Processing Miscarriage Through Art

CW: miscarriage, blood, body image, grief

The second pink line was barely there, but that didn’t matter. I was pregnant! I rushed to tell my partner, who insisted on reading the directions for the pregnancy test because he refused to believe that the strength of the line wasn’t as important as the line being there. But it was, and I was overjoyed that the stress of trying to conceive was coming to an end.

But two days following the positive test, I began bleeding. I knew in my gut that this was the pregnancy coming to an end, but I didn’t want to accept that our hopes had been dashed so quickly. I clutched a heating pad and cried, hoping that it would stop, but it became clear fairly quickly that this was a miscarriage.

My body and I have had our ups and downs over the years, but this felt like the ultimate betrayal. Wasn’t my body supposed to be able to do this thing? How could it let go of something I wanted so much?

I tried my best to move forward, but there was a grief there that I hadn’t expected. Although I had shared my experience with a handful of people, I kept the information to myself for the most part. But here’s the thing about grief: it finds a way to make itself known.

I had just begun a training in Expressive Arts Therapy at the Prairie Institute for Expressive Arts, run by Carmen Richardson. The first weekend of the training, Carmen walked us through a guided imagery exercise in which we found our “muse,” and then were invited to create a small effigy out of craft materials.

As often happens to me, the thing I set out to create was not what I ended up creating. Instead of a powerful, fiery, Beyoncé-like queen, I found myself tenderly building an earthy “bundle.” As the exercise continued, this concept of my muse as my “bundle” solidified, and was validated by others, even though they didn’t understand the significance for me.

As the months went on, my bundle sat on a bookshelf in our home where I could see her every day. Eventually those two pink lines appeared again, and this time it was sticking. As we planned for the birth, I knew that I wanted the bundle to be there. We set her up on a small table in the labour room, and explained what she was to anyone who asked. In this way, she was witness to the birth of my daughter.

The bundle when I took her to the woods for the first time.

As my daughter grew and changed, the bundle on my bookshelf stayed the same. Sometimes I’d find myself looking at her and thinking, “She’s not home anymore.” But where is home when you’re a bundle?

The woods.

I had been spending a lot of time outside during my mat leave- with the pandemic, there wasn’t much else to do! But I have always found woodlands and forests to be where I feel the most peace, and I thought the bundle would feel the same.
I took her to the woods twice, and took her home twice. The idea of leaving her outside unprotected, where she could be battered by the elements or taken home by someone else, was too much for me. I knew she needed to be there, but I couldn’t figure out how to get around this problem, so I sought support from an Elder that I am very close to.

My daughter and I holding the bundle before we buried her.

The Elder smudged for me (she had done the same during my labour) and gave me advice on how to bury the bundle. Then my daughter, the bundle, and I set out for the woods.

As we walked down the path, I sang to both of my girls. We found the right tree to protect the bundle, and buried her among the roots. As she had witnessed the birth of my daughter, my daughter was witness to her burial.

The moment we stepped into the sunshine, I knew that the bundle was safe with the tree we had chosen.

And while I still feel some sadness about the child that might have been, I feel peace more.