Recurrent Miscarriage: Spiritual and Energetic Considerations
One miscarriage is traumatizing enough, but some unlucky few have to deal with two, three, four, or more miscarriages in our lives. It can be incredibly frustrating to have to go through the same nightmare over and over again, especially if there is no explanation for why this keeps happening. As someone who has experienced five miscarriages, I have thought a lot about the spiritual and energetic considerations of recurrent miscarriages.
*Please be gentle with yourself as you read this article. You may need to take breaks or set it aside for a time when you have the space to contemplate these questions.
In some cases, recurrent miscarriages can be diagnosed and treated with medication or other interventions. While recurrent miscarriage is something of a mystery in the medical field, there are some tests and medications that may help you, so ensure you and your partner are getting adequate medical support while you go through this. I’d recommend seeing a naturopath and/or acupuncturist in addition to a fertility doctor if you can as the medical system doesn’t look at every avenue that might be helpful for you. I also recommend reading the book It Starts With The Egg by Rebecca Fett.
Even after numerous blood tests and exploratory surgeries, plenty of people with recurrent miscarriages can find no obvious medical reason for it. It’s natural to turn to the concept of meaning, the spiritual answer to the question “why.” In my experience, spiritual meanings are best when they can empower us to make a helpful change in our lives, but unhelpful when they lead to a sense of self-blame or fear. Learning a spiritual meaning for a given issue doesn’t necessarily mean we cure it, but it can hopefully help us find lessons that help us in some way in our lives. Sometimes the spiritual meaning of a given event is that there is no meaning, so keep that in mind as you consider the spiritual meaning of recurrent miscarriages.
Soul Babies And Their Gifts
Just as with a single miscarriage, a soul may be trying to incarnate with you and waiting for the right time or the right moment in the body. Each loss may be the same soul trying to return to you. If you haven’t yet, read through the thoughts and questions in The Spiritual Meaning of Miscarriage to see if there is some wisdom there for you as well.
Each loss may have its own lessons, making adjustments in your life and body as you go. Scientists have learned that every time a person becomes pregnant, fetal cells enter their body, often targeting areas of injury and weakness. These stem cells help the person become stronger and healthier whether the pregnancy terminates or not—and these cells stay in the body for decades, maybe even forever. Energetically, that means every pregnancy stays with you, every lost child is a part of your body, your soul, and your spirit.
When you become pregnant, you touch the spirit portal. Pregnancy can initiate us into that spiritual and intuitive realm where we can see, feel, and know things that weren’t possible when we weren’t hosting a soul. Every one of these pregnancies matters in some way. Consider the following questions:
When you close your eyes and think about the babies, how do they feel to you? Do they feel like the same energy or are they separate from each other?
Did any of these pregnancies help you change something, find a new perspective, move closer to a goal, or shift you away from something that wasn’t benefiting you?
How has your body, mind, or spirit changed after going through these experiences, especially in terms of strength, resilience, learning, or growth?
Are there lessons here that could help you as a parent down the line?
Second Chakra
The womb is pretty much the direct location of the second chakra. This energy center is not dependent on a certain physical organ, but rather sits right about where the womb does, in line with the sacrum in the bowl of the pelvis. The second chakra is about pleasure, creativity (reproductive and otherwise), sexuality, movement, and joy. When there are issues with this energy center, we can often have hip and low back pain, tightness in this area, mood shifts, and difficulty feeling joy.
Trauma is often held in this region, partly because it will quickly shut down when we feel unsafe. Consider the following questions:
Do I move in ways that feel good to me? Or do I force myself to exercise to lose weight?
Do I experience pleasure daily, however simple and routine?
Do I feel safe enough to be myself, to enjoy my body, to create?
Do I engage in creative practices that are fun for me?
What is my relationship to my sexuality? Is sex healthy, safe, and fun for me?
Do I feel safe enough in my life to play?
Sexual Trauma
When there’s been trauma in the womb, pelvis, or sexual organs, there can be an energetic signature of pain or fear even if the physical wounds have completely healed. This may be obvious to you, but a single miscarriage can be traumatic, let alone several. The body remembers that something really scary happened here, and maybe it’s not a good place for a tender new life to be nurtured. Trauma in this region is unfortunately incredibly common and can happen in many ways, including vicariously, simply through knowing how dangerous it can be to be a feminine person in a world where women can be attacked or abused in many different ways. That fear can hold your body back from being willing to go forward.
Has something happened in this region that was painful, scary, or both?
When you think about what happened or what could happen, do you experience fear?
Do you feel confident in your ability to invite energy into your womb and grow new energy there?
Is there something you need to help sex feel like a moment of love and connection rather than a stressful thing to check off the to-do list?
What would help you feel safer in your body, your life, and your sexuality?
Your Relationship
Creating a baby isn’t just about you, it’s also about your partner. Recurrent miscarriage has the energy of “almost,” of “yes, but”—the embryo comes into being, and then something changes. The connection is there, but something is going on with the sustainability. Consider the following:
How is your relationship with your partner right now?
Is there a reason you can see or feel that your body might want to reject or push away a part of your partner?
Do you notice fear, anxiety, terror, disgust, or anger when you think about your partner?
Does your relationship have any big issues that are sitting in the dark, unaddressed?
Have the miscarriages created rifts between the two of you that have gone unprocessed?
Do you or your partner display any ambivalence about pregnancy and parenting? Is there a silent “yes, but” in you, your partner, or both of you?
Keep in mind that it’s normal for couples to fight, argue, disagree, and have issues, and this is never going to be the sole cause of miscarriages (otherwise there would be a lot fewer babies out there!). From a spiritual perspective, however, there may be something that needs to be resolved between the two of you before your body will allow a pregnancy to go forward—and it benefits you both as well as any potential babies when your relationship is on solid ground. Recurrent miscarriage is challenging for even the most solid of couples, so don’t be afraid to reach out for support in the form of couples counseling, classes, or anything else that feels helpful for any unresolved issues between you.
Grief and Death
The energy of infertility is a blockage. It is highly protective; it won’t let anything pass through the gate. Miscarriage is different: life was created, it existed, and then it died. Miscarriage is a powerful experience of both death and life in the same exact location: the womb.
One thing that did help me in my healing journey is acknowledging that my womb is a place that is designed to hold both life and death. Pretty much all the pre-Biblical goddesses all over the world were always goddesses of both fertility and death or the underworld. Isis and Nut in Egypt, Demeter in Greece, the Morrigan and many other Celtic goddesses—all were fertility and death goddesses. New life comes out of death, and death is needed for new life to begin. Being someone who has experienced a lot of death inside of my body doesn’t make me any less capable of creating new life—it is the opposite, it means I am deeply connected to that other world where life comes from as well as goes to. It means I have great capacity.
If you’re experiencing recurrent miscarriage, Death wants your attention and needs you to learn something before you can move forward.
What is your relationship like with Death?
What was it like before experiencing these miscarriages?
What is Death teaching you about yourself, your life, your body?
What is Death teaching you about what you really want, what’s most important, in your short time on earth?
Sovereignty and Surrender
If you haven’t yet learned that you can’t control everything, the realm of fertility will teach you that. If you’ve been a strong-willed person who is effective in your work and other areas in your life, you’ve likely found that hard work gets things done. Not here. Working hard and figuring things out doesn’t always help with fertility, and sometimes it can make it worse by adding stress and self-blame into the mix.
At the same time, a hallmark of trauma is feeling helpless and powerless. In order to keep trying, we have to be able to surrender to all we can’t control while claiming sovereignty where we can. We need to claim our choices on this journey, which can mean everything from whether and when to try again, which practitioners to seek support from, and how we advocate for our medical needs so that we can keep going without feeling like we’re giving our bodies up completely. Consider the following:
Do you feel sovereign in your life or do you often feel that you are doing things for anyone and everyone but you?
What is your relationship with control like?
How do you cope when things feel out of your control?
How has your sense of power or control changed through the experience of recurrent miscarriage?
Do you feel that your body is yours?
Are you willing to sacrifice some things for a pregnancy?
What are the limits to that sacrifice?
If you’re willing to keep trying, what choices can you claim to feel more powerful within yourself while accepting risk?
Recurrent miscarriage is a big and complex issue and can be incredibly frustrating especially when no treatment seems to be working. There are so many things we don’t understand about it, and you may never know the reason why it’s happening the way it is. Please take these questions as opportunities to deepen your relationship with yourself and to listen deeply to the wisdom of your body. Whatever happens next, please know that you have great capacity to go through all of this, and there is plenty of life after this period of time, whether it includes children or not. Keep in mind that you’re not alone in this journey.