Motherhood and Miscarriage Our Next Steps

i want to start off by saying thank you thank you thank you to all of you who wrote in to me to support, love and even sharing your own stories of miscarriage with me when i shared our story a few weeks ago. i have tried my best to respond to all of you but please no not one went unnoticed and i felt uplifted (and still do) by all the love and support. i will never take that for granted.

after i posted our story i felt this sense of release. it was out in the open. i didn’t have to really hide or mask my emotions or what i was going through anymore. the cover had been ripped away and i was in a strange way able to feel a bit more like myself again.

photo: Leah Mullett

however i can’t help but feel this earnest will to share what i did next, what i’m doing next and what i hope to do next.

when i first found out that we were expecting like many other women wither you’ve been trying forever or it’s a total surprise you have a little freak out. in an instant all the changes you know are coming hit you like a literal ton of bricks. THAT IS OK. i know that if we ever get pregnant again despite all that has happened in the past i will still freak out. and i struggled with that a lot after our loss and i struggle with the guilt of knowing i will probs do it again if it should ever happen again. and i’ve come to the conclusion it’s ok. but i’ve also come to the conclusion that things will never be completely set in place. you are always going to have items that didn’t quite get checked off the list.

after we miscarried i had to make a choice. i could stay in bed and let life pass me by or i had to make the conscious decision to put two feet on the floor, walk to the shower, make my coffee, get into my car and go tackle the tasks of my day. i literally had to give myself pep talks “ok abby first things first put your feet on the floor… now get into the shower… DON’T look in the mirror first you don’t have time for that this morning. just keep going”. every day i had to give myself less of a pep talk and you know what? somedays my alter ego told them to shut the hell up and I did hide out all day. you can’t be perfect all the time. during the last few months joe and i received quite a bit of flack for being too busy. but honestly for a while there i didn’t want to be alone with the thoughts inside my head. i didn’t want time to think. i just needed time to DO. and bit by bit slow down.

over time things started to neutralize a bit. i still have those days, moments and sometimes just seconds where i need to give myself a little talking to and keep going. once a bit of the dust settled i made a list of things that really bothered me that i didn’t get done before getting pregnant. some were pretty serious, some not so serious but still important. each day i’m making it my focus to stick to my goals so that if we ever do decide to try again i’ll have a different focus (or a whole new set of things to freak out about).

here is my list.

1.) faith.

2.) health

3.) home projects

4.) pentwater completed

5.) work/life balance

6.) shop

i’ll be giving you updates about each of these in the coming weeks. i just wanted to share today that it’s ok to not be where you want to be. it’s ok to freak out. it’s ok to share about those freak outs. you’re not selfish, you are human. anyways… just what was on my heart this morning. Miscarriage and motherhood are difficult to navigate and it can be hard to determine what the next steps for you should be. I encourage you to listen to yourself and partner, do not move forward until you are ready to. It is okay to move slowly.