It's hard...my loved and lost pregnancies

Trigger warning: recurrent miscarriage

It’s hard when you decide to have one more baby and it doesn’t work out — not just in the way you feared, but in the way you never imagined you’d have to survive.

It’s hard when you expect to be so sick you can barely function, and instead you feel nothing. When the absence of symptoms becomes its own kind of dread. When doctors reassure you that every pregnancy is different, but something deep in your bones whispers “this isn’t right”.

It’s hard when you start bleeding and still hear, “There’s no cause for concern, just get a scan.”
It’s hard when the scan shows a heartbeat — a tiny flicker of hope — yet your body tells a different story. When you’re told everything looks normal, but you know in your soul that nothing about this feels normal for you.

And it’s unbearably hard when, two days after seeing that heartbeat, you haemorrhage and the small piece of tissue that once held your baby slips from your body. When that moment imprints itself so deeply that you can’t walk down the hallway where it happened without reliving it.

It’s hard when it keeps happening. When two lines on a stick no longer spark joy. When you wait through the longest weeks of your life for the inevitable. When you live out your worst nightmare on repeat — each loss arriving with its own cruel timing, a collision with birthdays, anniversaries, due dates, and other people’s joy. Shannon, Kelly, Riley, Callen. Loved by me, never known by the rest of the world.

It’s hard when you do everything “right” — the tests, the specialists, the supplements, the research — and still have no answers. When you wonder why your body once carried life and now, without explanation, does not. When you ask yourself why millions of people conceive without trying – without wanting - while your most tender hope keeps slipping away.

It’s hard when well‑meaning people offer platitudes like “at least you already have children” or “everything happens for a reason.” Even when you know they’re trying, sometimes the only thing you want is for someone to simply acknowledge the truth: this is devastating, and nothing makes it easier.

Pregnancy loss is hard — whether it’s your first or your fourth, whether you were six weeks or forty, whether you have living children or none. Nothing takes away the grief. But you deserve gentleness as you move through it. You deserve space to feel everything that rises. You deserve time — as much time as you need.

Everyone grieves differently, and every way is normal. Every pace is normal. Every heart deserves compassion.

If you are in this place, I see you. I feel you. It’s hard Mama. It’s so hard.

In the early days, I had to let myself feel every wave — the rage, the sorrow, the physical ache, the emotional collapse. I did what I needed to simply get through each day. I leaned on the tools I’d been given, even when they didn’t feel like they were helping, while the waves crashed over my head.

When you’re ready, support can help you gather the pieces — a psychologist experienced in pregnancy or infant loss, practices that offer even a moment of grounding: yoga, meditation, walking or running, journaling, emotional freedom technique, acupuncture, kinesiology, massage, prayer, movement, stillness. Whatever gives you a breath of relief.

Please take care of yourself, even on the days you don’t want to. You are worthy, even when you feel broken. You didn’t cause this. You didn’t deserve this. If you could have stopped it, you would have. Awful things happen to good people, and there’s not always a reason to find.

It won’t ever be “ok,” not in the way you once imagined. But you will learn to live with this. You will find a way to carry both the love and the loss. You are stronger than you know. And you are not alone.

If you’re walking a similar path, my heart hurts for you. You’re invited to reach out in whatever way feels safe. Your grief is valid, and your pace is yours.