A Letter To Commemorate The Due Date Of A Miscarriage
This is Part 2, an accompaniment to the blog My Personal Experience of Miscarriage.
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?”
In July 2019 I experienced a miscarriage, and the 6th January 2020 would have been the due date.
I want to share my personal experiences and continue the conversation, because a miscarriage does not end in the moment of physically losing a pregnancy.
My personal experience is that there appears to be some kind of ‘miscarriage-amnesia’ in our society, culture and in around 99% of conversations I have had with friends and family since it occurred - as if it never happened.
And I want to rectify this amnesia.
It is important for me to remember, and to commemorate. And I imagine this would be true for many others who have also experienced miscarriage.
The entire gestation period was hugely significant for me, and throughout the remaining 6 months, post-miscarriage, I experienced intense waves of grief and loss that were sudden in their onset.
During this time I also struggled hugely with my energy - I simply had no energy to channel into other projects. It was as if all my energy had dissipated and disappeared with the loss of the pregnancy, or had retreated deep into my womb like trees do in winter. It was as though my energy was continuing the pregnancy journey somehow, not available for other ‘normal’ life.
It was hard to be so drained, emotionally, physically and spiritually. At times it left me without hope, faith or clear direction. Suddenly my life had swerved off course.
Approaching the due date, I felt a little apprehensive about what it might mean. The day that had carried so much promise, hope, joy and new life.
But, I think having felt every single drop of grief in the preceding months, I was relieved to find that the due date for me heralded a new lease of my own life and - blessedly - the return of my own energy.
It was a spiritual birth of something more than myself - call it resilience, call it inner strength, deep knowing, wider perspective, joy… And I was glad for that.
For months and months when I closed my eyes, no matter how briefly, I would fall into the deep dark place of grief. My skin as the layer between myself and the world was so paper-thin that I would leak as soon I encountered the lightest touch - the tears would come instantly, unstoppably.
And then, finally in 2020 I could close my eyes and there was quietness, stillness, a neutral emptiness. The grief just beneath the surface had been expressed.
I felt lucky that in only the third week of pregnancy I had received my baby’s name in a dream, and this was a huge source of comfort during my grieving. I would see her name in signs around me throughout the following months, which helped to reassure and anchor me as I regathered my life.
It strikes me that there is so much more around us than we can possibly know or understand, and that we are blessed to see tiny glimpses of the greater mysteries that dance around our lives here. And who knows, perhaps there is far more to the spiritual meaning of miscarriage on a soul’s journey - for both parent and child - than we can know from our limited human perspective.
Morning tears by Gauthier Delecroix
In memory of my daughter’s soul, and to all the beautiful unborn souls who have graced us with their presence, no matter how briefly.