Absolutely beautiful writing. I appreciate your perspectives very much.
I gave birth to my baby boy this past January at 6 months pregnant. He did not live. I freebirthed him in my bed, in trust and euphoria, and spent those precious few moments with him while he was still attached to his placenta. I have beautiful community that supported me through it all. My dearest women surrounding me while I labored, each of us knowing the grief on the other end and all in anyway. The whole experience was a blessing that expanded me in unforeseen ways.
To be a woman is to hold both life and death. Certainly that’s what the business of making and birthing and raising those babies requires of us. In my grief I took immense comfort in allowing its colors to run with the grief of every woman who has carried and birthed and grieved a baby. To just know I was but one of many women to experience this specific type of love and mourning…
My prayer is that one by one we shift this most intrinsic feminine capacity back to one of trust, awe, and mystery. It strikes me that although I find my story overwhelmingly beautiful and full of love, there are many who would not understand why I made the choice to stay home and leave birth and death where it belongs.
Your words and experience are such a testament to the uniquely female sense of trust we all hold the capacity for but which has been largely lost in our world today. I’m both sorry for the loss you have had to bear but also hold some joy for the blessing and expansion you allowed it to be.
Trust in the process of life is something we have largely lost in modern society and this is no better evident than in how we approach all matters of birth. I’m so glad to know you had such meaningful support and women to witness you through the process you have had.
In all matters of life-making, we are one of many, and I wish for that fact to be a comfort for us all.
thank you for sharing. I think as common as miscarriage is there not a lot about processing. As someone who has had 2 miscarriages, these losses are real just as the joy was at seeing those pink lines. I always think of my miscarriages as the death of a dream, the dream I had of who those babies would be the minute I knew I was pregnant. I also have realized that there is nothing but surrender available. thinking of you🙏
I feel like surrender is the heart of so much of the experience of womanhood. Our bodies are this vessel for souls to come through or not. I remember this phrase that I kept thinking through my last pregnancy, “you are not entitled to a live baby.” We are not entitled to any outcome so I think in the process of conceiving and carrying pregnancies the surrender is important.
“There is nothing but surrender available”-those are words I will be repeating to myself. Thank you Emma, and thank you for sharing your own experiences with this as well.
Thank you Danielle. I was so grateful to come across the perspectives of generations before us on this topic and as time and my heart allows, planning to tend to those memories and accounts more.
I’ve had three losses and each time, I’ve told myself that in the end, it all comes out in the wash. My body knows, she’s wise. It doesn’t take away the tragedy, but it is a comfort in its own way. Thinking of you. 🤍
Thank you Sarah. You really are right. I think more than anything, each new chapter in the book of female existence (excuse me for being cheesy with that phrase 😂) feels like just another exercise in connecting to all of the women before us and all of the women after us. That, paired with my gratitude for my body, does bring a lot of comfort.
“I am capable of trust.” Poignant words. Looking back to my (semi) fertile years, they were sometimes true and often not. Hits a nerve either way.
I think I am better at the trust thing when it comes to birth. My second daughter was a natural breech birth (with specialist support in a hospital). Getting and staying pregnant, at least till second semester, was much more emotionally and physically difficult. I was one of many many women who struggle with fertility though, so any positive pregnancy test was always accompanied by thoughts of “quite likely my only chance” or “probably my last chance” to have a baby.
I became pregnant shockingly and unexpectedly following my one and only IVF attempt which was cancelled mid cycle (no eggs matured). A few days after the positive tests, I started bleeding bright red. I was devastated, I raged at the universe. I was sure I was miscarrying. But I do, briefly, remember a period of quiet acceptance where I thought “my body knows what to do. It knows.” I guess that was trust? Anyway, to make a long story short I had a sub chorionic hemorrhage but the baby was fine; she is going on 10 years old now.
Trust has been an ongoing, very complex process for me.
I think I am having a similar experience. Birth has been easy for me. I had my last baby (also a breech baby!) at home alone. It didn’t feel like a big deal then or now to trust the process. But this experience of miscarriage has created the need to tell myself “I am capable of trust” because I need that reminder so badly, because it will be hard now. Thank you for sharing your experiences here and I am so glad your baby stayed with you and is still there with you almost a decade later! ♥️
For me the grief from miscarriage catches me in all the ways I started to plan for baby. When I'm pregnant, I change what I wear, how I eat, how I approach moving my body and housework...and gradually meeting those things one by one and realizing they're different now, the next few months are going to be different now, is the hard part.
Sympathizing with you and thankful for what you've shared here. ❤️
This captures something I just realized I had been doing. Every time I have been pregnant I have always felt very protective of my belly from the very beginning of the pregnancy, before it actually technically matters. My 4 year old was being a little rough playing the other day and kicked me in the stomach and I felt that reflexive protective thing kick in and started thinking in that moment about how I had already shifted in how I was living so much.
As the hormones return to a more baseline state in my body I feel those instincts fading, and it is sad. Even just to be aware of my body regulating in this way though is a blessing, and I thank you for mirroring something I am experiencing now.
Wow that last paragraph made me emotional. This was such a great piece. I had a miscarriage in between my first and my second baby. Although I was devastated I was grateful for my body’s wisdom and my own female intuition. Sending you love. 💗
Thank you Belinda, and also for sharing your own experience as well. I’m so glad your second child made their way to you after your miscarriage, and that you were able to find the same gratitude I am grasping for now ♥️
What stark contrast to the rhetoric we see about miscarriage and infertility online. Similar to the narrative of control and confirming and tracking everything in motherhood.
Thank you Andrea. I think looking past the popular narrative of control in all manner of the childbearing years is how I personally reconcile my own experiences through these years and those of the women before me. Our collective experiences mirror one another’s overall but there have been varying levels of acceptance and surrender “to what is” throughout all of time and I think we have lost a lot of that today due to these control mechanisms and it is not generally good for us emotionally. If that makes sense at all 😂
Emily, I really enjoyed reading this. I’m sorry about your loss (though now I’m second guessing whether that’s a good word) but also wanted to let you know that I found this vulnerable perspective so beautiful and it’s definitely the first time I’m encountering one like it. Always love your work 🤍
Thank you Catie ♥️ I’m laughing at your comment about the word “loss”because once you start thinking about it and examining it, it really is sort of hard to know how to name it. I appreciate your kind words and your taking the time to share them with me.
Absolutely beautiful writing. I appreciate your perspectives very much.
I gave birth to my baby boy this past January at 6 months pregnant. He did not live. I freebirthed him in my bed, in trust and euphoria, and spent those precious few moments with him while he was still attached to his placenta. I have beautiful community that supported me through it all. My dearest women surrounding me while I labored, each of us knowing the grief on the other end and all in anyway. The whole experience was a blessing that expanded me in unforeseen ways.
To be a woman is to hold both life and death. Certainly that’s what the business of making and birthing and raising those babies requires of us. In my grief I took immense comfort in allowing its colors to run with the grief of every woman who has carried and birthed and grieved a baby. To just know I was but one of many women to experience this specific type of love and mourning…
My prayer is that one by one we shift this most intrinsic feminine capacity back to one of trust, awe, and mystery. It strikes me that although I find my story overwhelmingly beautiful and full of love, there are many who would not understand why I made the choice to stay home and leave birth and death where it belongs.
Blessings to you Emily.
Your words and experience are such a testament to the uniquely female sense of trust we all hold the capacity for but which has been largely lost in our world today. I’m both sorry for the loss you have had to bear but also hold some joy for the blessing and expansion you allowed it to be.
Trust in the process of life is something we have largely lost in modern society and this is no better evident than in how we approach all matters of birth. I’m so glad to know you had such meaningful support and women to witness you through the process you have had.
In all matters of life-making, we are one of many, and I wish for that fact to be a comfort for us all.
thank you for sharing. I think as common as miscarriage is there not a lot about processing. As someone who has had 2 miscarriages, these losses are real just as the joy was at seeing those pink lines. I always think of my miscarriages as the death of a dream, the dream I had of who those babies would be the minute I knew I was pregnant. I also have realized that there is nothing but surrender available. thinking of you🙏
I feel like surrender is the heart of so much of the experience of womanhood. Our bodies are this vessel for souls to come through or not. I remember this phrase that I kept thinking through my last pregnancy, “you are not entitled to a live baby.” We are not entitled to any outcome so I think in the process of conceiving and carrying pregnancies the surrender is important.
I wholeheartedly agree, and never more have I truly understood the meaning of surrender but through the throes of childbirth.
“There is nothing but surrender available”-those are words I will be repeating to myself. Thank you Emma, and thank you for sharing your own experiences with this as well.
Emily, this is a beautiful piece. Thank you for sharing. This is deep cerebellar wisdom lost for generations brought back to life.
Thank you Danielle. I was so grateful to come across the perspectives of generations before us on this topic and as time and my heart allows, planning to tend to those memories and accounts more.
I’ve had three losses and each time, I’ve told myself that in the end, it all comes out in the wash. My body knows, she’s wise. It doesn’t take away the tragedy, but it is a comfort in its own way. Thinking of you. 🤍
Thank you Sarah. You really are right. I think more than anything, each new chapter in the book of female existence (excuse me for being cheesy with that phrase 😂) feels like just another exercise in connecting to all of the women before us and all of the women after us. That, paired with my gratitude for my body, does bring a lot of comfort.
“I am capable of trust.” Poignant words. Looking back to my (semi) fertile years, they were sometimes true and often not. Hits a nerve either way.
I think I am better at the trust thing when it comes to birth. My second daughter was a natural breech birth (with specialist support in a hospital). Getting and staying pregnant, at least till second semester, was much more emotionally and physically difficult. I was one of many many women who struggle with fertility though, so any positive pregnancy test was always accompanied by thoughts of “quite likely my only chance” or “probably my last chance” to have a baby.
I became pregnant shockingly and unexpectedly following my one and only IVF attempt which was cancelled mid cycle (no eggs matured). A few days after the positive tests, I started bleeding bright red. I was devastated, I raged at the universe. I was sure I was miscarrying. But I do, briefly, remember a period of quiet acceptance where I thought “my body knows what to do. It knows.” I guess that was trust? Anyway, to make a long story short I had a sub chorionic hemorrhage but the baby was fine; she is going on 10 years old now.
Trust has been an ongoing, very complex process for me.
I think I am having a similar experience. Birth has been easy for me. I had my last baby (also a breech baby!) at home alone. It didn’t feel like a big deal then or now to trust the process. But this experience of miscarriage has created the need to tell myself “I am capable of trust” because I need that reminder so badly, because it will be hard now. Thank you for sharing your experiences here and I am so glad your baby stayed with you and is still there with you almost a decade later! ♥️
For me the grief from miscarriage catches me in all the ways I started to plan for baby. When I'm pregnant, I change what I wear, how I eat, how I approach moving my body and housework...and gradually meeting those things one by one and realizing they're different now, the next few months are going to be different now, is the hard part.
Sympathizing with you and thankful for what you've shared here. ❤️
This captures something I just realized I had been doing. Every time I have been pregnant I have always felt very protective of my belly from the very beginning of the pregnancy, before it actually technically matters. My 4 year old was being a little rough playing the other day and kicked me in the stomach and I felt that reflexive protective thing kick in and started thinking in that moment about how I had already shifted in how I was living so much.
As the hormones return to a more baseline state in my body I feel those instincts fading, and it is sad. Even just to be aware of my body regulating in this way though is a blessing, and I thank you for mirroring something I am experiencing now.
Wow that last paragraph made me emotional. This was such a great piece. I had a miscarriage in between my first and my second baby. Although I was devastated I was grateful for my body’s wisdom and my own female intuition. Sending you love. 💗
Thank you Belinda, and also for sharing your own experience as well. I’m so glad your second child made their way to you after your miscarriage, and that you were able to find the same gratitude I am grasping for now ♥️
What stark contrast to the rhetoric we see about miscarriage and infertility online. Similar to the narrative of control and confirming and tracking everything in motherhood.
I'm sorry Emily 🩷
Thank you Andrea. I think looking past the popular narrative of control in all manner of the childbearing years is how I personally reconcile my own experiences through these years and those of the women before me. Our collective experiences mirror one another’s overall but there have been varying levels of acceptance and surrender “to what is” throughout all of time and I think we have lost a lot of that today due to these control mechanisms and it is not generally good for us emotionally. If that makes sense at all 😂
❤️ so beautifully written
Thank you friend ♥️
Beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you Kinecy♥️
Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece. Thinking of you 🤍
Thank you for reading and the kind words Becca♥️
Emily, I really enjoyed reading this. I’m sorry about your loss (though now I’m second guessing whether that’s a good word) but also wanted to let you know that I found this vulnerable perspective so beautiful and it’s definitely the first time I’m encountering one like it. Always love your work 🤍
Thank you Catie ♥️ I’m laughing at your comment about the word “loss”because once you start thinking about it and examining it, it really is sort of hard to know how to name it. I appreciate your kind words and your taking the time to share them with me.