I felt like I was One In a Million

Written by: Sharna Southan, Executive Contributor

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

“I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat.”

Words no woman ever thinks she will hear when she is in her pregnancy journey! This was my reality.

The intense, all consuming sadness & inability to see anything good for your life anymore.The uncontrollable crying & the feelings of numbness.

Then cue the opinions of others: “You should be over it by now.”

“You shouldn’t be grieving, it’s not like it was your parent.”

“At least you know you can fall pregnant.”

Mama, you are grieving. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. You are very much entitled to grieve your baby.

It is a multifaceted grief. It has so many layers to it.

And I think it is so important to mention here - Men grieve too.

Men grieve so differently from women, so don't discount them. They are struggling. They are trying to hold it together & be the pillar of strength they feel they need to be. They will show their grief in different ways. They may try to control a situation because everything else is so out of control.

A tip here for your relationship: Open the communication, dedicate separate time to chat. Hold sacred space for both of you, even if nothing is said. It is a safe space to voice what is weighing heavily on your heart. If communication is lost, it can be detrimental to a relationship because neither of you understands where the other person is or what they are feeling.

Tips here to the Family Member or Friend: If you are someone who has someone around them that has experienced loss, don’t try and fix the situation. It can’t be ‘Fixed.’

Just offer to be there. Be there just to listen to the couple without wanting to give your opinion. Learn to hold space for them OR just sit in silence with them. Offer to do the chores or watch Netflix with them. Acknowledge their pain, don’t dismiss or invalidate their loss, it is real & it is valid.

Losing a baby within you or as a stillborn is an imaginable grief you just never expect to ever feel or ever expect to have in your reality.

Experiencing this myself changed the trajectory of my life! I knew I didn’t want another woman to experience the isolation, shame & guilt I did.

Your experience does have the capacity to change your life if you can learn to embrace it.

Pregnancy loss is not something outwardly spoken about in society & for some reason, there is a lot of stigma & shame surrounding it.

And when it happens to a woman, she feels she is solely to blame for losing her child. For not being able to do right by her child. For not being able to do the one thing her body is designed for.

As we are children growing up, it is considered the norm to fall in love, marry & start a family. For most women, this is what they want, but for some, it’s not their reality. To attach children to womanhood. But what if you can never fall pregnant? It is just not as simple as that for a lot of women.

The statistics:

1 in 4 pregnancies will result in miscarriage
1 in 8 Women will experience Infertility in their pregnancy journey
1 in 100 Women experience Recurrent Miscarriage
Mother Nature’s natural fertility rate is only 20% each month - a very small natural window.

Information I think we should absolutely be taught about from a young age. Before embarking on the Pregnancy Journey.

In knowing how many women are actually experiencing loss, why should there be so much silence & stigma around it still?

And why do people feel like they need to downplay a woman's grief after experiencing this type of loss?

Mama, give yourself the permission to grieve. Like I said earlier, it is multifaceted grief, because there are so many different layers to your life that you are grieving.

You are grieving your child, born or unborn. It is still your baby. And you have immense love for them as soon as you get that positive test. You would do anything to keep them safe from that very moment.
You are grieving your future. Because as soon as you fall pregnant, you start to almost immediately plan your future. How different it will be. What you get to experience. Buying all the baby items & how much joy it will all bring.
You are grieving your identity. When that is all so abruptly taken away from you, who are you? Are you even a mum? What does your life mean now? You are grieving all that you knew up until this moment in time.

How you grieve is entirely up to you. Grief is not linear. It doesn’t come in a distinct stage or pattern, and I think it’s important to know too, you will never be done grieving!

Your immense sadness will soon be interwoven with the beautiful softness & intense beauty of Joy. You will start to have them living side by side in your life & it will add so much more depth to you.

There are 5 stages to the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle:

Denial
Anger
Depression
Bargaining
Acceptance.

These will come to you all over the place. Know when they do, feel them, don’t ignore them.

Emotions are energy. They want to be seen, heard & felt. Once you have felt it, actioned whatever it was you needed to, you’ve sat in the shower & had that heavy heart heaving cry, or you've screamed into a pillow, this is allowing the emotion to be released. They aren’t coming to you to hurt you, they are coming to be felt.

When you are able to feel your emotions as they present, each time the intense sadness or anger, whatever it is, presents, it will be more and more time in between.

You will be able to experience more joy & happiness in between the sadness. And it’s in those in-between moments you will begin to heal your soul. When you can feel, then and only then, can you start healing.

One simple tool I recommend to use when you are trying to figure out what you are feeling is:

Journaling:

This will allow you to start to process those intense emotions. At the start, it will feel foreign to write it all down. That's why I recommend starting small. Even if it just recognizes the emotion. That's a huge step in itself.

Some prompts you can ask yourself:

What emotion is it that is presenting & possibly what the lead up to that was?
What happened?
What triggered you?

Then as you get better at writing, you can start documenting more around how it is presented? What does it mean to you? Because our reactions are our perception of that emotion. It is your perception of it being good or bad.

Writing a phrase of acknowledgment & then How you can reframe it for when it comes up in the future (because it will).

You cannot fully eradicate feelings, so it’s how we deal with them that makes the difference.

Your external world is a direct reflection of your internal world. If you want things to start changing outside of you, you have to look to change within you first. Allowing yourself to grieve & acknowledging & honoring yourself & your emotions is the first change you can make.

Your grief is valid. It is yours to understand and to feel. And then it is yours to start healing. The grief is not your ‘forever’! It won’t be like this forever, just for now.

To the Angel Mama; Your wound is not your fault. But your healing is your responsibility.

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Sharna Southan, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine

Sharna is an ICF-certified Coach & Self Healing Spiral Practitioner. After her experience with Grief through the Loss of her Dad & a Miscarriage, Sharna knew this was an opportunity to grow her soul & designed ways to heal through the different types of grief.

Sharna saw the need for more support in the Pregnancy Loss space. She Founded 'The Institute of Healing through Pregnancy Loss' & became a Business Mentor for women who have experienced Pregnancy or Infant loss & had an inner knowing they are destined for more.

So women can uncover their purpose (soul's blueprint), step into their power, create values & soul-aligned business & live a life true to their heart & higher calling in life.

Sharna has designed a method to uncovering your purpose & teaches her signature healing through a loss framework alongside a business model to monetize your purpose.

Teaching a values-aligned business model & signature healing framework create more empowered women leaders who can provide a safe space for women to reconnect to their divine self & start their healing after Pregnancy or Infant loss.

Her mission is to create more accessible support for women to heal specific to pregnancy or infant loss.