Lindsey M. Henke | The Motherhood Therapist

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Anxious woman - 6 Signs of PTSD from Pregnancy Loss

6 Signs Of PTSD From Pregnancy Loss

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Hard Parts of Motherhood
Heartaches of Motherhood
Expecting After the Heartaches of Motherhood

The Motherhood Therapist

Your motherhood story matters.

A question I get from my clients often is, “How

A question I get from my clients often is, “How do I know when I’m ready to try again for another baby after a previous miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal loss?”

My answer is always, “When the hope for another baby outweighs the fear of another loss.”

How did you know you were ready to try to conceive after loss?
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#tryingtoconceive #TTCAfterLoss #tryingtoconceiveafterloss #expectingafterloss #parentingafterloss #pregnancyaftermiscarriage #pregnancyafterstillbirth #pregnancyafterTFMR #pregnancyafterloss #rainbowbaby #lifeafterloss #griefandloss #hopeafterloss #hopeoverfear

It’s normal to question everything after a misca

It’s normal to question everything after a miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. I remember asking my own therapist these questions in the days, months, and years after Nora’s stillbirth. These are the questions I most often get asked by my own therapy clients that have experienced loss.

Questioning everything after a traumatic loss is normal (yes, losing a child is a traumatic loss. More on that later). Your whole life suddenly got turned upside down, and you are trying to create a new narrative (story) with the pieces that are left behind. A story you never in a million years thought you would need to rewrite.

Your answer to these questions will change over time. At first it will be hard to believe the answers I would give you above if you were my client. But, they are the most common answers to these very common questions that my clients and members in the community often ask after pregnancy and infant loss.

The most important message I want my clients and you to walk away with, when asking these questions, is that you don’t have to have the answer now or ever, the answer will change, and self-compassion is the best medicine for existential questions like these. Check out the slider on what it is and 5 ways to do it!
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#griefandloss #griefislove #amotherslove #amothersgrief #thisismotherhood #losssupport #pregnancyloss #babyloss #infantloss #stillbirth #childloss #miscarriage #SIDS #TFMR #bereavedmother #lossmom #postpartum #postpartumafterloss #lifeafterloss #parentingafterloss

On Baby Loss: There is no course offered that tea

On Baby Loss:

There is no course offered that teaches you how to go on living when your baby dies. There are classes on how to birth a baby, bathe a baby, and breastfeed a baby.

There are apps that tell you if your baby is the size of a kumquat or a cantaloupe.

In middle school and high school you are even dutifully instructed on how to not have a baby, learning in sex ed how to put a condom on a banana in front of 25 other pimple-faced teenagers.

But no one tells you what to do when your baby doesn’t live.

All you get is a folder with brochures that read like bad Hallmark sympathy cards, “When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure,” and a little book that succinctly summed it all up in its title, Empty Cradle, Broken Heart.
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#griefandloss #griefislove #amotherslove #amothersgrief #thisismotherhood #pregnancyloss #babyloss #infantloss #stillbirth #childloss #miscarriage #SIDS #TFMR #bereavedmother #lossmom #postpartum #postpartumafterloss #lifeafterloss #parentingafterloss

REEL TALK With Lindsey Henke Today I want to talk

REEL TALK With Lindsey Henke

Today I want to talk to you about the saying we often hear in grief, “Everything happens for a reason,” which is bullshit.

When someone says this to you, it’s because they are making meaning out of your loss for you, without your permission because they feel uncomfortable with your loss and grief.

This is a no-no.

Everything doesn’t happen for a reason.

People say this because they need a reason for it to seem like it won’t happen to them.

It’s rude and not helpful.

AND…If you think everything happens for a reason around your own loss. Then that is perfectly acceptable and great that you have entered the meaning making stage of grief.

The key here is YOU get to find and make meaning out of your own loss. Others don’t.

Making meaning is actually part of the grief process. The 6th stage of grief according to David Kessler who worked closely with Elizabeth Kubler Ross on her 5 stages of grief. (P.S. The five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are not linear or even complete, just identified themes Ross saw in her research among the bereaved and those dying. That’s for another video).

David Kessler recently noticed after the death of his own child that there was a meaning making stage in grief, which he calls the 6th stage of grief and wrote a whole book about. I highly recommend it.

Not everyone gets to this stage. You don’t get here early in your grief either and it’s okay if you never experience it AND he noticed in his research a lot of people actually do. But the Pro Tip here is the grieving gets to find meaning if they want to in their own grief, others don’t get to ascribe it to us with silly platitudes like, “Everything happens for a reason,” which is BS, but only if others tell you. If you believe it then it’s your meaning making, which you get to do.
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#griefandloss #griefislove #lifeafterloss #griefsupport #livingafterloss #supportlossparents #supportlossmoms #amotherslove #amothersgrief #thisismotherhood #pregnancyloss #babyloss #infantloss #stillbirth #childloss #miscarriage #SIDS #TFMR #bereavedmother #lossmom #infertility

What we say: Sorry I didn't text you back... I've

What we say: Sorry I didn't text you back... I've been busy.

What we wish we could say: Sorry I didn't text you back... I’m just... grieving the loss of my baby, learning how to live in this new sucky normal that I didn’t sign up for, drowning in all the stages of grief at once, furious at my bruised and broken body that failed me and my baby, traumatized by the suddenness and unexpectedness of my baby being gone, and trying to figure out how to tell the world that everything doesn’t happen for a F-ing reason!
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#griefandloss #griefislove #amotherslove #amothersgrief #thisismotherhood #pregnancyloss #babyloss #infantloss #stillbirth #childloss #miscarriage #SIDS #TFMR #bereavedmother #lossmom #infertility #tryingtoconceiveafterloss #pregnancyafterloss #parentingafterloss

Remember the bereaved father this Father’s Day.

Remember the bereaved father this Father’s Day. His heart is aching while his arms are empty. A bereaved dad is still a dad. He is the one who loves, misses, and remembers his deceased child everyday day.
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#fathersday #bereavedfather #bereavedparent #pregnancyloss #griefandloss #griefislove #afatherslove #afathersgrief #babyloss #infantloss #stillbirth #childloss #miscarriage #SIDS #TFMR #lossdad #infertility #tryingtoconceiveafterloss #pregnancyafterloss #parentingafterloss

If I was an ordinary postpartum mom with a baby at

If I was an ordinary postpartum mom with a baby at home, other moms would understand my postpartum struggles. They would get it, being a mom themselves.

But trying to face life after your child’s death: the milk that engorged my breasts for my baby that my body doesn’t know it’s missing, the fat left around my edges and extending my middle that wouldn’t go away even though there was no baby to hold, the ache in my heart keeping me awake at night over not having sleepless nights of nursing a newborn.

The “normie” moms didn’t understand this and clearly, sometimes, weren’t trying to.

Honestly, I didn’t want them to either, because the only way one could comprehend this torment was if their child died too. And I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
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#griefandloss #griefislove #amotherslove #amothersgrief #thisismotherhood #pregnancyloss #babyloss #infantloss #stillbirth #childloss #miscarriage #SIDS #TFMR #bereavedmother #lossmom #postpartum #postpartumafterloss #lifeafterloss #parentingafterloss

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