6 Things That Helped Me Cope With My Miscarriage

You’ve had a miscarriage, it’s awful, horrendous – the most empty feeling there can possibly be. To have been pregnant and then not. If you’re anything like me then you’ve read as much as you can bear on various Google searches (read as horrendous chatrooms) You’ve read about those women who fall pregnant a month afterward a miscarriage (urgh), read about why it might have happened, the odds, that it wasn’t your fault etc etc. But other than reading things that might drive you a little crazy, what else should you be doing? From my point of view, moving on from a miscarriage has been a slow and steady process. I like to think that I was lucky (ha, I try to find the positive) in that mine happened very early on and beside my boobs – which were enormous – my body had only just begun to physically change. It’s obviously very different for all women, and no doubt how far along you were is a huge factor, but here are the things that I’ve realised I have had to accept, or things that have helped me cope with this rather horrible experience.

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Treating Yourself To Some Self-Care

Have you heard about or do you know what ‘Self-Care’ means? Is it something that’s on your radar or is it more in the Bermuda lost triangle zone as far as you’re concerned? Do you even know what I’m talking about?! Self care is essentially about taking responsibility for yourself, your health and mental wellbeing. It essentially means to look after YOU. I knew of the term but despite doing a lot of things for ‘myself’ I didn’t really acknowledge that what I was doing was called ‘self-care’. Listening to Women’s Hour on Friday (I know, I’m WILD) there was a segment about this topic, where it took one woman finding out she had cancer, going through all the treatment and coming out the other side, before she realised that she hadn’t been taking care of herself at all. She realised pre-diagnosis that she’d been burning candle at both ends, running herself into the ground working and partying too hard. Having cancer made her realise she needed to slow down and start loving herself a bit more. The programme really got me thinking. Certainly leading up to IVF I was really good at meditating on a regular basis, I was getting loads of sleep, drinking loads of water etc but then the pregnancy and sickness stopped all of that, and then after my miscarriage everything went to shit, quite frankly. I went off track by way of rebelling and showing my anger I suppose. I stopped doing all of the things that were good for ME. I realised that I hadn’t been looking after myself at all.

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A Missed Miscarriage

This post was supposed to be something else entirely. It was about now that I was due to share my exciting news with you all. News that I’ve literally been planning in my head for weeks now.  I’ve tried not to let my mind run away but you can’t help it. Finally after two and a bit years of trying for a second baby, our IVF back in September was successful. We were that couple who just needed a little IVF help and it worked first time! I’d finally allowed myself to buy pregnancy vitamins and let myself glance that little bit longer at women with bumps thinking, ‘me soon’. And our awesome daughter was finally going to be a big sister. But, oh.

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8 Things To Help Deal With The Dreaded Two Week Wait

This post has been on the go, in draft for a while now. Each month I think I’ve found a new way to deal with the dreaded Two Week Wait (TWW) but the reality is I haven’t, so I’ve put this off for another month to see if I find that miracle distraction. Now I’ve reached the two year mark of trying for another baby, it seemed as good a time as any to put this out there. For any woman trying to get pregnant dealing with the TWW royally sucks. You’re looking out for the tiniest of symptoms that may or not mean pregnancy, but those symptoms are rather cruelly the same as getting your period. Lovely, no? Personally I find that the first week is fairly easy and passes without too much thought, but week two, ooh that’s the struggle. Those negative thoughts start to creep in and I often find myself lying awake at night running through various scenarios. I sway from completely normal to teetering on the precipice of doom the next. And it’s around this time that I catch myself staring at women with pregnant bumps, feeling that empty space in my heart. It’s an altogether rather horrible cycle to be in.

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Finding Things A Bit Difficult

I’ve been struggling a bit recently, really struggling and it’s two particular things that have been making me feel like this. I last wrote about not being pregnant back in February, and I’ve kept quiet since then because you try to focus and look forward as much as possible, don’t you. However another month has nearly gone by and I have to say that in the last few days, for some reason, I have been finding things hard. I’ve been feeling like this groundhog day cycle is never going to end. And alongside this, the kid has been pushing me as hard as she can. She has reached a new phase in her little life and I am finding that she swings from, ‘super happy’ to ‘angry moaning minnie’ constantly, and that’s actually quite tough when it’s all day, every day. Things seem to have come to a head and I’ve been feeling a bit like I’ve been wearing Eeyore’s sad face, complete with my own little grey cloud.

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