I lost my baby boy 6 months ago
Here’s what helped, did NOT help, and the lessons I’ve learned in the hardest season of my life.
If you’re new here…In December 2024, we said the hardest goodbye to our very loved, very wanted baby at 21 weeks in utero. Our dream, our buddy, our little guy — Dash.
I wrote about our excruciating experience in this blog post. If you haven’t read that, I’d start there and come back to this one. Writing that blog was a sort of therapy for my grieving heart.
Any woman who has had a miscarriage, late term loss, or still birth can attest to the sad fact that once you’re in the “club that no woman wants to join,” you realize that it’s WAY more common than people think and freely talk about. Suddenly you’re hearing about neighbors, family friends, and others close to you who are also in “the club” that you had no idea about.
Your heart simultaneously breaks for them, and also feels some measure of comfort in the fact that you’re not alone. It’s strange and morbid.
And as a reluctant “club member” navigating through my grief, I have been observant of what helps, what absolutely does not help, and what wisdom is available for me.
This is who I am. It’s part of my purpose to share my lived experience, not only to help me process, but also in hopes that it can provide support to someone else out there.
Also…it’s really hard to know what to say or do when someone you care about is in the depths of soul-wrenching grief. Part of my sharing is to highlight grief faux pas that we should all think twice about — specifically in regard to pregnancy/baby loss.
[Faux pas: an embarrassing or tactless act or remark in a social setting.]
Education on grief do’s and dont’s should really be taught formally. It all comes down to the fact that you can’t solve or fix anything for the grieving person, so don’t try.
So here we go. If something resonates with you along the way, please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you. <3
Our Christmas Day hike — 15 days after losing Dash. Our smiles don’t reach our eyes, but we’re trying.
What Helped
Crying a lot. Whenever I felt the need to release emotion, I did. I didn’t suppress the tears. Even if I was in public. Let it go!
Screaming into a pillow. When tears weren’t enough to release what I was feeling.
Hermiting. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. Living in a new town (Sedona) where we only knew 2 people helped. My soul knew we’d need to be there.
Nature. It’s medicine no matter the ailment.
Taking two months off work and social media. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t do anything meaningful for weeks. I am very grateful that our mushroom product sales went on without me needing to put my face out there. If you purchased anything on our website between last November and February, you were actively helping me survive — thank you.
My mom visiting. Sometimes you just need your mom. She taught me the art of sourdough bread, we watched corny Christmas movies, made me food, and held me when all I could muster was a sob.
Shower cries. These are in a category of their own. Water is intelligent; it has memory. When you cry in the shower, the water holds your emotion in a different way. #Science.
When people didn’t need a response. Messages & texts are nice but please don’t expect a grieving person to respond, or else a nice gesture becomes a to-do.
Journaling. I started a pregnancy journal (2 lost pregnancies ago) that I will someday give to our future child — I want him/her to understand the journey we took to get them in our arms. The ups, the downs, everything. This is LIFE!
Getting takeout. Most days I didn’t have the energy to plan meals.
Music. It contains some sort of unspeakable magic. Blasting Deva Premal or Snatam Kaur and letting the sanskrit language and their heavenly voices wash over me was very therapeutic. I still get choked up to this day with some songs.
Care packages. Flowers are pretty, but a thoughtful gift is better. My friends Nathan, Sara and Torri sent me the most beautiful care packages during my healing — candles, cozy socks, teas, bath salts, body oil, high quality chocolate, essential oils, and a book called Excruciating Bliss, written by a mother who lost her 3 month old baby. My family all went in on a gold bracelet with a “dash” shaped blue topaz — December’s birth stone. I put it on and haven’t taken it off.
Watching stand up comedy. I’d forget I was in Hell for a few minutes.
Looking at real estate. Weird one, I know. We were planning on me giving birth sometime in April, and then finding a Sedona home sometime in the fall. When we lost Dash, that part of our dream died and the timeline changed. It felt good to contribute to our dream in a different way, and also gave me a healthy outlet. Looking at houses felt much better than laying in bed every day.
“What was the best part and hardest part of your week?” Shout out to my friend Emily who first asked me this, not right away, but after a few weeks, it was a great way to “check in.” I loved it because unlike, “how are you?” this gave me an opportunity to reflect on the parts of my life that I was grateful for — Chase making me laugh, I saw a bunny today, our hike was beautiful, we had a good meal — as well as share the really shitty parts too.
Chase’s (my husband) hugs. He was the only person in my life that knew exactly how I felt. His strong arms literally held me up on my hardest days, even as he was navigating his own grief.
Painting. There’s a reason it’s called Art Therapy. I let my emotions flow through me and onto the canvas with this one.
The Grieving Mother
What Did NOT Help
This is just my opinion. Don’t take offense if you’ve said or done some of these things. But I’m also in my IDGAF era, so……
“He’s in a better place.” No, he’s not. A better place would be in my arms, full term, alive and healthy. Maybe this applies to a 95 year old man suffering from cancer, but not my baby. This doesn’t feel good for a distraught parent to hear.
“Let me know if you need anything.” This is a very common thing to say to someone in a tough season, and I understand the sentiment — you’re making yourself available for support. That’s nice. But honestly, very few people on earth are going to call out of the blue to say, “Hey, I can’t breathe because I’m crying so hard, can you grab some groceries for me?” Instead, be proactive — send them an Uber Eats gift card, or simply say “I’m getting you groceries right now, is there anything specific you need?” Or depending on your relationship, come over and make them a homemade meal. Don’t put it on them, especially if you are a close friend.
Religious one liners. “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” “Jesus is holding your baby right now.” “You’ll see your baby again.” “God has a bigger plan.” Bringing God or Jesus into the equation might feel natural for the giver, but you have NO idea how the grieving parent is feeling toward God right now. They could be extremely angry at God — which is a completely normal stage of grief. These can all be a major triggers, especially if you don’t know their spiritual beliefs in general. Also, this goes back to…you don’t need to attempt to fix the situation or make them happier. You literally cannot. Instead, simply saying “I’m so sorry. I love you and I’m thinking about you,” is enough! Sympathy is not about fixing the greif, it’s about communicating, ‘I see your pain and I’m sorry.’
What I’ve Learned
There is no manual for this, and everyone processes pain in their own way. But when something terrible happens — like a late stage pregnancy loss — it is my humble yet firm opinion that it’s completely unnecessary to “look on the bright side” or “find the silver lining” or try to make sense of it all with your mind right away. If those things come in time, fine, but maybe they never do, and that’s okay.
After about 4 weeks of being in the trenches, one day I simply put this out there — to God, the Universe, My Soul, or whoever the hell was listening: “I am open to wisdom.” I was not grasping for it, or searching for it, I was simply open.
It is my belief that life is a series of catalysts.
[Catalyst: a stimulus or event that causes an individual to react, learn, or grow.]
They come in many forms — relationships, events of life, illness, challenges, difficult circumstances, etc. And ultimately they are designed to trigger responses in us that reveal deeper layers of our consciousness, allowing us to make intentional effort to face the really hard shit in life and continue to grow spiritually.
I fully believe this…and yet…I wasn’t going to fake anything or pretend to be “ahead” of where I really was. Some days I still just wanted to scream the F word all day. And I did.
Other days a nugget of wisdom came to me in a dream, or dropped in the shower, or in meditation or on a hike. I let myself marinate in it and to see if it stuck. It’s in my Mercury/Mars/Venus in Virgo nature to want to make beauty out of chaos — but some things in life don’t need to be beautiful and they never will be. That’s okay. That’s the first “lesson” I’ll share.
The rest are in no particular order.
Anger is OK. I’ve avoided anger most of my life, and I was avoiding it after losing Dash too — the story I told myself was that being angry is low vibe and out of control. I’ve always said, “It takes a LOT to make me angry.” Well…what is defined as “a lot?” You mean like the seemingly unfair death of your son? If that doesn’t get you expressing your anger, what will, my girl? With Dash, instead of feeling and expressing my anger, I immediately tried to take the pretend “higher road” of “Well I’m no better than anyone else, who am I to be angry? These kinds of things have to happen to someone.” While that may be technically true, anger is still a valid emotional response to something like this. You don’t have to live there forever, but suppressing that shit is not helpful. Shout out to my fairy godmother, Adrienne Abeyta, who helped me see this.
No one is immune to grief. We will all experience immense grief at some point in our lives. Not everyone will experience pregnancy/child loss, but we will all lose someone we love eventually. It’s baked into the human experience.
Perfection is a lie. I tried to do everything perfect in my pregnancy — tracking protein, regimented workouts, didn’t miss a dose of my prenatal, journaled, meditated, read pregnancy books, listened to pregnancy podcasts, saw a spirit baby medium, connected with my baby daily, etc, etc. You can do everything possible in your power, and Mother Nature can still pull out the rug from under you. I’m not saying these healthy habits don’t matter — of course they do. But in my next pregnancy, I’m not going to make myself crazy. I will do my best and surrender the rest. The stress of trying to be perfect is not a net positive.
Mothers & Fathers grieve differently. You can extend this out and say everyone grieves differently, but the general difference between men and women that I’ve observed is worth noting. This is not just based on my own lived experience but also pregnancy loss circles I’ve been in, podcasts, personal friends, etc. When I learned that I was pregnant, my brain chemistry began to change immediately. It felt like 95% of my thoughts now centered around the growing embryo inside of me. And when my body started to change, my belly started to grow, I finally felt Dash move inside of me…the connection only grew deeper and deeper every passing day. Men will never personally experience this connection in the same way. He can intellectually understand the connection, he can love that little baby, he can feel the kicks from the outside…but it’s not the same. So if the baby is lost, to expect a man to grieve in the same way as the mother is unfair. Some grieving mothers become angry and resentful because their man is not as unglued and depressed at she is, as if he never really cared. With Dash, I was incoherently unstable. I needed Chase to hold me up, to remind me to eat, to wrap me in a hug and tell me we’re going to get through this together. Could he do that if he was as unstable as I was? Maybe not. And I knew he was grieving in his own private way. I’d walk by the bathroom and hear his shower sobs. It’s natural for the father to want to provide support for the mother. In my opinion, that is a GOOD man.
Healing is not linear. There were OK days and really hard days. Days where I cried 10x, then the next day, not at all. There were multiple layers to unravel as I grieved. I didn’t seek out traditional therapy, because I knew I needed to process as much as I could on my own. Hermit. Hide from the world a bit. Wrap myself in a cocoon and slowly emerge when I felt ready. At that point, I sought out family, trusted friends, mentors like Paul & Angie Chek, Adrienne Abeyta to help me unravel and integrate anything I missed on my own. As I write this today, I feel like I’ve released the pain and accepted our path, but who knows what will pop up during the next pregnancy and beyond that will need attention.
Grief is Love’s dark sister. You cannot grieve without first deeply loving something or someone. And you can’t love without eventually grieving. They are inextricably linked.
I 100% married the right person. This was a reminder, not new information. When we say our wedding vows what we should really be saying is, “You are who I want to walk through hell with.” This was hell for us, but Chase and I refused to let it degrade our relationship in any way. He allowed me to fall apart, to take my time to unravel completely, he didn’t push intimacy, he supported our family financially while I took off work completely, he still made me laugh, he accepted that there was nothing he could do to “fix it” even though seeing me in so much pain was killing him.
Simple beauty combats deep depression. Depression is a hard thing to quantify. It’s probably not healthy to be at a 0 after losing a baby, but living at a 10 forever isn’t either. I see how late stage pregnancy loss or losing a living child could zip you up in a depression sleeping bag and never let you go. One thing that kept me out was making an effort to find simple, beautiful things in my day. The neighborhood Northern Cardinal’s song (I named him Coral), desert blooms, a new hike, admiring my healing body’s intelligence, sunshine on my cheek, a perfect sourdough loaf, a wandering kitty saying hello, seeing a bunny (Dash’s spirit animal). These things didn’t make me less sad over losing my son, but they made me smile a little. Even a 10% smile is Medicin on the darkest days.
About six weeks ago, I met a beautiful, powerful medicine woman named Grandmother Enolia Foti at Paul Chek’s house — she was leading a drum-making workshop the next day. She’s lived and studied extensively with indigenous elders around the globe — truly one of the most riveting women I’ve spent time with. When she heard our Dash story, she could sense that I was still holding onto some negative energy, that I hadn’t fully cut ties, that something was still holding me down. She offered to perform a womb ceremony — a clearing and blessing.
I immediately accepted.
Chase, Enolia Foti, Me
Later that evening, I laid down on one of Paul’s exam tables with an open heart and the desire to let go of anything that wasn’t serving me. Enolia, with the support of Paul’s wife Angie, went through a very specific and lengthy womb clearing and blessing. She cut ties, she removed negative energy clinging to me, tapped into the health of my womb and prayed a blessing over me for about 10 minutes straight. Time disappeared and I felt like I was floating and spinning. I was shocked that my body was physically stationary.
Around the middle of the clearing, with my eyes closed, I saw a tiny ball of light that I somehow knew was Dash’s little spirit. I felt like this was an opportunity to speak directly to him. To help me let him go.
“Hi buddy. Thank you for making me a mommy. For showing me this deep love. I will love you until the day I die, but I need to let you go now, so I can make space in my womb for your brother or sister. Go where you need to go, and be what you need to be. I love you.”
I can’t tell you how much lighter, freer, better I felt after this. We spent the next 2 days with Enolia leading the drum workshop and continued to witness her magic.
Day 2 of the drum workshop
And on the last day, Chase & I wrote a letter to Dash and went through a little ritual, burying it together on Paul’s property with Enolia singing in the background. It was so beautiful — and a miracle that I was able to go through all this without crying. We hugged and felt like we closed a chapter.
Enolia ended by gifting me a womb rite. I repeated after her:
“The womb is not a place for fear or pain. The womb is a place to create and give birth to new life.”
Simple, but powerful. I now recite this to myself on a regular basis, any time I feel anxiety or fear about the future. Enolia told me I could share it. So if you’ve experienced pregnancy loss and find yourself with looping or anxious thoughts, commit this to memory and say it to yourself over and over until you believe it.
Props to you if you’ve made it this far. This is a long one.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you’re one of the many many women who have also experienced miscarriage or late term pregnancy loss, I hope you found something of value in my words. Please share in the comments if you feel able.
Our stories are not finished. Keep the faith,
Big hug.
