The journey to motherhood felt somewhat impossible at times and it wasn't until after I had my rainbow baby that I realised I hadn't just been losing babies, I had in fact been collecting angels.
After each miscarriage I felt I had lost a small part of myself, in fact it felt like I had completely lost myself most of the time. I lost most of my interests, hobbies and desire to socialise, I became isolated, angry and above all else I hurt. The internal pain and turmoil I felt every single day was suffocating, but I put a smile on my face and carried on because the world simply doesn't accept the level of grief pregnancy loss brings.
"How can you grieve someone you've never met"
Good question, how can you? from the outside looking in grieving pregnancy loss probably seems all a bit unusual, after all you've never met your baby, you've never held them in your arms or had time to bond. The thing is, you have had time to bond, you have had time to dream and you already have hope and dreams for your child. To you your baby is very real, your baby is someone you have bonded with and your baby is part of your life. Just because society doesn't want to recognise, talk about or grieve these babies, it doesn't mean we can't.
Every year as the Wave of Light approaches I feel my anxiety rising, for me the Wave Of Light is a time for me to acknowledge my angel babies and feel that others are acknowledging them too. It brings the sense of unity and understanding, not only to me, but to millions of men and women around the world, that they need. That little flicker of light that we sit and watch beautifully dance allows us to feel connected, it allows us to feel our babies matter and it allows us time to reflect on what was, what could have been and where we are going. This year will be no different despite having my rainbow baby. At 7pm we will light our candles and watch as the flames move around freely bringing a sense of peace to our household that allows us to connect with our thoughts.
It has only been since having our rainbow baby, Rosie, that I sought help in order to manage my own mindset. I needed to do this as I found settling into motherhood extremely challenging, after all my mind had been hardwired that pregnancies end with trauma and sadness. Each day I would wake up and wonder how or what might happen to take Rosie away from us. I then started to feel myself becoming detached from Rosie and in a bid to protect myself I would avoid her as much as possible. After seeking help I was directed to a lovely lady for 'Rewind Therapy' The main aim of this was to deal with the traumatic birth of Rosie but the end results were so much more. It soon became apparent that my need to distance from Rosie was an automatic fear response stemming from the miscarriages, after a lot of talking some meditation and visualisation techniques I was able to shift my thought process. I no longer felt the pain of losing babies, I felt lighter, I felt happier and I realised all this time I had been collecting Angels.
I recognise that this is easy for me to say now because I have my rainbow. One thing I strongly disliked when going through the toughest parts of my journey, were the people telling me from a privileged place that things will be OK. Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring and although I hold every bit of hope for everyone struggling that they get their light at the end of the tunnel, we can't guarantee everyone will. There are no guarantees and that makes this journey all the more difficult, the unknown. Just know that tomorrow when I light my candles, I am lighting an extra one for everyone struggling who's hope is fading because when you can't hold hope any longer please know that there are hundreds, thousands of us holding that hope for you.
Sending all my love to each and every one of you x
