Exercise gave me the space I needed to process my losses in mind, body and spirit

If you’re reading this, you may also have been through what I think is one of the worst experiences this life has to offer. I’m sorry you are part of this club too. I hope you know that you are not alone.

My husband and I started trying ‘properly’ in 2021 after our first loss. We named her Sadie, and she took us by surprise. Not long after she enveloped our hearts, we had to say goodbye to her. It was confusing, painful, alienating and disorienting to say the least. But the love we felt for that little girl planted within us the yearning to try again.

It’s been 3 years of trying and our count for babies in heaven is currently up to 3. Sadie’s siblings are called Harper Rose and Samuel.
 

The thing is, no one really tells you how to prepare for the worst in this way, I guess that’s because no one tells you how common miscarriages and stillbirths actually are. That is until you’re part of the club and people feel comfortable enough to share behind closed doors that they know what it’s like too.

No one told me about the pain of the contractions and how horrendous they would be.
No one told me the emptiness I would feel within me as soon as they were gone.
No one told me how much I would resent my body, the weight gain, my larger breasts… all that initially enthused me but after each loss depressed me.

I remember looking in the mirror one morning and thinking to myself I have two choices: I could continue to hate myself and my body for letting our little ones down (something I knew on some level was irrational) or I could look at this body that nurtured my children for as long as it did with gratitude. It did the best it could after all… and so did I.

As much as possible I tried to get back to my old routine. This meant getting back into a rhythm of exercise and healthy eating.

Before becoming pregnant, I worked out for me. It started from an aesthetic place; wanting to look good and feel confident in my own skin. But I soon realised that the benefits to my mental health far outweighed how physically fit I was and looked.

After each loss, I returned to physical activity as a way of resetting. I’d love to say the real reason was because I was aware of how great it would be for my mental health. But that’s not why I started again. I started again because I wanted first and foremost to get rid of the fat I’d gained. Even though I knew it was good to appreciate my body and all it had done, the weight I gained was a physical reminder of the child I wasn’t able to hold anymore.

The journey towards loving yourself is one full of peaks and troughs.

As the months went on, I once again realised the release it gave me. It sounds cliché I know, but it was so cathartic to give it all and sweat it out. Pushing myself physically gave my emotions an outlet that nothing else did in quite the same way.

The anger I felt towards the situation all came out on the mat. Each weight lift or dreaded burpee built within me a resilience and determination. It showed me how strong my body really is and how as women we are prone to underestimate ourselves and our capabilities at every turn.
 

Growing our children, no matter how long they stay with us, is a magical and miraculous thing. Honestly, have you ever considered that? How each cell, each organ, each hormone, knows its place in the process and works in unison to nurture your baby? And how through the duration of your pregnancy, you and your baby are one. The breath you breathe, you share with them. Whatever you eat, its nutritional value is passed on to them. Their blood makes its way into your own blood stream, linking the two of you together in an even deeper way. So much so that even after they’re gone, some of that blood stays with you. You’re forever changed because of them, and they have existed because of you.

What a beautiful and unique gift being a birthing mother is, at every stage and every duration. It’s too pithy to say regular exercise gave me that revelation. I can’t claim that. But what I can say is that it gave me space to process my losses in a way that involved my whole self – body, mind and spirit.

Give it a go, you never know what it might do for you until you try.