Dancing With Grief - The Struggles Of Secondary Infertility

I'm typing this in my garden, with the sunshine on my back and the birds singing all around me. I've got my incense burning, gentle music playing, my drum next to me for the occasional beating when a suitable songs come on, my 6 year old daughter is at school (finally - she's been off sick this week), and my husband is working.

So much of this is exactly as I dreamed of, and hoped for.

But I'm also sitting with a deep grief inside.

A grief I'm experiencing every 26 days when my bleed arrives and reminds me once again - I'm not pregnant this month.

Secondary infertility was not something I ever dreamed of, or hoped for!

It's such a strange grief to hold, or rather to dance with, because that's what it feels like every month - a kind of unseen, floating, heaviness that comes up to me and asks me to dance.

I say 'Yes'.

I take Grief's hand and we dance together for 3-4 days.

It's slow.

It's sometimes comforting, nurturing and cathartic, and sometimes lonely and empty.

But whilst I dance with Grief, there is also joy floating around me; my daughter bounding up to me for a cuddle, my husband doing well in his exams (he was an actor and is currently re-training to be a Barrister), the birds singing, the positive words of the Mothers I support who are deeply moved by the work I do, and the beautiful alone time I had on the beach this morning after school drop-off.

This all makes my heart swell with joy, and fills me with lightness.

And then it's there again, Grief. With it's heaviness.

And then, 3-4 days in, it goes.

The dance is over.

The void in my middle, starts to slowly fill with optimism, excitement, possibility - a new energy.

Things feel possible again.

I'm not there yet, but I know it's coming in a few days.

​And in the meantime, I have to ride this wave, feel these feels, do this dance.

I've hit rock-bottoms before, they're horrible, terrifying even. But I'm not prepared to go there with this.

I have too much of the good stuff floating around to keep me afloat.

So when I've danced with Grief long enough, I have to let go.

But I do have to do that dance with Grief (and feel all the feels and cry all the tears that that dance brings). It feels important.

It's my reality.

We all have our own experiences with grief - for different reasons, with different levels of intensity, and for different lengths of time. It's what makes us human - all this feeling stuff.

We've just got to keep dancing.
Keep feeling.
Keep allowing.
And then letting go.

Letting go of the shame, the guilt, the 'shoulds', the 'what ifs'.

So we take a deep breath.

We have a dance and we give ourselves (or someone else) a hug and we keep doing life - with all it's feels.

I wish you the courage to dance with whatever life is throwing at you today, and remind you that the song always finishes, and then we move on ❤️

Mum of 1 and NO, I'm not done!

I’m Emma,

Mum of one - A beautiful, vibrant 6 year old.

And for the past 3 years my husband and I have been trying to conceive.  We want a second baby, we always have.

It took us a while to get to the ‘ready’ stage - well it took me a while, I can’t speak for my husband.  But when our daughter was born, she didn’t take her first breath, she was conscious (to start with) alert and looking around, but her lungs didn’t kick in. And she was quickly whisked off in an ambulance to critical care. For most part of the first week of her life she was unconscious, in an induced coma, with many breathing aids, in one of the top children’s hospitals in the country. And then over the next week, everything just seemed to be OK. She got better, she started to breathe unaided, she was a ‘healthy’ baby, and after 2 weeks in NICU we could take her home with just a remaining dose of antibiotics to show for it all.

And so our family of 3 began. 

A mixture of grief and relief. 

It affected me.

It was a trauma.

I spent a lot of time learning how to heal from it, whilst also learning her, and this new life as a 3, and my new self, and how to parent, and how to feel gratitude and pain simultaneously. 

It was a lot.

But then came a day when I felt ready.

Ready to try for the second baby.  Both having a sibling each, it’s just what felt right for my husband and I, it’s what we ‘know’ as family. 

We started trying just as the world was coming out of the global pandemic.

We were also trying to buy our first home.

I was trying to start an online side of my business, teaching all that I’d learnt in my healing. 

And it felt right. 

We’d conceived our first daughter pretty easily when I was 38.

I didn’t know at that point that 3 years later I’d be writing this, having just had a huge scream and shake out (emotional release) following a weekend of feeling sad because my period had arrived again, this time on Day 17 of my cycle.

What does this mean?

Did an egg fertilize?

Is my body rejecting something?

Am I perimenopausal?

Am I too old now? 

I feel like an old woman.  I’m 44. I’ve never felt old. I don’t think 44 is old, I think of my mum at 44 and she was in her prime, vibrant, alive, full of youth and fun.  But there is a cloud hanging over me saying ‘you might just be too old now’.  

I also know that not to be true.

But do I?

I don’t know what I know anymore.

I’ve always known my body so well.  I teach other women how to listen to and understand their bodies, but mine is becoming a mystery to me with every period.

Don’t get me wrong, we haven’t consistently tried to conceive every month for the past 3 years, because some months I just can’t.  Sometimes it’s made more sense to focus on our house renovation, or growing my business, so our foundations are solid for when the ‘time is right’. Sometimes I needed the break to be able to keep going.

In January we decided that enough is enough, I needed to get to the bottom of what was going on in my body, the GP blood tests had come back ‘normal’ but it still wasn’t happening, so I decided to have some more extensive private blood tests done and work with a Nutritional Therapist.  I was already working with a Medical Herbalist and doing MANY of the things one is meant to do to get pregnant. Healthy diet, acupuncture, staying physically fit, reducing stress where possible - I’ll come back to this little gem!!

So I ordered the recommended tests and waited for my next bleed when I was meant to have my private blood draw on Day 3 of my cycle.  Except my bleed arrived on a Friday and the lab closes for the weekend, so you can’t draw on Fri, Sat or Sun!! So another month.  My bleed arrives earlier than expected, again falling on the weekend.

I’m now on Day 4 of the next cycle, it’s a Monday, I missed out on the test again.

It’s fucking hard!

I’ve discovered another lab that may be able to help with Friday-Saturday testing so we’re keeping everything crossed and trying to stay hopeful that next month, it will all align and I’ll be able to do the blood tests (and yes, my husband has had his tests too). So in the meantime we keep ‘trying’ this month and keep trying to stay stress!

WTAF!!!

How?

I’m a Yoga teacher.  I teach emotional freedom and release through dance and movement, I have a whole treasure trove of magnificent and powerful holistic practices and remedies to help with stress. But when someone says ‘just try and forget about it and get on with your life’, do they forget that to conceive, you do still have to do the trying bit? 

The sex - at a particular time of the month.  It has to be organised around parenting and life and work, and you have to be feeling aroused and connected, and resilient and upbeat, and not weighed down by the fucking grief of not getting pregnant every month, and not knowing why, and every day feeling like you’re getting older and older, and are perhaps just rotting away inside without anyone realsing because on the outside everything looks FINE!!!!!!

I’ve spent my whole life being resilient.

From a young age at dance competitions, during my professional career as a performer.  You learn resilience - it comes hand in hand - you have no choice, audition and after audition, job after job, it’s constant Yes’s and No’s.  Totally unstable.  But you learn to trust and stay focused on your dreams.

Well my dreams now are a family of 4.

My daughter’s dream too. She’s been asking for a brother AND sister (she wants twins!) for years. And everytime I see siblings playing together or bickering together, in real-life or on social media, it breaks my heart.

With every month that passed, the age gap grew bigger and the pressure felt so immense.  ‘It’s going to get to the stage where they’re really far apart.’ I would think.  Well here we are.  If I fell pregnant tomorrow, she’d be 7 when the baby was born. It has it’s advantages I know, many people have a ‘larger’ age gap, and now I don’t care what the age gap is, I just want the fucking baby, but this is another grief we’ve had to process, each step of the way.

We have an entire loft full of every single item of clothing, toy or baby equipment our daughter has ever used over the past 6 years. Waiting up there patiently for our new baby. That’s a lot hanging over our heads.  Literally and energetically.  I’ve thought and lightly discussed the idea of just throwing it all out, passing it all on and clearing the slate (you know that old sods law idea - get rid of it all and then you’ll get pregnant). Maybe it’s worth a try. But I’m not sure I’m ready for that.  I’m not sure I have the resilience. I’m not sure I can say goodbye to the baby stuff yet in case it really is goodbye. 

We’ve briefly discussed whether we’d want to go down the IVF route, what about adoption? How much do we really want to have our perfect family of 4.  Because this is enough isn’t it?  We are lucky. We have our one child.  So lucky in fact, given her start in life.  And she is enough.  

This is enough. 

But the yearning is strong.

It’s not just mine.

It’s his, and hers too.

I ask myself over and over again - why do you want another baby?

Do you just want to be pregnant again?

Do you just want to give birth again? (I love all things birth and loved giving birth, despite all that came with it)

Are you just trying to heal the trauma of your first birth?

This can’t be my story - this can’t be my only experience of birth and postpartum - all that fucking trauma?

Are you sure you want the possibility of the extreme sleep deprivation, the Postnatal Anxiety, the possibility of the same thing happening all over again, or something even worse?

Can’t you remember how much healing you’ve had to do over the past 6 years?

Motherhood rocked every part of you, your physical self, your mental health, your marriage, your finances.

And Yes, I hear it all.  I try my best to sit with the different versions, the various outcomes, but right now this IS what I want.

For me, for all 3 of us.

I can feel the baby in my arms.  

I can see all 4 of us in our home.

(I had these same visions and sensations before our daughter was born).

I know life will get harder.

And some things will get sweeter.

But this is where I’m at.

This is where we’re all at right now.

So I keep trying to be resilient.

I keep trying to explain to our daughter why Mummy is bleeding again and there isn’t a baby growing inside me. 

I keep trying my best to hold space for her upset and disappointment, whilst also trying to navigate my own.

I keep trying to deepen my bond with my husband so this doesn’t pull us apart as we both navigate our own grief in our own ways.

I keep digging around in my treasure trove and using every single tool I know to support myself in the best way I know how.

I continue to explore avenues of support.

I continue to take advice and suggestions from others (always welcome, I know what works for some isn’t going to be what works for others, but I know those who have been in this boat will understand this pain and be desperate to help others. Unless the advice is ‘just stop thinking about it’.  You can’t keep that one - maybe have a think about what you’re really saying!).

I continue to support other Mothers and Mothers-to-be, without any jealousy and relish the fertile energy. 

I continue to trust.

And today I share.
I share with friends often.

But there is a desire for me to share with you today.  In case you’re in this same kind of grief right now.
Because it’s fucking hard, and everything feels even harder when you feel like you’re the only one.  And we’re definitely not. 

And there is a great sense of release in writing it down and getting it out of my body. Almost like it’s just a story, it can’t consume me.

Even as I share though, there’s a little voice that says ‘what if by publicly declaring this you’re jinxing it.  That’s it, you’ll never get pregnant now’. I mean I DO NOT believe in all that, but you get to the point where you just don’t know anymore.  

It’s the fear.  I’ll keep facing it and melting it with trust.

It’s all I can do for now. 

If you’re feeling this too, I see you.

It’s a LOT.

You’re not alone.

If you feel like sharing, I’d love to hear you.  

It’s definitely helped me feel lighter today.

So, thanks for listening.

Emma xxx

P.S If you’ve ever asked me if I’m ‘one and done’ - No, I’m not. I don’t take offence. Maybe that’s your story.  But it’s not mine xx

Emma Deery is a Mentor & Wellbeing Coach for Mothers - supporting them to heal, grow and rebirth themselves through the swamps of Motherhood, using Movement Medicine and Innate Body Wisdom. If you are ready to find your True, Authentic Self and start living and Mothering from your own innate wisdom, join her BECOMING WILD programme. Doors open 23.03.24.

The Witch in me

I’ve had the most magical evening. 

It’s 31st October 2023 - Halloween, or Samhain as I now like to refer to it.

3 generations of women (and girls) sat on my newly renovated, yet to be furnished living room floor - in circle, sipping ceremonial cacao around an altar, adorned with a pumpkin, candles, crystals, incense, and photographs of people (and pets) who we have loved and lost. 

Last year at this time, I wrote a piece called ‘The Witch In Me’, which never left my drafts folder. It said:

These past 2 Octobers I have really found myself diving deeper into Autumn, the colours, the energy, the witchyness of it. I’ve always declared myself as a Summer girl (and I definitely feel happiest in the warm sun, in light flowy clothes and bare feet) but there is something calling me deep into the darkness, into the crossover of Autumn. I’ve been following my menstrual cycles for the past 3 years and that has led me to witness and appreciate all cycles, and seasons more. 

As we approach All Hallows Eve/Samhain - names that somehow feel more aligned to me now than ‘Halloween’, which feels gimicky, I am enjoying the darker, deeper side of me that wants to really honour rituals and ceremony and sacred practices.  I’m already into my own practices and mini rituals but there is something about this time of year that is giving me a power - the permission to really go with my desire to be, well, witchy. The Witch in me feels naughty, and exciting, and wise, and so connected to nature.

As I learn more and more about the history of women, of our power and innate connection with the divine - as the creative beings we are, whether we create and/or birth babies or not, I feel closer to something.  Something I can’t name but something that feels like it’s in my blood.  Something that has deep history. I love nature, she feels like my connection to a higher power than my own flesh on this planet, and so I’m learning to morph and mould like her, to shift and change, and I’ve realised that actually, all seasons are beautiful. Just as all my own seasons are beautiful. 

At the moment I have this deep desire to be outside around a fire - a calling to be with a group of women, dancing, naked, in our full power, completely at one with life. I feel like there is something magical going on that I can’t grab hold of but that I’m trying to tune into. I see it very clearly in my mind’s eye and I feel it in my body - I want to jump into the image but I don’t quite know where or how yet.

This is not a version of womanhood or motherhood that I know, or have been modelled, or even get to witness regularly. It’s also not a way that my husband lives.  So it can feel lonely as I creep inquisitively down each forest path, but it is certainly a way of being that I intend to share with my daughter. I look forward to honouring her first bleed with ceremony and celebration (and allowing the mourning of her baby years), just as we as a family honoured the removal of her Amber teething necklace the night before she started school - a ceremony that my husband actually really valued, to my surprise. I am excited to acknowledge these rights of passage, these transitions. Within me, and around me.

I like it here. This space feels right, natural, like home, although unfamiliar, but there is a deep longing to walk deeper into the woods. 

When I’m not doing this stuff - sitting with my crystals, incense burning, noticing nature, drinking Cacao, connecting with that ‘force’, and I’m doing the ‘norm’, like life admin, buying school uniform, or anything that makes me feel like I’m conforming to a way society has set out for me, I feel off, disconnected and like I’m just ‘doing’ what I’m meant to be doing.  So I seek to weave this way of being into my life more and more, and I’m learning more and more everyday and it feels like I’m always getting closer. To what?  I don’t know, but I know I’m here to explore this and share it with you, and my daughter and whoever feels called to listen. 

Writing this feels good. I’m taking a deep breath. It feels like a public declaration of my intrigue and desire. 

My Witch doesn’t have a pointy hat, long fingernails and a wort on her nose, my Witch - me - has a strong beating heart, a body she loves, feet that squelch in the earth, food and herbs that nourish her and heal her, creativity and desire, movement and freedom, light and dark, and love:  love for herself, love for the Earth, love for her people, love for life, and she wants to explore it all. 

I’m ready.

As I sit here now, a year later, having just hosted an impromptu Samhain Celebration, which I hope to make a new tradition,  I feel exactly what that me wanted to feel. 

Reading it back has made me realise that over the last year I have been on a deep journey home to myself.  I knew it was happening, so much so that I birthed my first online programme BECOMING WILD during that time, to guide other Mothers along their own rebirthing journey. I dove deeper and deeper into all those desires I had back then. Rituals and ceremony have become a very normal part of my day to day life now.

But tonight, this felt so familiar.

I felt like I’d been here before.

Yes I’ve hosted many Circles in my work now, (I’ve even danced around the fire with other Mamas, banging my drum - fully dressed so far) but this type of gathering to celebrate and honour what was previously just a commercial holiday (much like Christmas) - no teachings, no money exchange, just being in community with my 67 year old neighbour, my 6 year old daughter, and others in between, just felt so normal.  I felt like I’d arrived home.

Since that frist writing, I’ve done a lot more research and learning about the history of women, the Witch wound, the Mother wound, I even teach about it in my programme. So now this is me.

That yearning I had last year actually manifested this year. I sat in ceremony with my daughter and friends, honouring the dead, the darkness and what it meant to be a woman thousands of years ago and pondering how it will be for our sons, daughters and grandchildren. 

It was truly magical.

I have very much arrived home.

I know there is more growth and expansion and yearnings, there always is, but right now I feel so content - happy in my skin, in this body I was given, here on this Earth, in this lifetime. 

I’ve arrived back where I was meant to be (or maybe I’ve been here before, or maybe my ancestors are showing me how it was). 

May I always continue to follow my true path.

May I continue to guide others towards their true path.

And may I sit in Circle with incredible women (and men) for many Samhains to come.

So mote it be.

Emma x

BECOMING WILD is an online embodiment programme for Mothers - helping you to find yourself, heal from your wounds, unleash your inner wild woman and connect deeply with your intuition. To learn more visit https://www.emmadeery.com/becomingwild