Lindsay - Writer at Lindsay Marie
I am a mother of three, two beautiful girls and one angel boy who soars above. My son Joseph Michael, passed at 26 weeks gestation on November 12, 2013 and he was my second baby. His loss left me in pieces. Pieces from my heart that fell to my feet the day his heart stopped beating. I wasn't sure how to take my next breath, when my son would never take his. I would never get to feel his soft baby breath on my chest or the touch of his delicate skin. But something began to shift inside of me at the same time that my world was unraveling. Within the broken pieces of my heart, light was able to reach me on a new level. A level deeper than I ever knew it could. In the quiet and still center of the dark, funnel cloud of grief, this light joined my hand with love. A love that I hadn't known ever before and my perspective on life changed dramatically. I began to live my life differently, with more compassion, more softness and with more wisdom. This is where I found hope to move forward and to be free with my grief. To allow grief and love to dance hand in hand, showing me how to just be.
I am not broken, instead I am whole; whole with this love that cradles my shattered heart. He taught me a new kind of love. My son. My angel above.
E. Fegan - Owner + Founder at Dear Bub Blog
I didn't know what a 'natural full miscarriage' was. Who knew that you could miscarry and give birth at just 10 weeks pregnancy?
An ultrasound revealed I had a blood clot bigger than the baby where the placenta connected to the umbilical cord. It was rupturing, and a placental abruption was underway. It was easily up there with one of the most painful experiences of my life. It was as though I could feel my insides tearing away, and every bone in my lower abdomen felt as though it was breaking. As the pain and bleeding intensified, my left leg went numb. I was alone at home, petrified, and literally crippled from pain. As I haemorrhaged and passed chunks of tissue, I would wonder which part was placenta, and which part was my baby. But the very last 'cramp' which I now knew were actually contractions (I was dilated at 6cm the day after), I knew it was him. He was still in the sac. I saw this tiny perfectly forming human, with little arms, fingers, legs and toes. The heart that I had seen beating in the ultrasound just the day before, was now still.
I felt embarrassed and I blamed myself. I felt like my body had failed my baby. Over 1.5 years later and I still suffered from a limp and hip pain, I needed multiple surgeries for over 1.5 years to remove residual scar tissue, a bloody cyst left over from the pregnancy, uterine adhesions, ovarian cysts, endometriosis. I forgot what 'feeling well' was like. I couldn't work. I worried that I would never be able to conceive. I felt broken.
It took me time to learn to embrace these happenings as just part of life, and my journey; in fact, to accept that these happenings are more common than I ever realised.
Yvette - Owner + Founder of She Is Sacred
After three miscarriages I often question my womanhood. Am I only to be blessed with one child? Is it my PCOS? What is really going on inside of me? Is it the cysts that are in the way? Are my ovaries too lazy to have another baby? Why did my body has rejected three little lives? I will never know. To bring a moment of hope and happiness, only then to be snatched away from me, almost broke me emotionally, physically and spiritually.
I may have transparent cracks and chips all over my body. I break down and cry from the losses and torment myself with the whys and what could have beens.
I have had injections, tests - been prodded and poked all to try and find a simple answer why my body just won't function.
Despite all this, I am not broken. I might have felt broken, but over time I began piece myself back together. I have turned my back on rejecting myself and being more loving to myself, I have begun to accept what has happened and embrace my womanhood for what it is, rather than seeing it as a failure.