Miscarriage Help

Lauren says:

Dear Ellen,

It's been a while since I wrote here. This Lauren, I had a miscarriage when I was 16. It had been almost two years since it happened. I've been really bad off lately. I have gotten therapy and help and stuff like that, but it doesn't help much. I got a support group, but it doesn't help much. I started picking up all these hobbies like playing piano and such, but it doesn't help much.

I really don't know what to write. I've been feeling the same amount of pain for a very long time. I've been feeling it so long, but now I'm starting not to feel anything at all. Just blankness, and complete despondency. I feel like it's just the same sad story over and over again. I feel like the advice is the same over and over again. It all sounds the same after a while, anyway. I think the more repetitive everything gets, the more hopeless I feel.

I miss my baby. That's the only thought that goes on in my head. I haunt myself with it. i can't help it. It's just always there.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm so lonely. I'm so sad all the time. I explode everytime a little thing goes wrong. And people think I'm insane when I start crying about the most seemingly meaningless things. But, when all the major things in my life deteriorate, I really need the little things to work out.

Please. Help me. Please. I need some inspiration, because I'm floundering.


Dear Lauren,

I remember you, what you've shared, how deeply your miscarriage changed your life and how much you miss your baby. You know how sorry I am for your loss- straight from the heart. I am also sorry you feel caught in your struggle to get out from under the cloud that feels like it's over your head each day.

Floundering. I know the feeling well. I know what it's like to go on with your life after miscarriage and every, single day feel like no matter what, you can't shake the ache inside. It's sad, scary, and frustrating, too. I think the only way to really connect with you on this is to share some more about my own experiences in this life- about my miscarriage, the struggle to overcome the cloud, or whether I even did.

I feel compelled to quote someone. I heard this in one of my Dr. Wayne Dyer audio books, which I listen to so often: "Change the way you look at things, and things you look at change."

It's been seventeen years since I miscarried. My son would have been eighteen years old this November- right around Thanksgiving. Many people may think because I wrote a book and have this website, I'm completely 'over' or 'healed' from my miscarriage.

I'm not, Lauren. I still feel. I still cry and miss my son. I still wonder what life would be like with him in it- not in the spiritual sense, but in the physical. I know his spirit is around, alive. I feel his energy when I think about him, or now as I am writing to you.

He, my son and all the pain I went through after losing him to miscarriage, is my inspiration. He is the very reason I can write to you at this moment and offer my heart, my empathy and say to you there was a reason for my miscarriage on my journey through life. Ouch. If you said that to me many years ago, I would have wondered what you were talking about. But, now I know. I know that Alex came into my life briefly and powerfully to place my feet upon this path. He, (Alex), is the reason MiscarriageHelp.com exists and why I Never Held You was written. By experiencing the lesson of loss through him, I found myself, many years later, needing to reach out to others. I couldn't shake it. I had to do something with all the pain, the years of struggle, the knowing.

Now, just like you're consumed with your miscarriage and the loss of your baby, I am consumed with adoption. I think about it all the time and when I view it as something I don't have, rather than something that will happen, I get very lost in the apparent hopelessness of it all. It's then I know I must change my thinking because if I don't, I will keep attracting more of the situation I'm in.

I'm putting myself out there at the risk of sounding a bit "flaky" to you because you're worth it. So please stay with me for a minute.

Instead of my thinking about how much I want to adopt and how afraid I am that it won't happen, that I'll never be a mother, that this pain won't ever go away, I have to shift my thinking to something completely opposite. Why? Because I believe thoughts are energy and they are like little magnets. We attract more of what we're thinking because the Universe just gives to us whatever we are sending out. So, I say to myself, "I'll never adopt. I'm getting too old or my fiance is or, or, or..." Guess what? I haven't adopted yet. Wow. I look at the years of waiting. I review all the 'issues' that prevented us from getting the ball rolling and how much pain I've been in for so long in my aching need to be a mother- to give a child who needs a home a home full of love. Wow, I say again. I've lived with this cloud over my head thinking about lack, specifically, the lack of a child in my life to call me Mommy and guess what? I don't have that child in my life. Years of thinking a certain way, and yes, circumstances which have now resolved themselves, actually drew to me exactly what I didn't want- instead of what I did.

I'm sharing this with you because you said you needed inspiration. I don't know if this is inspiring. I don't know if it'll help, but something inside of me, actually very late last night, said to write about this to you. You've heard it all-but, I don't know if you've ever looked at the way you think attracting more of what you don't want into your life and how by shifting your thinking to what you do want, you attract that which you desire most.

It's not magic. It's not a mystery. It's faith. It's believing we are what we think and there's a Divine plan for all of us. It's about our thoughts being so much more powerful than we give them credit for.

You have every right to feel pain, grief, lonliness, isolation, fear, sadness. You went through something terrible- you miscarried your baby. Of course you hurt so please don't think it's abnormal. You are not abnormal at all...you're stuck. You're stuck in a world where the more you think about your loss, lack, and pain, the more it seems to come into your life and remain. God, I'm the queen of that so believe me, I really know what I'm talking about here.

I hope this makes some sense. I pray my words aren't some sort of mish-mash of random thoughts that are like a puzzle with missing pieces. I'm sharing this with you because, like I mentioned before, I truly feel compelled to.

So, using my life as an example, I say to myself, "Ellen. Change your thinking. Stop attracting the very thing you don't want in your life and start attracting what you DO want into your life." Okay, sounds good, but how? HOW?

Again, I'm going to quote Dr. Wayne Dyer here: "You can grieve and still live."

You see, I'd never ask you to not feel. That'd be impossible and very unrealistic. It's only been two years since you miscarried, and you experienced this terrible loss at such a young age- 16. What you relate to being 16 is loss, pain, nobody 'getting you', feeling isolated, and living with a constant ache inside. You're probably near 18 now and still feel the same. Yet, nearly two years have passed and I would venture to say that even though you don't feel like you've grown at all since your miscarriage, you have. You don't see it yet just like I didn't see it two years, three years, four and more, after my miscarriage.

One day, my thinking changed and so did the things I saw. My heart and soul will always be connected to and miss my son. But, one day I was inspired due to the pain I went through. I was at the kitchen table and the feeling that overtook me was so strong. So powerful I couldn't let it go. My thoughts went from focusing on all my pain to focusing on what I could do with it to help others. Just like that. I knew I had to write about my journey through the darkness after miscarriage and how I survived it. A couple of years later, I knew I had to write even more about it and then was blessed with meeting Dr. Linda Backman- online. She ended up writing the foreword and several commentaries in my book. Was it mere chance? No. My thoughts shifted to reaching out even more and I was given exactly what I needed to do it. The expertise of Dr. Backman was dropped into my lap- literally.

So here we are, three years after my book and this website came out. Hundreds of women, just like you and me, have shared their pain, have connected, have found comfort in knowing they are not alone and that's helped them on their own journey through the rubble left after miscarriage. It's not about me- it's about a calling in my life I couldn't ignore and when it happened, I had a choice. I could stay where I was in thought, because thoughts create our reality, or how we 'see things', or I could take my adversity and pain and turn it around into something positive. It doesn't change the fact I lived it. It doesn't bring my baby back. It doesn't prevent those days when I miss him so much I want to cry again- even all these years later. What it does change is life- my own and the lives of others who just need to vent, share, connect- not feel so lost. Lost like I did after my own miscarriage. I went on a quest to find something, anything, to help me and came up empty handed.

One thing I do every day is thank God for the day. I'm not preaching- I'm sharing. Your beliefs are your own. However, when I get up, before my feet even hit the floor, I thank God for the day. I don't know what it's going to bring and it doesn't matter if it's rainy, sunny, hot or cold. I have this day and I am thankful for it. Even if I'm sad, or had an argument that's still unresolved and my heart aches from it- I give thanks for the day because it's a new day. It's my day and your day and everyone's day and what an amazing gift to be given. Then, I take my dog out and look around. I thank God again for all that is, for the day, for my cute, little dog and being blessed to have him in my life again, this day.

Later, something may trigger me, as it did yesterday, to sink into this pit of despair. I've been with my fiance for fourteen years this fall and we have not adopted yet. It's so easy to think..."It'll never happen. He's too old. I've waited long enough. I'll never be a mother. I'm getting too old." Guess what? Those have been my thoughts, in-between the moments when I realized I had to change my thinking and give it all to God. I'm proof positive that your thoughts become your reality. I mean, look at me. Do I have a child in this house as I've dreamed? No. Why? I got to a point where I didn't believe it would happen. Who wouldn't after all these years of waiting, longing, etc.?

Well, it's not easy but changing my thoughts IS easier than remaining the same. I'm not in denial. I'm saying out loud to God, the universe, to the angels and to myself- "The right child will come into my life at the right time. Thank you." I have to believe that. I have to change my thoughts to attract what I want into my life, instead of more of what I don't. And let me tell you, it's hard at first- very. That's why I reach out for help through wonderful people like Dr. Wayne Dyer, (look into him if you feel it's right for you), and more. I need some guidance. I have plenty of faith but get lost and need help being pointed in the right direction.

I am ready to change my thinking and am getting ready, or building my bridges, for the day my dreams of adoption come true. I'd rather think, "I am so grateful for this wonderful child entering my life at the right time." I'm clearing out a room that I've actually envisioned being his or her bedroom and am trying, with all I am, to live with active faith. That means living and believing you've already received what you desire instead of thinking about the lack of your dreams and desires.

You're a journey and I'm not going to pad it by saying it's an easy one. We both know it's not. You have a purpose in this life and right now, you can't really see beyond your pain. I couldn't either. It took time, life, healing, growing. All these things will happen to you- they are happening to you, as I write this. Sadly, a part of growth is pain. I think that's where the term 'growing pains' came from, as far as I can guess. If it's not, it sure is to me. My journey has not been without pain, nor has anyone else's I know.

It's what we do, when we're ready, with the pain. Do we get up after the fall, or do we succumb and remain in a place that's so uncomfortable we barely recognize our lives, or ourselves, anymore?

Again, I hope just an tiny part of this brings out your own truth. I pray this fragmented bunch of thoughts somehow fit together and make some sense to you and offer some sort of hope, help...inspiration.

I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Please let me know how you are.

"You don't have to feel inspiring, to inspire." From a song by Jana Stanfield

Love, Light and Healing,
Ellen

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Todays angel message from Doreen Virtue's Perpetual Angel Calendar is: "If you see a gift within one of your spiritual siblings, then it must be true that you have that gift available to you as well."

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