Miscarriage and healing

If you know, you know. That feeling of utter heartbreak, of feeling useless and completely out of control. It’s safe to say I lost myself for weeks after loosing our first baby to miscarriage. I simply couldn’t function, tears would fall down my face without me even realising I was crying. I felt numb and distant. It’s like no other pain I’ve ever felt before, mentally more than anything else.

Today, 20th March, marks an entire decade since this happened to me. I’ve had this anxious niggle in my stomach and chest for the last week or so. You see, as time has moved on for me I don’t think about it all the time. I’ve grown, I’ve gone on to have three healthy children. Life is busy. But then you remember and all those feelings come flooding right back. I am back in that hospital room as if no time has gone by at all. It is the biggest reminder that our pasts truly do affect our present day lives. Our experiences are what shape us, what make us compassionate souls, able to empathise with the people around us also experiencing their own pain. Whether it was yesterday, a week ago, last year or ten years ago.

When you’re knee deep in whatever heartache life is throwing at you it can be so incredibly overwhelming. You can feel that life will always be this tough, that you are stuck. That you will remain numb to the world. I felt it. I didn’t know how life could ever be better, not in that dark cloud. Just as I was starting to feel lighter I was hit with a due date that we never made it to, it was like being punched in the heart. Though I was pregnant with our eldest at the time I couldn’t help but think how life would’ve been different. My children brought me the happiness I craved, becoming a Mum was all I had thought about for years! Time has healed my heart but that time, that little life, it is etched on my memory forever.

Many of the women I work with (especially if they come to a session without their partner) tend to open up to me. It’s a part of my work that I really love. I love to listen. I don’t think clients necessarily come with that intention, I think we just create a safe space together and the conversation starts to flow. I listen in awe at the strength of these women, it may be an experience of miscarriage or something else entirely. It reminds me that I too have this strength inside me. Perhaps I’ve been their outlet during our session, another adult to share their thoughts with, but they each have their impact on me too. They remind me of the inner strength we share, of the passions we have burning inside of us.  My images may well be hanging on their walls but their impact and stories stay with me. I feel connected to them as a fellow woman, as a mother too.

Sleep tight little angel babies.

xxx