How I'm Healing From My Miscarriage
Trigger warning: If you’ve experienced a miscarriage or loss and it’s still feeling tender for you, reading this post may be too much for your system. I talk about what happened during the miscarriage and the emotions I experienced after. Take a moment to check in with yourself and feel into: Am I ready to read this? You can skip the miscarriage story and scroll straight to the “How I’m Healing” section.
The Pregnancy
I found out I was pregnant on November 6, 2025. As soon as I saw the second little pink line show up on the test, my immediate response was: laughter. I could not stop laughing. I went downstairs in a surreal daze to tell my husband. After a stunned silence, he got up to hug me and my incredulous giggling spread to him. We stood there hugging and laughing. It seemed absolutely crazy that we got pregnant the first month we were open to conceiving.
By November 8, both of our families knew, as well as many of our friends. I was never going to be the kind of woman who kept news like this close to her chest. As one of my dear friends once told me, I like to live my life out loud. I knew I would talk about a miscarriage if it ever happened to me, so the whole “wait 12 weeks” logic did not resonate.
Truth be told, I barely even thought much about the chance of miscarriage. I was smug. Getting pregnant the first time we tried felt like proof of my magic. “Wow, I’m a powerful manifestor!” I thought. “IN YOUR FACE!” I wanted to say to any healthcare professional who would tell me that conceiving at 38 made it a geriatric, and therefore high-risk, pregnancy. (For the record: even after everything that has happened, I still don’t buy into that B.S. and feel grateful that my midwife didn’t either.)
In the midst of all that smug arrogance, it never really occurred to me that miscarriage would happen to us. Boy, was I humbled.
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Once the pregnancy was confirmed, our whole world shifted. I started to put into practice everything I learned from Lily Nichols’ Real Food For Pregnancy, which I had read two years ago. I purchased a pre-natal workout plan. I told my work colleagues that they should count me out for any work trips past May of 2026, as my due date was in July.
I also immediately felt this sense of panic and dread, which was confusing. Wasn’t this supposed to be a joyful time, full of excitement? Maybe it’s my alcoholic brain, which has a doom-and-gloom bent, or maybe it is the dark, stormy part of me that I have grown to love, but I had a lot of thoughts like:
“Crap! Do I actually really want this?”
“Well, there’s no going back now!”
“There is a ticking time bomb in me, and it’s going to explode out of my vagina.”
My sister calls this the “buyer’s remorse” women sometimes feel when they get pregnant, even if it’s something they’ve been wanting for a long time. I don’t know what percentage of women actually feel this way, but upon surveying many of my close friends it seemed like a somewhat normal experience, so I didn’t worry too much about it. Social media and public-facing narratives about pregnancy do not always capture the deep, complex, existential experience that the entire journey of motherhood is for women.
I felt many things during the month I knew I was pregnant. Excitement, hope, dread, impending doom, concern for the future, fear, panic, love, joy, etc. I also felt somewhat disconnected from the pregnancy. It is very strange to know you’re pregnant without having the baby bump to prove it. Surreal. Dream-like. Confusing.
I had some symptoms such as nausea and fatigue, but they were very mild. I felt concerned that my lack of symptoms meant something was wrong. It is wild how much you start to worry about the baby right away. Waiting for the 8-10 week ultrasound felt like torture. I was obsessively googling my symptoms and checking my pregnancy apps to make sure that what I was experiencing was “normal.”
Something Is Wrong
My husband and I went to get our first ultrasound on December 2nd. According to the apps and my midwife, I was supposed to be eight weeks pregnant. We had a student tech do the ultrasound with a mentor coming in to check her work at the end. They made measurements and spoke amongst themselves, and for the most part they acted like my husband and I weren’t even there. Both women were extremely nice and pleasant, but it was clear that a momentous occasion for us was a routine procedure for them.
We got a picture of the baby. I distinctly remember after the ultrasound feeling really disconnected from the baby. I thought I would cry when I saw the ultrasound, like they do on T.V. My husband was moved in a way I couldn’t access. It felt so far away. Looking back, I wonder if deep down I already knew.
We got the results back the next day, and they indicated that the baby was measuring at six weeks, not eight. The heartbeat was on the low side of normal. The yolk sac was on the high side of normal, which can be an indicator for higher risk of miscarriage in the first 12 weeks. Even though my midwife told me to “try not to worry”, I immediately felt anxious. I scheduled another ultrasound for a week later, to check in and see how things were progressing.
Sitting in the unknown for a week was hard. I kept myself busy by googling about proper yolk sac sizes more than I care to admit, and grumbling about how much I dislike Western medicine. I also contacted a friend who is highly spiritual, and a medium. I think what I was looking for was reassurance that everything was going to be okay. Instead, she helped me with something that was way more aligned with what I needed: humility and surrender.
She encouraged me to “speak” with the baby. So I started meditating and communicating with the little soul. The message I got was the soul wasn’t sure if they wanted to come back down to Earth for another life, as previous lives had been really difficult. (And you know what - I could totally relate! Sometimes I wonder why I came down here again. Earth is hard.)
When I thought about what I wanted the baby to know and experience from me, it wasn’t the attached, panicky, controlling energy that I had to keep pulling myself out of that week. Instead, I communicated things like, “Oh hey, baby. I just wanted you to know that your father and I love you, and whatever you decide is okay with us. But for the record, we’d really like you to be down here.” And, “Hello again, baby. I understand how you feel, and that it has to be your choice to come join us down here in life. Look, I’m not gonna sugar coat it: Earth is hard. Sometimes I still question being here. But I promise if you come we will figure out life together, and whatever you choose, I love and support you.”
At this point, I was totally humbled. I realized how silly it was to think I was the one in control. (Remember when I thought getting pregnant so quickly was proof that I was a master manifestor?) So I surrendered to God, to the baby, to whatever was meant to be. I am grateful for that surrender as it prepared me for what was coming.
The Loss
On December 8th, I started spotting and lightly cramping. I checked in with my midwife and she said both symptoms can be normal for a healthy pregnancy. I checked with my sisters - they said the same. I was getting my second ultrasound in the morning, so I just needed to wait.
In the middle of the night, around midnight, the cramping and bleeding had gotten so bad that it woke me up. I spent about two hours going through contractions while my husband sat up with me, holding my hand and listening to my expletives. After about an hour and a half, I started experiencing really acute pain and threw up several times. At this point, my husband called my little sister who is a nurse. She told us to go to the hospital.
It took everything in me to get down the stairs, get my coat on, and get into the car. I took a trash can with me and couldn’t stop throwing up the whole way to the hospital. The pain was so bad, I thought I was going to pass out.
Once we got to the ER, they put me in a wheel chair and rushed me back to a bed. I was not fully in my right mind from the pain, but I remember several people sticking me with needles and attaching monitors to me, talking over me in medical terms, a language I didn’t understand. I started to cry because it felt really scary. I had never been in this kind of medical situation before.
They offered me acetaminophen or fentanyl to help with the pain, which were the only two pregnancy-safe drugs. (Does it seem crazy to anyone else that they would offer me fentanyl??) “I’m sober, so fentanyl terrifies me — let’s just go with the acetaminophen.” Soon after, my contractions and pain dissipated. I kept bleeding. I was pretty sure I was having a miscarriage, but my male nurse insisted that I not think like that. “You’re pregnant until we confirm otherwise.” Truth be told, there was a part of me clinging to a small thread of hope that there was some other explanation for what was happening.
We waited several hours for the ultrasound order to go through. A kind and quiet male ultrasound tech wheeled me back and didn’t say much while he did the ultrasound vaginally, which was quite painful, and felt like too much on top of all the other poking and prodding I had received all night — it felt violating. Above me, the florescent lights were covered with panels that had a vivid image on them of an ocean scene with animals. While tears slipped out through my lashes, I held my husband’s hand and breathed through the pain. I tried to focus on the Lisa-Frank-inspired scene of dolphins and sea turtles. I didn’t have the heart or courage to ask the tech what he was seeing. We waited another hour or so until the OBGYN was able to come in and tell us the results from the ultrasound, confirming there was no sign of life in my uterus.
After she left, my husband closed the door, kneeled down next to me, held my hand, and cried into the hospital bed. I remember thinking, “I can’t lose it here.” I let a few tears roll down my cheeks, but I was so tired and uncomfortable being in such a sterile, clinical setting, I couldn’t allow my body to process what was happening in the way it needed to. So I held on to the sob in my chest, waiting for later to release it.
We went home in a daze, with three hours of sleep and the jarring realization that an entire future we had been creating was gone in the snap of a finger. It was quite the mindfuck. I wondered if that was what grief was: the loss of the future you had your heart set on. The future with a loved one, the future of a dream unfulfilled, or the future of who you could have been if everything went the way you wanted it to go.
Grief and Gratitude
Of all my life experiences, this was definitely one of the most painful. This was big grief. I think I must have had a steady stream of tears running down my face that entire day, while my husband and I spent our waking hours huddled together under a single blanket, marinating in our sadness.
I was still cramping and “passing material” for most of the day. Luckily a loved one had shared with me how disturbed she was when she had miscarried and “passed material” into the toilet. (They should warn women about this - how deeply disturbing it is. How a toilet will seem like the most grotesque vehicle to transport a body, however tiny, into the earth.) I kept cramping and bleeding for several days, the pain a constant reminder of what had happened.
Two of my sisters drove down to spend time with me when my husband had to go back to work. We watched videos about home decorating and tiny home tours. I wasn’t ready to talk about it much yet, but it was nice just to have their company.
Everyone kept asking if they could do anything for us. It was overwhelming. How can you possibly know what you need in a situation like that? But I kept thinking, “One day I will write about this. What would I tell a woman I’m coaching to do if she was in this situation?” So I wrote this article in my head, and I followed my own instructions, which I outline below in “How I’m Healing.”
For two days, it was just us. Mostly resting, watching funny T.V. shows, and finding small happy moments with our dog, Suki. She was a blessing throughout all of this. She got us out the door on walks, out into the yard to play, and reminded us that grief and joy can exist simultaneously.
I designed a ceremony for Brendan and myself to honor the baby and say goodbye:
We created sacred space: A peace lily and individual flowers which had been sent to us by loved ones, a candle, a quartz crystal in water, copies of the sonogram, and an oracle deck. Brendan also built a fire outside for us to do some burning.
We did an embodiment / drop-in practice to slow down our breathing and access presence.
We acknowledged the life of the baby. We gave her a gender and a name. Brendan prepared some words to say and we acknowledged out loud to each other:
What we had imagined the future would be that we are grieving.
What we were excited about that we are now letting go of.
Moments of connection we felt with the baby.
We wrote on the back of the sonograms:
A message to the baby.
Anything we needed to release (fear, confusion, guilt).
Anything we wanted to keep (love, lessons, meaning).
We took the sonogram and flowers out to the bonfire and burned them together.
We blessed each other with the water, asking to be softened by this experience and to let the experience open our hearts and deepen our intimacy.
Having this intentional space together was really important. Making it mean something felt necessary for us to heal. Sharing with our loved ones what we were going through also felt important - like we were claiming her life and the impact she had on us in the short time she was with us.
For me, the takeaway from the pregnancy and loss was this:
Even in the deepest sadness and grief, there was something profoundly beautiful about the experience. It cleared away all of the normal day-to-day bullshit of life. It lifted what mattered most up to the forefront of our awareness. It brought me and my husband closer to each other, to our loved ones, and to God. It connected me to the desire I have for motherhood in a way I hadn’t really experienced yet. “Oh yes, now that I’ve lost it, I can see I really I wanted this.” It reminded me that love and loss, joy and pain, gratitude and grief, life and death, they are two sides of the same coin — we can’t have one without the other. And the more we’re willing to feel our pain, the more love we can let into our hearts. Grief is a gift, if you let it be.
Being sober for 11+ years has taught me that dampening the dark spots in life also dampens the light. You can’t numb pain without also numbing joy. To live a whole hearted life you must build your capacity to contain the profound sadness our bodies can hold. We are able to feel so much - sometimes it can feel like it will destroy us, and sometimes we let it. But I believe that being human is a choice we make as souls so that we can experience the broadness and depth of feeling that is available in our human bodies.
How I’m Healing
Here are the principles I followed, the spaces I let myself occupy, and the narratives I chose for myself to heal and keep healing. I hope that they are supportive for you if you are dealing with loss of any kind.
Feel it to heal it.
I intentionally allowed the waves of grief in to let myself feel them, and took care not to let the whole ocean swallow me up. From a trauma-informed perspective, it is helpful to dip your toe in the water of pain, then back off and resource yourself so it doesn’t overwhelm you. For the first week after our loss, I didn’t do much other than sit by the fire, feel, and cry. I interspersed this with walks outside, watching a comforting show, cuddling with my husband, and playing with my dog. It helped to pendulate back and forth so that the waves of grief could come and go, giving me a break.
Create a cocoon.
I needed to protect myself from the external world for a while. This meant not taking phone calls, not working, and staying in my house for the majority of two weeks. I cancelled social plans and stayed off social media. It was just me, my husband, and my dog (plus my sisters for a couple days).
Bring sacred ritual to your process.
Hosting the small ceremony for my husband and myself was a necessary step in healing. It allowed us to honor the impact the baby had on us and to have a shared and intimate experience of our grief.Intentionally create your narratives.
Without claiming a created narrative, I would have fallen victim to the default thoughts that were already there like: This proves I’m too old to have a baby and What did I do to cause this? When those thoughts cropped up, I let them pass. They weren’t the story I wanted to tell. Instead, I immediately started creating positive and empowering narratives about what had happened: This is part of our journey to parenthood. It is bringing me and my husband closer together. My heart is being cracked open, allowing me to love deeper and feel more. This soul was not ready to come down to Earth, she chose not to incarnate and I accept and honor her choice. I am strong enough to handle this - I was designed to move through this with grace. I will be able to support others through this.Nourish your body.
I focused on whole, nourishing foods. Bone broth, kitchari, stewed cinnamon apples, oat pancakes, soups, roasted chicken and vegetables. And really good treats like pastries from a French bakery. I went outside for walks with my dog, and took a break from going to the gym for a couple of weeks. I focused on getting plenty of high quality sleep.Include others in your grief.
I started talking about what happened in small steps, sending text messages at first, then making phone calls to my inner circle when I felt ready. I also shared about what happened in our 2025 Year-In-Review card. It was probably the biggest event of our year, so not sharing it would have felt strange to me.
Expand your emotional capacity.
I felt well equipped to move grief through my body because I have an on-going practice of expanding my emotional capacity. This is the bread and butter of the work I do with women - teaching them how to feel somatically (in their bodies). This looks like carving out regular time to feel and move emotional energy with practices like yoga, EFT tapping, somatic experiencing, breathwork, etc.
Rely on others for support and resourcing.
So many friends and family members reached out to ask how they could help. I created a Google Doc with a checklist they could choose from with various items that would be supportive, so everyone didn’t need to revert to sending flowers or cookies. Here are some of the things I included on my list:
Nourishing groceries with a link for delivery from our local grocery store. Bone broth, protein bites, Kevin’s meals, frozen rice, fruit, etc.
Venmo link to send me cash to purchase emotional processing sessions.
A link for local house cleaning services.
An Amazon link for a weighted heating pad.
An option to send $5 for movie rentals on our streaming services.
Today, two months later, I feel good - more like myself. I know I am forever changed by what happened, and I am proud of myself for how I moved through the experience. I really let myself feel, which for me (a recovering alcoholic who used to do anything she could not to feel the highs and lows of life) is great progress.
Thank you for reading my story, I hope you got something from it. If there is anything I can do for you to support you in processing any loss you have experienced, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. My intention is this post will be a sanctuary for women who have dealt with miscarriage, or for anyone who is going through loss. Please comment below if you have any wisdom or experience to share, or if you’re feeling like you just want your own story to be heard and honored.
I love you,
Cara 💖
About the Author
Hello, my friend. I’m Cara. I’m a sober woman, writer, and Integrative Trauma Coach on a journey to conscious motherhood. I believe inner work and self-healing are the key to a better world, and I support all kinds of women who wish to do that work so they can reconnect with themselves and live their most vibrant, fulfilling, and joyful life - a life lived on purpose. I have a special place in my heart for mothers as I believe they are our most precious resource to build a thriving society.
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