Grief in pregnancy
This is something that is really deeply personal to me. After losing my mum I felt increased anxiety when I became pregnant, so many feelings flooding through my head, I felt super overwhelmed about it all. I was so elated and over the moon to be pregnant and in becoming a mother, but at the same time paralysed with sadness and grief, how could I really feel truly happy I found it difficult going through my pregnancy and on my journey to motherhood without my own mother. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask, about my childhood, my mum’s birth, her mum’s birth, her struggles, her advice and her experience. I felt completely isolated in not knowing the answers and not feeling like I can ask the one woman who I am closest to – my mum.
With the cocktail of hormones running through my body, and already being an emotional person! this was exacerbated in my pregnancy I had to really find ways of supporting myself and my mindset. I looked at ways of helping my grief, with journaling which I found really helpful, writing letters to my mum and writing down how I felt I found comforting, albeit at times hard – overall I felt as if I was able to tell her how I was feeling and it enabled me to process difficult emotions. Another was taking time out for myself, I was doing pregnancy yoga, reading up on labour and birth, and making sure I was really informed and had gained knowledge in the journey I was moving through. This helped because I felt calmer and more confident, rather than feeling lost in all the information. Then I looked into doing some trauma work around a memory that I was unable to process and move past, that was leaving me feeling in high alert and triggered at various times when I was to think about it. This was such important work and really helped me to process that memory and the difficult emotions around it, and now I am able to function without constant re-triggering. This was three step rewind for trauma and it was so powerful, I was excited about how I could help others with this important work too.
So having felt this grief in pregnancy it almost catapulted me towards this trajectory of becoming a Hypnobirthing practitioner and also a three step rewind practitioner and also starting up The Brave Mums Club. A community available for those who are a mum who have lost a parent or a mother-to-be who is grieving a parent. I wanted to create a safe space and community that would mean others could have access to a support network that I felt at that time was lacking for me. I have brought my passions together in helping people with birth preparation but also in grief /trauma and I truly feel although my mum isn’t here anymore she has led me on this very empowering path to help others.
