My Before & After: 16 Weeks Not Pregnant

SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING: 

I am sharing my experience about my child loss journey, so if this topic is triggering, depleting or too much, please do not read any further. If this is a part of your story and your human experience, I want you to know, I see you, I hear you and I am here for you.

As I sit here on a SUPER snowy morning on Valentine’s Day, my brain has opened, my mind has surrendered into sharing a very vulnerable part of our experience from a different perspective. Hi, my name is Ashley, and here is my story.

Pandemic depletion is real.

Heartache and trauma is real.

Not having the usual distractions to keep our minds busy is real.

The profound loss of loved ones is real.

The profound loss of the world as we knew it is real.

The profound loss of relationships, may it be friends, family is real.

The profound loss of so many things is real for all of us.

We are resilient beings, meant to do incredible things. To come together to create change, and not the bullshit cliches thrown around but REALLY put in the work for profound change.

To sit in the uncomfortable

To feel discomfort in our soul

To feel the moral conflict of what feels good and what does not

To sit in our pain and not dismiss someone else’s

To not have our default be “how can I fix it” but rather “I’m here for you”

To stop giving all of ourselves to those that do not do the same for us

To believe what people show us

To lean in to self love rather than self sabotage 

To lean on those that create safe spaces for us 

To lean on those that don’t weaponize our experiences against us

This journey back to myself since Harper died has been anything but easy. It has been....

        Trying

        Exhausting

        Terrifying

        Energizing

        Depleting

        Exciting

        Eye opening

        Liberating

        Empowering

        Sad

        Vulnerable

        Literally ALLLLLL emotions

Finding this strange space to thrive in my pain. To be the realest I have ever been in my entire life with myself and what serves me. To know, that I have lived a life filled with traumatic experiences, and I only share this as a moment of reflection, that maybe all of those experiences, gave me the strength & tools I didn’t know I would ever need, until this moment.

Dealing with the trauma of Harper dying....

Our world flipped upside down in a matter of seconds,

Being told this by an ER nurse who was 8 months pregnant herself,

The incredibly loud silence as they searched for her heartbeat,

Calling my husband, with our sleeping son, saying she had died,

Leaving the hospital with a pamphlet and to-do list at 1am,

Driving home by myself in confusion,

Hoping they were wrong or the machine malfunctioned, 

Feeling death inside my body,

Being met with my husband at our garage door with tears in our eyes. 

Trying to wrap my brain around what this moment meant

What were we going to say to our kids?

What were we going to say to our family & friends?

And a thousand more questions that will take way too long to share.

The profound sadness I felt as I laid down in our bed to go to “sleep,” sobbing, knowing the next morning I would be delivering our daughter that would not be joining this world alive. MIND FUCK! Then to wake up in this space and know the journey has just begun, so many unknowns.

Living a nightmare.

To feel my belly at 16 weeks not pregnant is something so incredibly difficult to explain. There really are no words. The shame. The guilt. The rabbit holes. The questions. The grief. The anger. The expectations. I questioned everything & I mean everything. Feeling a shift in my very being, both physically and emotionally. My before & after.

Grieving the person I will never be again and in the same moment terrified of who I am to become. The unknowns. Grieving my pregnancy, the loss of our daughter, the loss of who I was. This shit is real. This shit is hard. Crawling out of my skin. Literally only having the energy to open up my eyes to just cry.

I cried for hours...

Upon hours...

Like literally hours,

Everyday, for weeks. 

People would ask what I needed...are you okay...what can I do...I didn’t know and still don’t. They would try and fill the silence with comments they didn’t realize were so incredibly dismissive or harmful, because in their innocence they wanted to help, but sometimes silence was all that was needed. Trauma after trauma, grief after grief. It gets compacted, time and time again, you are expected to just get back up. To go back to work. To take care of your life, whatever that is. To “get over it” or to “appreciate what you have.” To know what you need and to tell people exactly that.

We have to change this.  

We have to stop telling people how to grieve or what to grieve. We have to stop expecting those that are grieving to articulate what they need and allow it to happen organically, without expectations and hurt feelings on what your role may be.

I now know what I needed in the darkest moment of my life...

To heal physically

To feel my pain

To be sad

To grieve and I mean TRULY grieve

To be with my husband, daughter & son

To snuggle with our dogs, because they didn’t ask me questions

To cry

To NOT talk

To stare at the wall

To self explore my darkest fears

To face my reality

To give myself permission to...

Need what I needed in any given moment 

To do what I needed to do to survive. 

To be lost

To be whatever I needed to be

To not feel the weight of the world on my shoulders

To not have to explain myself time & time again

To just be

And then little by little I gained some strength...

        I gained more understanding

        I began to find my voice

I began to feel my truth

I began to embrace who I was becoming. 

I began to embrace my story & my human experience

I began to feel the aversion to who I was becoming

Understanding what “capacity” means

Truly understanding the expenditure of energy

I want to keep shit real. This is a forever journey. It does not get easier, it just gets different. You learn little by little how to live with this profound grief. I have good days and not good days. I can have all the patience in the world in one moment and other times have absolutely none. I’m continuing to learn the manifestation of grief and all emotions included in that process. Like I’ve said before, its a revolving door of emotions. 

I also wonder at times, how quickly grieving mothers are diagnosed with postpartum depression (PPD), depression, postpartum anxiety (PPA), anxiety or possibly other medical conditions...even as far as to be medicated for their grief. Especially for moms that don’t have people advocating for their mental health during this time, when they cannot advocate for themselves. 

There are layers to this grief. 

This grief is deep, confusing & depleting.

I am going to be very clear, I have worked damn hard in allowing both grief and gratitude to run simultaneously in my world. It is not easy and takes a lot of work but I can be appreciative for what I have and in the very same moment be devastated for the death of our daughter. I also know that is not the path for everyone and that is okay, we all have to define what our path looks like. I am choosing to share this to simply pull back the curtain a little bit to what this experience has been for me and my family. You can sit 1000 families in the room and hear 1000 different stories of what this experience could be. Sometimes just showing up and saying nothing is what is needed in someone else’s darkest day. I also know that our experience is simply that, our experience. Each family has a different story, one that should be embraced. Each baby has a story that should be embraced however the family sees fit.

In my opinion, we live in a society that embraces all the good without question and  with open arms, yet when people want to share their most vulnerable moments in need of support in their trauma or grief they are met with what they should be doing, where they should be appreciative and maybe even as far as how they are not showing up for others.

We have to change this narrative.

We have to change this programming.

We have to level up ALL resources for ALL families.

My ask of you, what I need (because for now I can only speak to that)....

    Don’t be afraid to talk about Harper, it makes her real

    Don’t act like you cannot say Harpers name, she is our daughter.

    Don’t try and fix it or take the pain away, its impossible.

    Don’t pretend like it didn’t happen, that dismisses the most difficult human experience I have                 

        ever lived, we have ever lived.

    Don’t try and change the subject, when I am talking about Harper, because that might very 

        well be what I need in that moment without telling you what I need in that moment.

    Don’t make the death of Harper about you, to me, as her mama it’s not that I don’t want to, I         

        just literally don’t have the capacity to share your individual grief, I do however have the     

        capacity to share our collective grief and will do my best to explore what that is with you. 

    Don’t steer away from asking me, her dad, her big sister, her little brother & little sister how 

        they would like to honor Harper. It is different for each of us.

Some things that have helped me in my journey...

        Therapy

        Grief Support Group

        Journaling

        Music

        Getting on my yoga mat

        Baking & Cooking

        Our peloton (finally getting some use, I don’t take this luxury for granted)

Some things that have helped me in healing with others...

        Talking about Harper

        Spending time with my husband & his healing hugs

        Spending 1:1 time with our kids

        Connecting with people who understood this journey

        Teaching yoga

        Dance Parties

        Sharing our story, when the moments felt safe

I split the above into two sections, because I think there are a few things to note...As a mom, it is easy to blur the lines of what we need still factoring in “others” in the equation and I am leaning into the idea that for my healing is in two parts, both of which are still for myself, the things I do that fill my soul by myself and the things I do that fill my soul with my family, extended family, friends other relationships etc. I think this is important for me to redefine, because in healing and giving myself permission to heal from this loss, I cannot heal myself if I don’t lean into myself.

What I have learned...

        Naming my pain has been crucial

        Understanding the manifestation of grief

        Embracing when I have capacity

        Also embracing when I don’t have capacity

        Understanding the journey for mom and dad is different

        Sharing our story has turned into a healing process in itself

        Knowing our story is its own and comparison is a thief 

        Not taking therapy accessibility for granted

        Knowing I have incredible doctors and therapist who have helped me navigate this journey

I would also like to point out, just because I have learned, does not mean it is always accessible. I guess, where I am, in this moment of my journey, is a space of surrender and openness.

I share our journey as I mentioned, because it makes Harper real. I’m hoping to be a part of the change that is so desperately needed surrounding child loss, this should be talked about more. We have to talk about the stigma and shame that surrounds this experience for moms and for families. We have to allow families to grieve how they see fit. 

We live in a society that programs us to believe, being triggered is bad and we should burry that feeling versus exploring that feeling. To silence us versus creating a safe space for us to share. So many families are struggling in silence. This must change! 

I have learned invaluable lessons from each of our kids, three earth side and one guardian angel. I still have so many more lessons to learn as a witness to this experience of life and my human experience. I hope to pull strength from this moment of feeling grounded, when I hit a moment of pain, a moment of suffering. See, for me, language is everything, its knowing that being sad and sitting in my pain is NOT a weakness. There is always something to learn, that is for each of us to define what it means for our journey. To give ourselves grace, embrace the idea that a lesson isn’t always about getting an answer, but rather, showing us the tools we posses to help us take our next step in life. Something I work on daily and with my therapist. 

I know holidays can mean a whole lot of things to each of us, I just hope, you find what you need in this day that serves you. 

Take care of yourself on what you need in this moment <3

To our little Harper,

            It’s Valentine’s Day...As your mama, I will advocate for your story for the rest of my                 

            life. I will find strength to advocate for others that have not found their voice yet, 

            even while I continue to find mine. I will always talk about you and share your 

            story, because you baby girl have taught mama so much. You have given me a     

            strength I never knew was possible. You have taught me about my own     

            capabilities I didn’t know I had. You have given me a strength I didn’t know I 

            possessed. You have shown me that grief & gratitude can truly coexist, on a level     

            that is unexplainable. As I finish writing this, the sun has come out, a cardinal flew 

            by and the chaos in the house has begun. As painful as this journey has been & 

            will continue to be, I wouldn’t change it and I want to thank you for your lessons 

            and for your forever presence in our life. In losing you, I began to find my voice. My 

            true sense of self.  It’s a strange place to feel the devastation of you not being with

            us and the gift of gratitude for your baby sister & we thank you for that blessing. 

            

We love you forever and always.