My Sovereign Pregnancy Loss

At 12 weeks pregnant, I awoke one morning to blood that was reminiscent of a period. My body was calm, alerting me not to worry and from there, I entered liminality... (audio diary below)

Jan 27, 2024

∙ Paid

Under a Leo full moon, at 3:33am this experience feels ripe for sharing. And so, I shall begin…

Were I still pregnant, I would have been about 15 weeks along by now. I miss being pregnant. I am distinctly aware of the cavern that is my womb space; deserted, perhaps still shedding a little…

While the pregnancy itself came as a surprise (despite feeling my spirit baby close by, at the time, despite feeling a sense of readiness to grow our family) I really began to look forward to my body growing and changing; to welcoming our little star who would surely have been born a Leo. After fearing a false belief I held that having two-under-two was absurd, I truly began to feel enlivened by such a reality. A reality that is no longer a possibility for me.

My intention for sharing this is simple - the natural phenomena that makes up our shared human experiences needs to be communicated. Losing a pregnancy is a rite of passage for women that is as common as it is taboo. And therein lies my inspiration to share my very human way of navigating an experience that has been hijacked by medical jargon and dogma. Except for one woman in a birth circle community I am part of, I couldn’t really find an honest recount of a woman’s pregnancy loss that wasn’t laced with science-y vernacular or cloaked with fear and drama (what the hell is a D&C? This disgusting term is thrown around as though we should know what it means and expect it to happen to us in the case of a “miscarriage.”) Our culture has done such an excellent job at discouraging women from being with their innate wisdom by confusing them with fear-based propaganda and an onslaught of acronyms. My hope is that the frequency of my story contributes to dispelling all of that. Life is as extraordinary as it is simple; a dichotomy that is difficult to live when panic and alarm have been drummed into our collective nervous system. And so, may my story be an offering to the collective, an offering to women, a reminder that YOU are your highest authority; YOU are free to navigate your life’s wins and losses with the grace of God by your side; YOU are a vessel for love and creation, death and re-birth. YOU are WOMAN! ROARRRRRRRRR!

You are NOT a damsel, wrecked by your internalized victimization and in need of rescuing. Even in the throes of uncertainty and wails of grief, you are Divine beyond measure.

“Miscarriage” is a terrible word. I invite all of us to never use it again in the context of a pregnancy release. I did not mis-carry my child. Women do not mis-carry their children. It’s not an experience that warrants blame, although I definitely spent time blaming myself. Was it the parsley I had in my green juice the week before? Is it because I’ve been experiencing a blood deficiency? Was it the melatonin I sometimes took before bed? My mind searched for reasons because blaming myself felt easier than accepting such an inexplicably upsetting turn of events. I’d had a perfectly healthy pregnancy before, so why not this time? Eventually I grew tired of riding the hamster wheel inside my mind and allowed the feelings of guilt, shame, heartbreak, regret and sadness to run their course. None of it is linear and still I have moments where I get a little triggered and begin to tear up.

Life is an ever-evolving design and it’s intelligent enough to know when a particular creative combination isn’t viable for this iteration of existence. It isn’t personal. Loss and death isn’t personal. This fact doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking when our very human selves naturally attach to possibility and expectation And this is why I believe I didn’t panic or feel afraid the morning I woke up, at 12 weeks pregnant with blood, reminiscent of a period leaking from my womb. The wisdom of my bones knew everything was as it was meant to be. That this was a normal part of a woman’s journey.

I stared outside the window, my vision blurred by my own tears and the Moxa smoke that began to shroud the room. It felt serendipitous to have had an acupuncture appointment with my Chinese Medicine doctor the morning after I released my pregnancy. I had began a weekly series of acupuncture sessions once I arrived in Asheville, NC on New Year’s Eve.

Involuntary waves of sadness rode my being from the inside out; kissing me clean as tears rolled down my cheeks and my breathing shuddered. Any story of what had happened was absent. This was unadulterated emotion; pure grief; alchemy of the human spirit. In that moment, I was both the embodiment and witness of an achingly beautiful emotional process. I felt the spirit of that child near to me then.

“It’s OK mama, I love you, it’s just not time, yet”

She whispered in my ear.

For about two or three days leading up to the early hours of January 11, 2024 (11/1 portal) I continued to bleed as though I had been on my moon cycle. I wouldn’t have constituted it as “heavy” bleeding, and except for one evening when it subsided, it was mostly present, flowing and bright red. I didn’t have any pads or period undies with me - I’d been pregnant during our roadtrip from Montana so I never packed them. I just bled into my undies and changed them during the day, a little dazed by the liminality of it all.

The first day I awoke to bleeding I was also met with a dreadful headache that teetered on the edge of a migraine. By late morning I felt quite weak in my body and spirit, my appetite had gone and my vision began to blur. I actually felt hopeful when my vision became compromised temporarily because I had a similar experience in my third trimester when I was pregnant with my son - and he arrived perfectly.

Bleeding during pregnancy is not necessarily unusual nor a sign of danger. A woman attuned to her body’s communication will know if and when it’s time to seek assistance. Our programming is such that we’re taught to panic the moment anything drifts away from our textbook understanding of life - it’s a common reaction.

Life is always happening. We are simply the conduit. And so, when curve balls are thrown our way, we have an opportunity to see where they land, and discover what unfurls. Only in watching and waiting and listening will we know the perfect time for intervention if it’s at all necessary. And, in my case, it never was.

By the early hours of that January 11 morning, I had already been writhing in bed for a couple of hours. The cramping was intense and evocative of early labour the first time I gave birth. It felt different though. I feel that the hormonal matrix of full-term labour is somewhat different to that of a pregnancy loss at three months.

I went into my husband’s room and curled into his arms and said “it’s happening, I’m releasing this pregnancy.” He held me tight and I felt so loved in his strong arms as soft tears began to roll down my face.

I had a strong urge to poop and so went to the toilet discovering tissue in my undies, which I now recognize to have been part of the placenta.

The cramping distinctly morphed into waves undulating from the base of my spine and anus around my abdomen to squeeze my womb. I was experiencing contractions.

My 15 month old son began to cry out. I hopped back into bed momentarily to settle him and Chase curled into bed with him, keeping our boy close until he fell back asleep.

Meanwhile, I was moving between the living room and bathroom, vocalizing each wave. During one of the in-between moments, I squatted down to be with my sweet doberman, Tallinn. She offered me her love and comfort and then I felt an opening. “Oh my gosh!” Blood began to gush out of me. I felt like an open channel. I felt somewhat shocked by what was happening. I ran back to sit on the toilet and felt a mass release. Disoriented, I began to run a bath.

I immersed myself into the water, crawling onto all fours, moving back and fourth as blood continued to release from within me. The bathwater diluting the red to pink.

I don’t recall how long I was in there, more unidentifiable tissue released as I quietly chanted “I’m releasing, I’m releasing” in the rhythm of my pelvic movement; forward and back, forward and back.

Chase was by my side, offering his love and support with a hand gently placed on my back, assuring me that I wasn’t alone in the experience even though it was mine to have.

The time came to exit the bath, still disoriented, I moved toward the toilet bowl to examine the mass I had released. I couldn’t quite tell what it was and I ignored the impulse to pull it out and see. I flushed what I now believed to have been the little fetus. I felt regretful for the days that followed though I’ve since arrived at peace.

I hardly slept that night.

The cramping subsided and I was left feeling decidedly not pregnant. I felt the loss. I felt the emptiness of the space that had been created to welcome this child into our family. It was the strangest thing to experience this juxtaposition of life and death side-by-side like that; to go from feeling blatantly pregnant, full with life (even during those first couple of days of bleeding) to feeling empty, barren and not pregnant at all.

The following evening Chase and I held a little ceremony to honour the spirit that came to be with us for those few months.

A few days passed, the cramping had eased up and the headaches I had been experiencing subsided. My not-so-voracious pre-pregnant appetite resumed. And then, one afternoon, out of the blue, a cramp and another opening occurred, this time releasing another fleshy piece of placenta. I kept it and buried it at the base of a beautiful, friendly tree in the forest by our place - whispering a prayer as I dug a small hole with my fingers into the soft, yielding earth.

The Rise : Matriarch in the making

My Sovereign Pregnancy Loss

At 12 weeks pregnant, I awoke one morning to blood that was reminiscent of a period. My body was calm, alerting me not to worry and from there, I entered liminality... (audio diary below)

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