Birthing an ouroboros

A story of miscarriage

Ouroboros artwork by my friend Nicole Sigrid Stevens

The autumn before I conceived my daughter I had a miscarriage. I still refer to it as one of the most physical painful, spiritual lucid and transformatively raw events of my life.

The baby was a surprise. We didn’t think it would have been possible for us to conceive that month, but we did, and I was aglow with the miracle of it.

Looking back, there were signs it wasn’t meant to be. My nausea faded early. I felt radiantly well. There was a strange sensation of having been on a train and then simply…stepping off. As if I were now just sitting quietly at a station, waiting for what came next.

There were signs— and yet, when I went in for a check up with my midwife at twelve weeks there was no indicator that anything was amiss.

Until I started bleeding a few days later.