Pregnancy loss is never an easy thing to understand or talk about whether it’s your own or a friends. I haven’t been through it myself, however a few of my close friends have, and I’m aware I haven’t been nearly good enough at talking to them about it. I think one of the most precious things you can do for someone after pregnancy loss is recommend they talk to someone like Sharna, from Sharna Southan Coaching. I caught up with Sharna and she kindly shared her story with us and explained how that led to the amazing work she is doing to promote healing.
Sharna Southan – Pregnancy Loss Life Coach
I am a qualified dental nurse. I always knew I wanted to help people, and I thought being in the medical industry was going to be it.
Although I always felt I was called to do more, I just didn’t know what it was or how that was going to look.
In 2017 my husband & I were faced with a very different future then the one we had in our minds.
We found out we were pregnant, something we had been trying for, for a number of years.
Our future in those days & weeks afterwards was already looking so different, we had so many new plans, all with a baby in them.
In February 2017 we went in for our Ultrasound, only to be told “I’m sorry there’s no heartbeat”. I was in shock, this couldn’t be happening!! I wanted the technician to keep trying and to keep looking for it because this wasn’t meant to happen!!
It was my worst fear, but in saying that, I didn’t even really know what a miscarriage was at this point.
Not much information was given to me at the time. We went to the Drs surgery, where we were filled in a little bit more about what had happened but still left with very little information.
I had experienced a Missed miscarriage, which I diagnosed myself with my own research, because none of this was explained to me. A missed miscarriage means there were no outward signs of anything going wrong with the pregnancy. No cramps, no bleeding, nothing…. not until the ultrasound which was almost 3 weeks after the baby had passed away.
So I was sent home.
The miscarriage was such a traumatic experience for us. My husband was great on the side lines, although men don’t fully understand what’s going on and the emotions we are feeling. We knew we wanted to try again and he understood I couldn’t if I wasn’t able to recover, or heal, from this experience. Not to say you ever fully heal, it’s an ongoing journey, but I made sure I was in a much better place mentally for the following pregnancy.
So I did a lot of work on myself.
In the days, weeks, months following our loss. I allowed myself to grieve and feel what I needed to feel. I just didn’t stay there. I was gentle on myself and didn’t put pressure on myself to feel any particular way.
I have become the support person that I so desperately needed after our miscarriage.
It was within my healing that I knew I had to draw from my experience and use it.
If I was feeling isolated and as if I was the only woman feeling this way, then many other women would be feeling this same way too. Knowing that the statistic of miscarriage is 1 in 4 I knew I wasn’t alone.
I started my coaching business.
I started learning, increasing my knowledge on how I can best help other women going through the same circumstances as I had, whilst also learning to recognise every woman’s experience is so different.
I want to break the stigma around miscarriage and allow women to talk freely about it. To grieve for their angel babies. To know that there is support. To know they aren’t alone and that they can get through this tough time.
I want women to know there is someone who understands them on a much deeper level. Someone who knows what it’s like to feel the way they are feeling – Sharna Southan
I have created a support program that I needed when I was going through my healing. This program enables me to support women through what I have created so they don’t have to be guessing their way through the uncertainty and overwhelm after a miscarriage.
I am here to hold space for them, to allow them to honour their story and themselves, to be able to find themselves, find clarity and joy again after their loss.
As I was able to do so much work on myself through the months after our loss, I felt able to try again, from a place where I wanted to try again, from a place of love and understanding, knowing that we could be faced with the same outcome. I didn’t want to try from a place of wanting to ‘fix our situation’ because I knew that if I wasn’t mentally prepared, the following pregnancy would be overshadowed by crippling fear.
We fell pregnant with our now rainbow baby
The following pregnancy did have fear popping it’s head in, but I was able to process that fear and understand why it was coming. I was able to welcome it and release it and I was able to enjoy absolutely every part of our pregnancy, the good and the uncomfortable. I was so grateful for the whole experience because I had been given another opportunity to experience it.
Sharna xxx
If you would like to reach out to Sharna please follow the links below.
Are you overwhelmed with emotion after your pregnancy loss? Download this journaling guide.
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