Where do you start when writing about baby loss? What words are able to adequately capture the deep sense of shock and trauma that follows from this experience?
Rosa's Choice
Where do I start? Was just one of the countless questions I asked myself following my three miscarriages and a medical termination. Where do I start with the barrage of feelings and thoughts, or able to live and feel like me again – even like myself again?
Firstly, love. Love to all of you reading this who have been through or are in the midst of loss. Loving yourself through this, is often one of the hardest things to do. There are so many questions that spin around the mind, alongside an overwhelm of thoughts and emotions. Each woman experiencing this in her own unique way.
Please know that any thoughts you have telling you, it’s your fault, or you’re a failure, undeserving perhaps, are all very far from the truth. They are old wounds, beliefs from previous hurts buried deep in your subconscious mind from your own childhood and previous experiences.
They were there before, it’s your loss that has brought them to the surface, and if and when you choose to, can be understood and transformed.
Baby loss is still a relatively taboo subject. Finding an outlet where you feel safe to fully express how you feel, whether that be a trusted friend, counsellor, healer or group begins to allow a re-connection with yourself. A place to feel held and safe where you can look at each thought and emotion, explore the truth of them; How long have they been there? Why are they there? and allow healing of the intense emotions.
Writing, a free flow of words without thought also helps ease the pressure in your mind. A beautiful way of feeling close to your baby is to write them a letter. You can plant your letter in nature, perhaps with new seeds or send your words up to your baby through a fire ceremony. Honouring your baby’s life is the beginning of healing and accepting your loss. All in your own time.
Finding time for you to rest from the mind chatter and physical effects to simply be, placing one hand on your heart and the other on your womb imagining these two centres of love coming together again, is restful and begins to allow the possibility of trust and self-forgiveness. A knowing there is nothing to forgive, only love.
There are so many beautiful tools that I drew on personally and now share with the women I support. Meditation, havening and EFT Tapping for example are simple, powerful, soothing techniques you can practice yourself or with a trained practitioner to ease stress and allow a little love for yourself,
My deepest wish is for every woman who has been through this to know that it is possible to heal; there is always a bigger picture and we are not on this journey alone, but in it together with our babies.
Although you wish of course for your baby to be with you, for you to know that on some level they always are, holding you in so much love.
Debra Kilby www.debrakilby.com, baby-loss healer and author of new book Rosa’s Choice: Healing the wounds of the mother.