loss
Firstly, if you find yourself here, I am deeply sorry and you are not alone.
Nothing prepares you for what it’s like to lose a baby, lose a dream, lose hope. On top of that, you may lose friendships, lose connection with the world or just lose yourself. I felt all of these. That’s why I am determined to try and support any woman who finds herself in this space using the knowledge of what helped me through. My personal story will follow below.
Not everyone wants to look at nutrition when they are going through something like losing a baby, but it helped me significantly. Taking care of what I was eating gave me a sense of control during a period when I felt I had indeed lost control. Giving my body what it needed, helped it recover and heal from not one but two D&E (dilation and evacuation) operations and the after-effects of two sets of general anaesthetics following my procedures. My nutritional choices helped me balance the sudden drop in hormones and lack of oxytocin and helped me ride the waves through those difficult few weeks. It also helped me calm my nervous system and deal with the crippling grief, anxiety, PTSD and sleep disturbances. It helped a lot. To the point now I find myself pregnant again, something I was sure was impossible after the failed first surgery and I’m now using nutrition to help me navigate a very different pregnancy to my first. If you feel like I could benefit you at all, whether you are in the weeks, months or years post-loss, please get in contact.
My story
I went into my 12-week scan with the same naivety that everything would be fine, as it was with my firstborn. A few days later I received a call to say I had been flagged as high risk for a genetic condition. From there it all went quite hazy. I opted for an invasive test to get a diagnosis and those weeks in the lead up to that phone call were some of the worst of my life. When I received the call to say our baby did indeed have that condition, I was left with the decision no one ever wants to have to make. Do I end my baby’s life? We made a choice personal to us, and it still hurts me to my core to write that down. The next few weeks were even more blurry than the first. I felt like I was having a complete out-of-body experience. And then I found myself there, in the hospital, on the theatre table, tears streaming down my face about to do the unthinkable. Then it was over, well so I thought. I was scanned and found to have retained pregnancy products and ended up back in the hospital theatre. I was left shattered, emotionally and physically. I had PTSD and severe anxiety which I was lucky enough to receive the best care and therapy for. However my hormones were all over the place, my gut was completely out of balance from the antibiotics and anaesthetics I was in constant fight or flight. I needed to do something. I needed to take control. So I trusted my instincts and started using food as therapy. I made myself stand there and made healing soups that I knew I could sip on, even when I didn’t want to eat. I stocked the fridge with healthy batched cooked dinners, so when I went to open it at night with no inspiration or hunger, there was always something there to help my body and mind. I used supplements to calm my nervous system enabling, me to fall asleep and calm the anxiety. To my surprise my body healed quickly, my cycles returned and my gut was restored. The mental effects took longer, but with perseverance and help from family, friends as well as professionals, I calmed my mind. It will never be okay, but I’m almost okay, and that’s fine.