On the darkest days of winter, when the days were short and the nights long, I gathered into myself. I felt the need to go inwards. And inwards I went. What waited for me there was unspoken pain and unspoken truth.
I started listening to podcast about family constellation. How important it is to acknowledge the right place of people in our family structure. Ancestors and babies alike.
So I sat down and started writing it:
We hardly talk about miscarriages in our society. We dare not mention it and when we do, it can be so scary. It was for me. And the reason it was scary is because I never knew how common it is. All I heard was stories about healthy babies or stories about abortions.
So after I got pregnant for the first time I was utterly devastated to have a miscarriage at 7 weeks. I was beyond consoling, I could not stop crying. It hit me hard. I wasn’t expecting that and I wasn’t prepared for it.
I now honour and acknowledge this baby as my first child. Her name is Ella.
Two weeks later I ovulated. I had a strong, all consuming, feeling that I needed filling. It was unbelievably powerful. I announced to my husband my need for him to put a baby in me. Now. He did not object.
I got pregnant again that night.
I had a very unrestful 7 weeks. Every time I went to the toilet I prayed I would not see blood.
Around week 6 I had a nightmare one night: I was sitting on the toilet and I saw blood. I woke up sweating and ran to the toilet. There was no blood.
Almost 42 weeks later a baby was born. She did not want to come out but they made her come out. She was angry.
I called her Ella for a whole day.
But after a day I looked at her and together with my husband we started playing with names we liked until we stopped on Mia.
I always knew my first born’s second name would be Phoenix (that's a whole different story). And like the Phoenix she lifted my heart from ashes and filled it with love. And so many more emotions. Such is motherhood.
I was capable of growing a beautiful and healthy full term baby. I was able to get over a lot of breastfeeding hardship and feed her from my milk. She was thriving.
I never feared a miscarriage again.
When Mia was 2 I got pregnant again. I am an only child and I knew I wished for more than one child.
It was a bit earlier than planned, I was still happily breastfeeding Mia, but I was happy and grateful.
I took Mia to see my friend in Brighton. It was quite the journey from Manchester.
We had a great relaxing time.
The train back was cancelled and we were put on a crummy, noisy and uncomfortable train. While I was trying to entertain and feed Mia I started feeling the cramps. Like period pains. I asked someone to watch Mia while I went to the small dirty toilet where I saw the blood.
I was 6 weeks pregnant. I felt terribly alone. Not able to share this with anyone around me. I was on a train full of strangers.
When we got back home I took two weeks to rest and bleed the pregnancy out. Even though it made me feel guilty, I felt OK about having a miscarriage. Maybe even a little bit relieved because I could have some more time alone with Mia.
I might be feeling a little guilty about it now.
But I recognise this baby as my child.
Her name was Tova, Tobie.
A few months have passed. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. Nothing made sense except being a mum to Mia. My old career wasn’t appealing to me anymore and I was not sure what was my path going forwards. So maybe another baby now will be a good idea. Somebody new to occupy my life and time.
I got pregnant again. Easily.
This time I went beyond week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, week 10. On week 11 I started feeling the cramps again.
This time it was hard. It was at a later stage.
I miscarried him on the toilet. It felt like a ping pong size ball shooting out of me and disappearing down the drain. I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it.
It was shocking. My body has already changed a lot in this young pregnancy.
I was so happy that I had Mia, she was my solace. I was ok with losing this pregnancy.
I was sad, it was harder than before, but I was OK.
I recognise this baby as my child. His name was Ellis.
At this point I was a little bit worried, but I didn’t give up. I became a bit of an expert on natural miscarriages. What to do, what to eat, which herbs to drink.
I found myself counselling and helping other women who came my way. Women that the universe sent my way.
It felt good. I felt less alone in this.
In the following months we tried again. But I didn’t get pregnant.
Suddenly that part became difficult.
I even went to get checked.
I knew my body was trying to tell me something but I didn’t know what.
I did start to have an inkling of what I wanted to do with my life. I bought my first DSLR camera.
After months of trying to get pregnant I started having strange pains one evening and dark blood came around my ovulation time. That was very untypical for me so I bought a pregnancy test. I was pregnant again. I was very happy.
But the bleed didn’t stop. It came and went. So have the pains.
I went to get checked. I was around 7 weeks pregnant.
"You are pregnant" they said "but it’s not far enough to have a scan" they said.
"I know when I ovulated" I said. "I know how far along I should be because I track my period cycles" I said. "No" they said and sent me home.
Something was wrong. It felt very wrong. When I was about 9 weeks pregnant I started feeling very poorly.
I had cold sore on my face and a bacterial infection took a ride. I looked bad and felt worse.
Again I went to the emergency gynaecology department. I sat there waiting. With very high temperature that kept rising.
Finally they saw me. “Have you just run here? Your pulse is sky high”. “No” I replied “I have been sat here for 3 hours waiting”.
They admitted me immediately with an IV of antibiotics for 24 hours. My temp was nearly 40c.
Only the next day they took me for a scan. I was alone. My husband had to go into work (I probably told him to go) and my best friend couldn’t make it to the scan. Mia was with her grandparents. I was alone. So alone.
I finally got my scan that showed a completely empty uterus. Nothing. No baby.
Just my body desperately trying to fight this ectopic pregnancy.
I never cried so hard in my life. Alone. With the worst hospital tissue paper in the world. Now my face was puffy, red, full of cold sore and infection.
Later that day I got to see my Mia. And breastfed her. That felt so good. It was the one thing I felt I had any control over in this body of mine.
My body got rid of the ectopic all by itself. At the time I was proud of myself. But it took every ounce of my energy and I was left exhausted and my immune system changed profoundly. Not for the best. Today I am so angry about this whole experience.
In hindsight I wished I pushed harder to get a scan earlier on. I could have got a pill to get rid of it earlier if I was only listened to.
It’s hard to think this way because there was never a baby there. But my body produced something and I recognise this baby as my child. I do not have a name for him/her though.
Alongside with getting my energy back, ever so slowly, I also seeked deep meaningful healing. I knew I needed something which is a bit more than therapy.
I found the perfect therapist who combined therapeutic techniques with spiritual healing. She was just what I needed. Together we cleaned my womb and thanked her, in a dip meditation. During these months of therapy I understood something deep and profound: I had in me an ingrained belief that because I was an only child, I did not know how to be a mother for more than one child. I had to release this belief. I also had to acknowledge that I am a family code breaker of transgenerational patterns.
On my mother's ancestral side of the family, women had a lot of abortions. They were living in Romania, they did not use any contraception and they just kept having abortions. I don’t know why. But I know that by the time my mother’s aunt wanted to keep a baby, she couldn’t. And I know that the reason that my mother and her twin sister are alive is that their mother was told by her doctor that if she has one more abortion she will not be able to have a baby in the future. They are twins and they are the only children in their family (my grandma had 1 sister and my grandfather had three sisters. They all had abortions).
I never had an abortion but it manifested in my miscarriages. This is how sometimes transgenerational transference work.
During this deep healing time I had a powerful dream. A message from my dead grandfather (whom I was very close to): you will have two daughters. One that looks like snow white and one that looks like cinderella. You know, it was a dream, the symbolism had to be clear.
During that healing time I got pregnant. This time I was flying on such a high frequency that I could feel it coming, even before conception. I could feel the soul who was coming to me, like a little butterfly fluttering on my shoulder.
And although somewhere deep inside me I knew all will be well, my mind was flooded.
This was not an easy pregnancy.
I suffered, for the first time in my life, with anxiety and panic attacks. The smallest thought about things that could go wrong sent me spiralling.
I continued with the therapy but I knew nothing will help me aside from birthing my baby.
When I was about 6 months pregnant I had another powerful dream. All my ancestors were there, walking together (along with a tortoise and other animals), telling me it’s OK and that they are behind me in this process that I was going through.
We were busy doing up our new house, our family home. I focused on this and on planning the best birth I could have. One thing I knew for sure - along with this baby I was going to give birth to the anxiety.
One thing no one ever told me was that babies can act very differently when they are inside you. Mia had patterns of movement and I knew when to expect her move and how to make her move. This baby was far more relaxed and that only added to my anxiety.
42 whole weeks later, scans and monitors, and checks (quit a few induced by me and my anxiety), I had a beautiful and empowering natural birth.
A birth that went exactly how I planned it.
A beautiful baby girl came to us. Annabelle. When she was still inside me I had a very sharp clear message from her one night as I was drifting to sleep - my middle name is Leah.
So there, we had our beautiful, healing, heart filling Annabelle Leah.
My blue eyed cinderella.
Annabelle was a dream baby. It felt like such a gift after all we have been through.
When she was 4 the pandemic hit us all.
Like many other families we stayed home and felt thankful for what we had.
But after a few months of that I started feeling the call of another soul. When I mentioned the idea of having another baby my husband was very keen so we got busy.
Very quickly I conceived and I was not afraid. I had an early scan that was reassuring and very quickly felt very pregnant - bloated and tired.
On the morning of my 12 week scan I got up with an ominous feeling. I went to the toilet and there was a very weak bleed.
I went to the scan, alone as it was still restricted, with a very heavy heart. Sadly the baby stopped developing, probably not long after my first scan.
I felt very confused. Especially to why my body continued to behave so pregnant. It is called a missed miscarriage. What a name.
I was also sad, and disappointed. If I was only meant to have 2 daughters, like my grandfather showed me, then why did I feel the need to bring another soul earthside?
The next day we were supposed to go on a family holiday to Scotland.
But after letting go of this pregnancy I started bleeding so heavily that I took myself to the hospital. Everything came out all at once. It was not nice. It was so heavy that I had to use one of Annabelle's old fabric nappy insert!
I got checked by a doctor and gradually the bleeding stabilised. I still very much wanted to go on my holiday, now more than ever, and encouraged by the nurses I decided to go. I bled in every stop we made, I bled on the side of the rural roads, and I bled on the shores of the beautiful Loch Lomond.
I left parts of me in Scotland and now I feel very connected to her.
I now honour and acknowledge this baby as my last child. His name was Max-Jonathan.
When I recovered I was still left with questions. And I wanted to resolve the issue and be content with my two beautiful girls.
I turned to a family constellation facilitator. I also deeply felt the need to involve my mother in the meeting.
We had a cross country zoom meeting.
It was an emotional one. A lot of tears were shed by both of us. A lot of things came up. Mainly the closure that I needed. That the soul that I felt connected to could have been the brother I was supposed to have.
I could finally let go.
I respect and love all the children and souls who passed through me.
I am happy and content with my two daughters who love me, endlessly, back.
My heart is so full.
I am 45 and already feeling menopause creeping up on me. My conceiving days are behind me. And as I look forward to supporting other parents around me I am mainly proud of myself for breaking this transgenerational transference code. For clearing the path for my beloved daughters.
