How I’m Nourishing Myself After 2 Miscarriages
*deep breath* I’m postpartum (again) with nothing to hold in my arms but myself and my grief. After two miscarriages in 9 months, one of them gentle and early, the other late and traumatic, my knees are brought to the earth. As much as it’s been a heartbreaking and physically challenging experience to navigate, there’s wisdom I’ve gleaned. It has given me the opportunity to embody the female experience of being a portal between life and death, and to connect to the feral wisdom granted during such an event. It has also provided the opportunity to practice a loving relationship with my body. I know the wisdom I’ve gained this year will be one of my most powerful assets as I age. It’s likely no surprise to anyone that this year I’ve leaned heavily into gardening and botanical remedies to support my healing. My garden continues to be my most powerful resource for holistic wellness.
Pregnancy loss and miscarriage (through choice or not) is demanding on the body, mind, and soul. It is no easy task to grow life and then to lose it. Our bodies and souls are never the same after, which brings me to my offering to you today.
I’m sharing the ways I’m holistically nourishing myself during postpartum loss - from nutrition and herbs, to mental and spiritual health rituals, as well as physical recovery exercises. My protocol is guided by my natural midwife and my Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor as well as my own knowledge & experience in holistic wellness. Here’s what I’m doing to care for myself during postpartum loss.
Body
My midwife advises that postpartum lasts for at least as many weeks as the pregnancy, if not longer depending on how the birth goes, and regardless if you birth a living baby or tissue and blood from a miscarriage. I found that length of recovery time to be accurate within my own body. My focus in postpartum recovery is to replenish lost nutrients and minerals, rest, and stay warm.
Replenish
Growing life (then losing or birthing it) grossly depletes the body. High quality nutrition is imperative for a swift recovery. I enjoyed cooking wonderful postpartum recipes from the book The First Forty Days and eating plenty of fresh homegrown food from my garden. I’m reminded, yet again, of the power my backyard garden offers for my wellbeing and quality of life. These are the guidelines I’m following for postpartum nutrition:
No raw, uncooked, or cold food (i.e. salads, raw veg, smoothies, cold drinks), especially in winter.
Food served fully cooked, warm or at room temperature (cooked veg, room temp fruits, warm drinks etc.)
Prioritize nutrient-dense whole foods without pesticides more than supplements. Eat organic. Locally grown and homegrown vegetables and fruit is preferred for nutrient density.
Focus on high-protein, high-mineral content, and healthy fat to restore lost nutrients and minerals
Salmon, sardines, herring, oysters, grass-fed beef, elk, lamb, organs, locally-raised chicken, pasture-raised eggs, grass-fed butter, tallow, parmesan cheese, fish oil
Broths, soups, stews, and sauces served with cooked food (I’ve been loving this oxtail soup).
Citrus, cherry, dates, dark chocolate, avocado, seaweed, chard, watercress, Bok choi, dark berries, yucca root, wild yam
Internally-warming food and spices to improve blood circulation to reproductive organs
Cayenne, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon
High-mineral & womb-supporting herbs
Raspberry leaf, red clover, nettle, marshmallow root to restore lost minerals. False Unicorn & Lobelia provides wonderful womb support during pre-conception, miscarriage, and postpartum. These herbal nutrients have an adaptogenic quality, meaning they adapt to serve whatever function the body needs at the time.
Rest
Rest is incredibly important during any healing process, but especially during postpartum. My midwife urged me to protect the sacredness of this time more than anything else. It’s easy for us to “feel fine” or feel obligated to jump back into our busy lives, but this does more harm than good. Our choices stack up, and if we don’t pay for it now, the consequences of not resting enough in postpartum will circle back in our menopausal years. I heeded her advice and I’ve really slowed down a lot this year. I’ve been prioritizing my sleep and honoring my circadian rhythm. I took things really slow with my business this year and only taught Rooted Rhythms. I allowed myself the space to have full days off where I don’t do much, other than snack, walk, read, and relax at home. I’ve been wintering, and I plan to continue this for a little while longer.
Movement has been a wonderful an emotional outlet. My postpartum recovery has involved low intensity movement especially during the bleed. Walking, yoga, Pilates, hiking, stretching, pelvic floor stretching, hip mobility movements, core exercises and gardening felt beautiful in my body this year. I began to reintroduce more HIT exercising, like strength training and boxing into my routine when my body felt ready for it. For me, that was 2 cycles after I stopped bleeding and when my hormone levels returned to their pre-pregnancy state. Boxing and weights provides an outlet to process anger and establish a sense of empowerment.
Stay Warm
Layered onto nutrition is ensuring that my body stays constantly warm, both internally through warming foods, but also externally in my environment - especially during winter. This wisdom was relayed to me by both my midwife and my TCM doctor because of it’s benefits to help blood circulate the body. My TCM doctor has also put me on a protocol for acupuncture to stimulate blood flow to my uterus and ovaries as well as to help move the chi in my body. Moreover, staying warm is important for women in general at all stages of life for reproductive care, not just postpartum. The guidance I’m following:
Layered clothing when it’s cold outside
Sunshine on the skin in summer
Socks, gloves, and hats to always stay warm when it’s cold
Avoid leaving the house or going to bed with wet hair
Mind
It is common to experience postpartum depression even without a babe to nurse in the end. It can continue on even after the body returns to a normal cycle. There are support groups for women who experience miscarriage and pregnancy loss. A quick internet search will populate many. And there’s always the option to seek out therapy, however those were not resources I was drawn to this year. No surprise here, I’ve been drawn to my garden to reconcile my postpartum depression. So I plant, and I write, and read, and cook, and meditate, and create, and breathe deep, and nourish, and stare at the stars late into the night, and cry. I cry a lot. This has been my process that has worked for me; everyone is different. I acknowledge that there is power in telling your story to other women who’ve been there, and listening to theirs in return. As hard as it is, that is nourishing too. I wish I heard any story of a woman’s loss and miscarriage directly from them when I was much much younger. I understand that is incredibly difficult to speak of - but more people need to know the female experience.
Soul
Pregnancy and loss have been a physical and spiritual experience. There was a time during pre-conception and both pregnancies where I felt the presence of our spirit baby. An energetic portal was open where I received and sent messages daily - it was beautiful and so tender. The week we learned the news of my first miscarriage, I felt the withdrawal of the spirit - like a golden cord of connection was cut. That was just as much of a loss as the physical experience. It has pulled me into the depths of a spiritual voyage - the likes of which have enlightened me into the sacred understanding of what it means to be a woman and the gift or burden it is to bear life.
I’ve been nourishing myself spiritually by being conscious of the energy and content I consume, the people I spend time with, how I spend my energy, and the belief systems I allow to take root in myself. Meditation and spending time in nature has been integral in my spiritual health. I had a spirit baby reading where I learned how to reestablish a connection to the soul that is waiting come, which has provided closure and beautiful insights. And, perhaps most importantly, I’m working on letting go of expectations around timing. I did hold two mourning ceremonies for each of my miscarriages as well. In the spring, I planted a shrub in my garden that will bloom each year near the anniversary of my first loss. Under the shrub I buried the placenta I birthed - life from my body given to the earth. The second ceremony was a bonfire ritual led by my husband on Halloween - a ritual to connect with and honor the spirit as well acknowledge death in the eternal cycle of life. Both rituals provided spiritual healing and closure.
Looking Forward
I can’t say what the future holds or when we’ll try again. I’ve relaxed a lot in my cycle and hormone tracking as of late, just to lower stress. We know through testing, our bodies are wonderfully optimized to conceive and sustain a pregnancy (thanks to our nutrition and lifestyle). For now we’re continuing to focus on nourishing ourselves, reducing stress, and rooting into the things that make life wonderful. As you know for me, that looks a lot like Gather & Grow.
My Stories
I share both my stories of loss mostly for myself because writing is part of my healing process. I also share for the version of myself who did not understand the complexities of miscarriage or abortion prior to conceiving. For the part of me who laments never hearing another woman’s experience first hand prior to this stage of life. I also share them for the women who have known loss and for the many that will in the future. I hope it helps you feel a little less alone; I hope it helps you know that sometimes loss is horrible and sometimes it is peaceful.
Trigger Warning. Graphic details of miscarriage and abortion are shared. Skip if this is not for you.
On the morning of the Spring Equinox, the sun rose colorless. I held death in the my womb while the Great Mother herself held the promise of new life. The first yellow blooms of forsythia reveled in the sun’s first kiss. I didn’t see those first rays of Spring sunshine because I was buried under a mountain of grief - all of our dreams and plans for our new family ripped away. At fourteen weeks, I birthed at home through a medically-induced abortion. There was no other option - other than allowing my body to continue to grow a placenta and amniotic sac until I birthed an unviable fetus. A fetus that I wanted more than anything to live. But that was a risk too deadly to take. The medical protocol for the death in my womb that my body didn’t recognize was to have a medically-induced miscarriage - an abortion. I took the pills - the ones that some states have banned. It began sorrowful but peaceful, and then the contractions became extremely painful. After hours of intense laboring and birthing, I passed clots the size of lemons and began to hemorrhage. Then the world went dark. I woke up to paramedics loading me into an ambulance and fear in my husbands eyes. There was so much blood. Fortunately, I was stabilized in the ER and didn’t need an emergency Dilation & Curettage. Some women are not so supported. My heart breaks for the deceased women, and their mourning families, who’ve died from the same experience because they did not have access to that life-saving procedure post Roe v Wade.
The trauma eclipsed my grief for weeks while I continued to bleed. I buried what I lost in my garden, under a new forsythia plant. A sacrificial blood offering to the Great Mother on behalf of all the mothers and would-be mothers who have known and will know loss. I look forward to seeing the forsythia bloom on the first day of Spring. When I was finally able to access my grief I discovered that postpartum miscarriage is mostly a series of painful anniversaries. Mother’s Day. The day we would have learned the gender. The week we scheduled our babymoon. The week I would have been laboring. The first holiday we would have introduced our babe to the family.
Not all miscarriage is traumatic though, and that’s worth sharing too. Eight months later, my second loss at six weeks, was an unwelcome surprise. But that time there was no physical pain. It was a five-day gentle bleed at home - wrapped in a cocoon of care and solitude. I took the time and space for my mourning soul to pass into the liminal space between worlds where grieving and birthing women often travel - to feel tangible life move out of my womb. This time, rather than feeling anger and hatred towards my body, I was able to access gratitude. For I truly believe that my body has infinite wisdom and is spectacular at the job it is designed to do. I contribute that level of trust to the way I’ve cared for myself holistically this year - in preparation for pregnancy and postpartum.
And you know, all things considered, this year has made me stronger. These deaths have remade me and I’m ready to greet the new year with new insights and tools as I continue to mentor women.
