After a Stillbirth

In the months following the stillbirth, a lot of emotions resurfaced, and I did not have the support I needed to embrace them. Some people were afraid to see me fall apart, or of saying the wrong thing to me. For others, it was just too hard. So many things made what I had gone through taboo. It made the sharing of it all the more difficult. There were many layers to that pain. To live it is already traumatic. It’s all the more challenging later on when you wonder if it really happened. I felt like I was alone in it—as if it had only affected me. It was disturbing.

Eventually, I felt ready to go back to normal life. I had been through a very dark time, which is not like me. I am actually a very joyful person who loves to laugh. I have a great sense of humor! And I have always brought a lot of joy to the people around me. Being in such a bottomless abyss felt like I would never come out of it ever again, like I would never be able to smile or laugh; to live.

Another Pregnancy

So, I thought to myself that the best way to get back into life was to try and have a child again. I had to trust life, even though it had played a very bad trick on me. That’s how I thought about life at the time. I thought it was unfair. I hadn’t done anything to deserve to experience such horror. I held a lot of resentment and anger toward life. So, just like someone who fell from a horse, I had to get back on it. I had to place a new bet on life.

I got pregnant the week that Louise was due to be born. What a beautiful synchronicity! […] It was important for me to fully mourn Louise’s passing. […] Yet, I also didn’t feel the need to wait for years before getting pregnant again.

When Jeanne arrived, I had my first classical mystical experience. At the very moment when she was conceived, I had a vision. I saw the tree of life and I hear, “You are pregnant, it is a girl, and everything is going to go well.” I thought I was going crazy. (Laughter.) […] When you experience such deep pain, you come very close to madness. […] I decided I was going to wait and see if I was really pregnant. And a few weeks later, it was confirmed to me: I was pregnant. I started to feel a little bit hopeful again, mixed with lingering doubts. I wanted to see if it was really a girl next. I went step-by-step, slowly leaning in.

Trusting My Baby and Myself

We wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl because I had received this very precise message that it was a girl. And that also was confirmed. That helped me regain confidence and trust that the rest of the pregnancy would go well, too.

With Louise, I had decided I wanted to do a home birth. But it had been interrupted. This time, with Jeanne, I really wanted to carry this dream through. I hired a midwife to walk that path with me. The medical team at the hospital tried to guilt me into renouncing to it. […] But I had been through hell and back. I was so strong and filled with life. I was so deeply grounded in myself. This time around, it was just between my baby and my motherly instinct.

I delivered Jeanne in a birth pool at home. It was a very gentle birthing experience. We had dimmed lights, candles. And Jeanne slept a lot after she was born. […] I started listening to myself on everything. […] I knew that life goes by so quickly and is so precious, and I knew that we could lose it all in an instant. This second pregnancy was gorgeous.”

Excerpt from the interview with Pauline Fraile Real, “Through the In-Between and Back,” in SACRED SADNESS: Insights on the Spiritual and Energetic Layers of Miscarriage, by Aura Rose. (2024).

Learn more about Aura at www.travelingalchemy.art.

Read more by Aura on Open to Hope: Even the Smallest Life Matters – Open to Hope