Posts tagged Motherhood After Loss
104 | Choosing Joy - Dadriaunna Hayes

Dae joined us to share her beautifully intertwined birth stories of loss and joy reclaimed. She experienced the unexpected loss of her first child during the early part of her third trimester. She began a healing journey that included therapy, where she started journaling. The process proved therapeutic and taught her how to make space for herself and rebuild her trust in God.

Dae worked through the waves of grief and discovered she was pregnant again; this time, it was during a pandemic. She gathered her team, created an active morning routine, and simply chose to enjoy the pregnancy. They planned for a birth at home and put in the work to make it happen by hiring a midwife and doula. After managing through over 20 hours of labor, they decided to transition to the hospital. She continued to labor without progressing and found herself at peace at how birth would unfold and welcomed her son via surgical birth.

Dae has adopted a belief of motherhood as a joyous experience. She has developed a community online that has centered the scripture referencing beauty for ashes. She is now holding space for women who have experienced some form of loss and want to exchange that grief for a new experience of joy and beauty.

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76 | A Journey Towards Healing: Motherhood After Loss - Alishia Anderson

This is a story about loss - In memory of Derek Jerrell Anderson Jr., aka DJ

Alishia Anderson shares that motherhood has stretched her in ways she didn't even know she could be stretched. That the lessons she has taken from her journey are that "motherhood is very unpredictable, and having living children is an underrated blessing!"

Her motherhood journey was turned upside down as within her first pregnancy at 28 weeks, during a routine ultrasound appointment, they discovered her son no longer had a heartbeat. Needing time to process, Alishia and her husband decided to move forward with induction for the next day. That evening they prepared to meet their son, researching what it meant to lose a baby this early, the name for their experience, and trying to gain some sense of what to expect. After three days of labor, she gave birth to her angel baby Derrek Jerrell Anderson Jr., aka DJ. The groundwork that a supportive nurse provided in helping her understand the reality of what postpartum would look like as a stillbirth survivor was something Alishia found to be fundamental in finding healing and also navigating becoming a parent again.

A year later, Alisha and her husband would add their rainbow baby Grayson to their family and their golden baby Gavin two and a half years after that. And each story bringing its twists and turns but embracing everything within them.

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