy was easy and uncomplicated so when I was expecting baby #2 it wasn't even a thought that crossed my mind. Unfortunately when I was 12 weeks pregnant I began to spot. I was nervous, but I knew that it could also mean nothing. A plan was made with my midwives to have an ultrasound the following week if symptoms continued and no fetal heart tones were found at the next appointment that week. Three days passed that were full of emotional highs and lows. Spotting would stop and I would be hopeful, but it would start again and the fears crept back in. At times it felt like it would be better to accept the worse, but I didn't want to do that yet. I realized I was in a period of unknown and I wanted to honor and cherish the life even though I didn't know the outcome yet. I finally got to a point where I had asked for an ultrasound sooner, because I couldn't wait any longer. I will never forget that moment when we saw the ultrasound and saw that our baby was no longer with us. We discovered that our baby had died around 8 weeks 4 days. I was devastated, nothing can prepare you for that kind of heartbreak. Our plan was to wait to pass everything naturally, which occurred the day after the ultrasound.
The miscarriage provided many opportunities for acceptance. The first big challenge ahead was passing the baby. I had to experience pain and contractions that were very similar to labor, but I knew that there would be no joy at the end of it. I know each individual decides to go about things differently and although this experience was hard I know it was what I needed for closure. In my experience feeling the contractions allowed me to connect to this little one that I never got to hold. Miscarriage is birth. I know there are many different variations each women may experience, but I learned how much care is needed for a mother after they have experienced miscarriage. In my own experience I ended up with quite a bit of blood loss. I was pale and white afterwards and I needed to be in bed. It would take weeks for my iron levels and blood to come back to where it should be. I was grateful for leftover birth supplies from my daughter, because I experienced bleeding that was similar to post-partum bleeding (which is what it was inherently). This presented challenge number two. I was inherently in post-partum recovery. I couldn't do what I wanted to do or busy myself to distract myself from the pain. I had to be in it, all of it the physical and the emotional. I was an avid runner prior to all of this and it was about 4 weeks till I was okay to run again; that was hard. It was hard to be patient with my body as it healed. After I had my daughter it made sense to take it easy, because I had her to take care of, but I had no baby to take care of. Instead I had to be with my grief, but I learned to reach out to loved ones and others who have experienced this kind of loss. It helped to know that I was not alone. It meant I had to find ways to take care of myself and nourish myself, physically and emotionally. Coffee dates with friends meant the world. Meals that were brought made us feel loved and cared for. Every card, meal or kind deed is forever etched on my heart. Each one of those things to me honored the life of our baby and acknowledged our babies existence and value.
A friend of mine mentioned that as time goes on there will be moments that I may have two very conflicting emotions hope and sadness, happiness and fear etc....but that's okay and normal. Acceptance. Accepting that I may simultaneously plan and hope to conceive again, but feel sadness and grief over the little one we lost. I know that the months ahead will have many more opportunities to learn to be okay with where I am. Experiencing the recovery and the return to normal has been proof of that. It is challenging for me to accept sometimes that things aren't happening as quickly as they should (hormones have a mind of their own some times) and other times I remember that my body has been through a lot. Acceptance means respecting my body and how hard it working even when it's not on my own timeline. Acceptance also means being comfortable with the same emotions that have me frustrated over where I am. Am I always good at accepting things? Absolutely not. There are days where I work so hard to control what I can't and that's ok too. Time may diminish the pain, but there will always be that loss and sadness over losing this little baby.
As a doula my role is to support mothers in all stages. Pregnancy, birth, post-partum and through miscarriage. We need people in our lives to hold the space, who we can express our feelings to and not fear what they may think. We need people who will just listen. Whether it's a normal experience or we are experiencing a complication or hardship; we weren't meant to walk this journey alone. Professionally I'm back in action now as a doula and encapsulator. A short reprieve was what I needed but I'm excited to get back into the swing of things and working with mamas. I hope that this find you well and allows you to get to know me as well. Thank you for sticking around and reading my thoughts <3.