What Pregnancy After Loss really feels like:The mixture of gratitude and fear

My experience of carrying two stories simultaneously and finding my way through A Blog article written by Ananya @ananyaampersand Trauma-informed coach specialising in pregnancy after loss in collaboration with Tommy’s

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that pregnancy after loss carries with it and I’m not talking about the tiredness of growing a baby, though that is also still real.

I’m actually talking about the exhaustion of holding two stories at the same time. The stories of gratitude and immense fear, both competing for attention as you navigate this experience.

If you’re navigating pregnancy after loss right now, I want to say the thing that perhaps nobody has said clearly enough: you’re not doing any of this wrong and just because you’re experiencing fear doesn’t make you ungrateful. There’s also nothing wrong with you if you’re finding it really hard to experience joy, whether it’s because you’re holding your breath before every scan or whether you don’t quite trust “good news”, or maybe it’s a combination of all.

Moving through all of this requires courage.

What I had to understand before anything else could shift:

It took me a while to fully accept that there was a valid reason for the fear. Our bodies are only doing what it’s been trained to do: protect us based on what has happened before. Which is why any well-meaning reassurance just won’t land. Even when we hear (and see) “the heartbeat is strong” after the initial seconds of relief, the fear and anxiety latches onto something new. Our body has its own memory and as Bessel van der Kolk explains in his book, the “The body keeps score”.  

When I realised this, it became less about trying to remove the fear and instead became more about being able to hold the fear so that it could exist without taking up all the room. For me, breathwork became one of the most significant tools in that process. It wasn’t just about relaxation (though that did help too) but my main focus became around building a larger window of tolerance for uncertainty, breath by breath.

Somewhere around twenty weeks, I understood something that changed everything.

It dawned on me later on in the pregnancy, that no number of scans would actually make the fear disappear. I had been waiting for a milestone that would finally let me drop my shoulders in relief. However, unfortunately, that point wasn’t coming because the fear in pregnancy after loss isn’t about having more information. For me, it was about the body’s memory of something that having more information couldn’t protect me from.

When I understood this, something shifted. And I wish I could tell you, it was as simple as a sudden shift to peace. It wasn’t. It became more about moving from a “waiting” to a… “choosing”. I realised that I was responsible for the experience I had around pregnancy, even if I couldn’t control the outcome. I could claim the pregnancy that was mine, moment by moment, while the fear was still there, while both stories continued to exist simultaneously.

It wasn’t about trying to get rid of the fear. Reclaiming the pregnancy I wanted wasn’t in the absence of fear, it was the decision to show up anyway.

There is also, in pregnancy after loss, an enormous amount of invisible emotional labour: learning what to share and with whom, navigating comments that land wrong, working out how to protect your energy without disappearing entirely.

Let me write you a few permission slips I needed:

-       You’re allowed to set limits on what you share

-       You’re allowed to mute conversations that don’t feel safe

Because: protecting your energy isn’t about being antisocial, sometimes it’s just necessary for your wellbeing.

The things that made the most meaningful difference for me and that I see helping the women I now support through this work:

-       Learning that my responses were physiological rather than me “not having the right mindset” was the beginning of real change

-       Breathwork as a nervous system tool. I’d practice breathwork and listen to audios for many stages of the journey. One that I’ve created specifically for pregnancy after loss for scan days and the moments when fear takes up too much room can be accessed here for free: https://ananyaampersand.myflodesk.com/pregnancyafterlossaudio

-       Building up scripts and the words for what I needed: whether that was from my husband, how I communicated with my healthcare team or the people around me. Having that in place helped reduce an enormous amount of invisible labour.

Tommy’s Midwife Helpline

If you’re navigating pregnancy after loss right now, Tommy’s Midwife Helpline provides specialist, compassionate support: clinical guidance, someone to talk to and real answers from midwives who understand.

https://www.tommys.org/about-us/our-people/tommys-midwives

Pregnancy after loss requires courage and you’re allowed to get the support you deserve along your journey.