Recurrent Loss and the Three Stages of Survival

Pregnancy loss is something I have always spoken about openly. It’s not easy, but staying silent can make grief feel even heavier.

Many people know about my two late-term losses, the ones that changed my life forever. But what many don’t realize is that my journey with pregnancy loss has been much longer and much more complex than that. I have also experienced multiple miscarriages of different kinds — a blighted ovum, missed miscarriages, and other early losses.

Every single loss has resulted in a D&C.

And that brings its own complicated layer to the experience.

Some women miscarry naturally, where the body slowly recognizes the loss and begins the physical process of letting go. In my case, my body often didn’t recognize the loss at all. My HCG would continue rising. The pregnancy symptoms remained. Morning sickness stayed. My body still believed it was pregnant.

Then suddenly, within the space of an hour in surgery, everything is gone.

My body would go from fully pregnant to empty almost instantly.

That shock is something I’ve come to recognize over time. After each D&C, even when the loss was early, my body still needed weeks to recover. Hormones crashed. My system struggled to recalibrate. Night sweats. Mood swings. Bloating. Constipation….. It felt like a sudden postpartum experience without the gradual transition.

And yet, despite everything, conceiving has never been my issue. I can fall pregnant easily. Quickly, even. My losses always seem to live in those fragile early weeks when everything appears perfect one moment, and the next moment…..life stops.

Recurrent pregnancy loss is a unique kind of heartbreak. It sits in a space where hope and fear constantly live side by side.

And over the years, through my own experience and through the women I’ve supported, I’ve noticed something important:

When it comes to loss, we don’t just move through grief. We move through survival.

The Five Textbook Stages of Grief

Most people are familiar with the five stages of grief described by psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

These stages help us understand how the mind processes profound loss. At first there can be disbelief… a feeling that this cannot be real. Anger often follows, sometimes directed at doctors, at fate, at God, or at our own bodies. Bargaining shows up in quiet thoughts of “what if I had done something differently?” Depression can settle in as the reality of the loss becomes undeniable. And eventually, acceptance may come. Not as forgetting, but as learning to carry the loss as part of your story.

But pregnancy loss, especially recurrent loss, often unfolds in ways that don’t neatly follow a textbook structure. Many women move between these stages repeatedly, or experience several of them at once.

In my experience, what many women actually go through are three stages of survival.

These stages are not clinical. They are deeply human and many of us move through all three at different times.

The Three Stages of Survival

1. The Deep Griever

This is the woman who feels everything deeply. Her grief is not rushed. It can last months, sometimes years. She searches endlessly for answers: medical tests, research papers, specialist opinions. She wants to understand why this happened.

But often, the answers never fully come. So she carries the grief quietly. Loss changes her. Permanently. She becomes harder on herself. She questions her body. She questions her worth. Shame can creep in, whispering that maybe she failed somehow. Some women even feel as though they are being punished by God, by the universe or by fate.

The weight of this stage can be heavy because society often doesn’t give pregnancy loss the same recognition as other forms of grief. Women are expected to “move on” quickly.

But this woman cannot. And she shouldn’t have to. Her heart is doing the sacred work of mourning a life that mattered.

2. The Warrior

This is the woman who wants to try again immediately. Sometimes she is still bleeding. Sometimes she has only just received the news. Sometimes the miscarriage hasn’t even fully passed. But she is already thinking about the next cycle.

Not because she doesn’t care. But because she cares so deeply. She wants that baby with every fibre of her being.

Hope becomes her survival mechanism. Trying again becomes the way she copes with the grief.

These women are warriors. They run through emotional fire again and again in the hope that the next pregnancy will finally be the one that stays.

But sometimes in this stage, the urgency to try again can also mean that deeper answers are overlooked. Doctors’ advice to pause and allow the body to heal might be ignored. Investigations into possible causes are delayed.

The desire to hold a baby can become so strong that it drowns out the quieter voice asking, “What is my body trying to tell me?”

Still, this stage is not weakness.

It is hope refusing to die.

3. The Numb Survivor

Then there is the quietest stage of all. The numb stage. By the time a woman reaches this place, she has often already grieved deeply and tried again many times. When another loss happens, something shifts.

There are no tears left. No anger. No desperate “why me.” Just silence.

The news comes and she simply thinks, “I can’t keep doing this.”

She goes back to her day. Back to work. Back to life. But inside she feels disconnected from the future. The thought of another pregnancy feels too exhausting to imagine.

She is simply tired. And numbness, in many ways, is the soul’s way of protecting itself from breaking further.

The Breaking Point: When You’re Tired of Being Dismissed

One of the hardest parts of a long journey with pregnancy loss is what happens when you don’t feel heard. My path with this has spanned nearly twenty years, with breaks in between because life moves, time passes, and sometimes you simply need space to breathe again.

But over those years, I have lost count of how many times I had to push, cry, or scream just to have someone take my concerns seriously. When you are living inside your own body, you notice every shift, every instinct, every subtle change. Yet so often those instincts are dismissed with simple explanations — stress, weight, diet, vitamins — and the conversation stops there. The truth is that when you are carrying repeated loss, you are not just looking for a quick answer. You are looking for someone willing to pause, to listen, and to explore deeper with you.

Even something as small as early reassurance can make a difference. When you have known you were pregnant from the earliest days, the weeks leading up to a first scan can feel endless and fragile. Those days are filled with quiet fear and hope living side by side. But when your intuition or your worries are brushed aside, it can make you feel like you are slowly losing your mind. Not because you are irrational, but because the one thing you are asking for — to be listened to — feels just out of reach. And sometimes the most painful realization is that the doctors who finally want to investigate deeper only begin doing so after you have already carried more loss than anyone should have to bear.

The Spiritual Impact of Recurrent Loss

Pregnancy loss does not only affect the body. It touches every layer of our being: emotional, physical, and spiritual.

In many spiritual traditions, the womb is connected to the sacral chakra, the energetic centre of creativity, fertility, and emotional flow. Recurrent loss can disturb this energy centre, leaving women feeling disconnected from their bodies or questioning their ability to create life.

The solar plexus chakra, which governs confidence and self-worth, is also deeply affected. Many women begin to doubt themselves. They wonder if their bodies are broken or if they somehow failed.

Even the root chakra, our foundation of safety and stability, can be shaken. Loss can make the future feel uncertain and fragile.

When these centres are impacted repeatedly, the result can be emotional exhaustion, identity loss, and deep spiritual questioning.

But it is important to remember something powerful:

Your body did not fail you. Your body carried life. And your heart carried love.

Both are extraordinary.

The Healing Work: Intuitive and Holistic Support

Alongside my own journey through loss, I have also spent years supporting other women who are navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, and the deep emotional aftermath that follows. My work as an intuitive and spiritual counsellor grew naturally from this space.

The sessions I offer are not about quick fixes or a single conversation that suddenly makes everything feel better. Healing after recurrent pregnancy loss rarely happens in one moment. It unfolds over time, layer by layer.

Each session becomes a gentle step forward.

In our work together, we blend intuitive guidance with holistic counselling practices. We look at the present moment — how you are feeling now, what your body is holding, and what emotions may still be sitting beneath the surface. Sometimes we explore the past, the moments that may have shaped how you relate to your body, your fertility, your spirit baby, or your sense of safety and trust.

And sometimes, we quietly open space for the future again.

Many women carry grief not only in their hearts but also within their bodies. The womb, the nervous system, the breath — they all remember. Through mindfulness, grounding practices, intuitive insight, and deep conversation, we begin to gently release what the body may still be holding onto.

No two sessions are the same.

With each one, something new often reveals itself. A belief that was hidden. A fear that has been quietly shaping decisions. A moment that was never fully processed. And when those pieces begin to surface, something shifts.

This work is not about forcing healing. It is about creating the space where healing can finally happen.

Over time, many women begin to reconnect with their bodies again. They start to rebuild trust within themselves. The constant tension around fertility begins to soften, and the nervous system slowly learns that it is safe to breathe again.

It is a blend of counselling, mindfulness, and spiritual awareness — a space where logic and intuition are both welcome, and where grief is not rushed or silenced.

Because sometimes the most powerful healing doesn’t happen in one breakthrough moment.

Sometimes it happens quietly, over time, as we gently unlock the pieces of ourselves that have been waiting to be seen.

A Message for the Women in the In-Between

If you are walking through recurrent pregnancy loss right now, you may feel like your life is on pause.

Many women hold their breath between pregnancies. They delay plans. They stop dreaming about the future because everything revolves around one question:

Will I ever become a mother?

But your life is still unfolding. Even here. Even in this painful in-between. Your identity does not stop at pregnancy loss.

You are still a whole person with a life ahead of you. Experiences to have, places to see, love to give, and joy to feel.

Trying to conceive can be part of your story, but it does not have to become the only chapter.

Do not stop living while waiting for the “what if.”

Your soul deserves a full life, no matter what path motherhood eventually takes — or doesn’t take.

And if you find yourself in one of these stages — grieving deeply, trying again fiercely, or quietly numb — know that each of these places is a form of strength.

Strength is not always loud. Sometimes it looks like tears. Sometimes it looks like hope. And sometimes, it looks like stillness.

But every one of them is simply your soul doing what it needs to survive.