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I’ve been absent for a little while now as I’ve needed to retreat to heal myself. I’ve been absent because I believe in authenticity but I wasn’t yet ready to share myself in the midst of my grief.

When your life is fractured for whatever reason, at some point all the pieces need to be gathered back up and put back together. Rarely will it ever look the same as before but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful. In fact, it’s in the raw, authentic, most vulnerable parts of others that I see the most beauty, simply because that’s REAL.

Six weeks ago I was pregnant. Then I wasn’t. The term miscarriage seems so inadequate for such an experience.

The joy of those two pink lines showing up on a home pregnancy test is felt by so many everyday and shared with friends, family, loved ones. What is not often shared and suffered through silently and often with very few knowing, is the grief that comes with miscarriage. It’s not just the physical loss, it’s the loss and grief of a life imagined but not fulfilled. At least not yet.

I am not one to keep my feelings and emotions hidden but in the past I kept my loss and what it brought up for me to myself. I look back and realise that that was partly because of the shame that I felt. Shame that my body had not done what a woman’s body is made to do.

This time I chose to share my loss and grief in the moment, as it happened, not only with my beautiful partner but with our daughter, family, friends and with my community of women.

This is such a personal journey and everyone should honour their own needs however, I do believe that in keeping such a loss secret, there is the potential to create feelings of shame. I’m not willing to let this one sit in the dark any longer. The more I spoke about my previous loss the more I realised how many other women had had that experience and quietly suffered through it.

I am incredibly grateful for those of you who reached out to me over the last couple of months. Grateful for the distant reiki, the flowers, messages, thoughts, care packs quietly left at my front door and the practical advice that I asked for. I have felt held by an invisible web that I have weaved through the connections I have made over the past few years. All it took to find this support was me opening up and asking for it.

I am grateful, as always, for ritual. My partner and I shared a simple, yet powerful fire release ritual. Blood released. Words spoken. Creating space for what is yet to come…

With Love & Gratitude,

Lauralee