Why I Chose to Name My Dream Babies (Esoteric)

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for a couple of weeks, waiting for me to get up the guts to post it (because I'm often shy to share my spiritual/esoteric beliefs), and also waiting for my life to calm down to where I don't actually have a daily update I'm burning to put up every day. Things are in a holding pattern right now, so it feels like a good time. Enjoy. :-)

In the first weeks following my first two miscarriages, I didn't actively grieve. I followed my old belief system (my pre-miscarriage belief system) and told myself that miscarriage is common and probably for the best since there was probably something wrong with the baby(ies). I also firmly believed (and still believe) in re-incarnation, and by extension I believe that the soul(s) of the babies I miscarried were meant to incarnate as my children, and that they would be back. These two beliefs made me think that I shouldn't grieve. I believed that since a) miscarriage was for the best, and b) the soul(s) of my babies were not lost to me and would be back when the timing was better, there was no reason to mourn. All I had to do was wait, and do a bit more preparation for their reappearance.

Those beliefs carried me through exactly one cycle after my second miscarriage. On CD1 after my second loss, I went to pieces. I now think that the crash was so hard because I spent so many weeks in denial. I talked myself out of remembering that, during my brief pregnancies, my babies had been very real to me. They were so real, from the moment I suspected I was pregnant. The loss of those little sparks of life inside me was something I felt keenly in the moment, but tried to move on from almost instantly.

When I experienced that emotional crash, I began searching the internet for help. One thing I found was that some people name the babies they miscarry. This was an entirely new idea for me, but it resonated. Still, I struggled with my belief that the soul(s) of my babies would be back, that I hadn't really "lost" them. I don't remember how long it took, but after a while I realized that I wouldn't be naming the soul. Just like my name IRL refers to me in this particular physical body, the names I would be giving my Dream Babies would refer to them in the physical body they were building during that incarnation. Even if Astin and Ember were incarnations of the same soul, each would have had a unique personality. One might even have been a boy and the other a girl, and they could still have been the same soul, trying to incarnate.

Naming each physical manifestation, each potential to be a unique individual, allowed me to grieve the loss of those potential children far more fully and effectively. It took time. I had to learn how to grieve, and how to cope with my grief. There were many other issues to complicate my experience, and many other reasons why the emotional processing of my first two miscarriages kept me from seeking treatment for four long months. Still, this one, simple thing, naming my babies, had a huge impact.

Nine months later, when I had, for the most part, made peace with what had happened, when I was feeling hopeful and ready to try again, I found that I had fallen pregnant* a cycle too soon. When I miscarried a third time, I made the choice to actively grieve, to not allow myself to spend weeks in denial, but to access and address the pain of my loss on a regular basis. I think that naming Poppy right away made a big difference. In acknowledging her uniqueness, and her reality, I gave myself something concrete to grieve for, an object, a focus for my grief. It gives me a direction for my painful feelings, and helps me to allow myself to feel them without allowing them to completely engulf me.

Don't get me wrong, grief is never easy, and knowing what is coming only makes me want to avoid the pain. My only hope is that, by not allowing myself to spend too much time, at a time, in denial, I will process these painful emotions a little more quickly, a little more fully, and begin feeling hopeful and being ready to try again sooner than if I tried to deny and ignore and avoid the grieving process, just because it hurts.

*I love the phrase "fell pregnant" or "fallen pregnant". First, it's very British, and I have a thing for British stuff. Second, it's a pretty accurate description of what happens to me. I really do "fall pregnant". If only I could figure out how to stay pregnant, then, perhaps I could get a baby out of all this "falling".