The Inner Rhythms Podcast

Episode 50 - My Miscarriage Experience

• Iris Josephina • Episode 50

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🐚Content Warning: This episode contains a detailed discussion of pregnancy loss and miscarriage, which may be triggering for some listeners.


Topics covered

  • My personal experience with pregnancy loss during a pilgrimage in Malta
  • Why I feel pregnancy loss needs to be spoken about more openly in society
  • The emotional aftermath, including identity crisis, grief, and body changes
  • How this experience has transformed my perspective on fertility and motherhood
  • The practical ways I've been supporting myself through the healing process
  • How this experience has informed and deepened my professional work
  • The importance of community support during pregnancy loss


About my experience 

Unlike previous pregnancy losses in my life, this one happened at a time when I was ready and excited to become a mother, with a partner I deeply love and trust. The loss occurred unexpectedly during a pilgrimage I was hosting in Malta, where I first discovered I was bleeding while at an ancient temple.

The experience has transformed me in profound ways, leaving me in what feels like a liminal identity space - no longer who I was before, but not yet the mother I was becoming. I've experienced a complex mix of emotions: grief for the loss, love for the soul that was briefly with me, gratitude for the insights received, fear about future pregnancies, and confusion about who I am now.

I share this story in detail because pregnancy loss is still treated as taboo, leaving many to suffer in isolation. This experience should be honored as a significant rite of passage, deserving of community support and recognition.


Upcoming resources

  • Preconception course for both female and male bodies
  • Masterclass on charting your cycle
  • Masterclass on improving stress resilience
  • Masterclass on maintaining a healthy cycle
  • Masterclass on detoxification processes for hormone health


More about Iris

💬Come say ‘Hi’ on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cycleseeds/

🎓Check out our training

https://www.instagram.com/hormone.cycle.coach.training/ https://cycle-seeds.mykajabi.com/hhcc-20242025


 

[00:00:00] Iris Josephina: You are listening to the podcast of Iris Josephina. If you are passionate about exploring the menstrual cycle, cyclical living, body wisdom, personal growth, spirituality, and running a business in alignment with your natural cycles, you're in the right place. I'm Iris. I'm an entrepreneur, functional hormone specialist, trainer and coach, and I am on a mission to share insights, fun facts, and inspiration I discover along the way as I run my business and walk my own path on earth. Here, you'll hear my personal stories, guest interviews, and vulnerable shares from clients and students. Most people know me from Instagram where you can find me under at cycle seeds, or they have been a coaching client or student in one of my courses.

[00:00:52] Iris Josephina: I'm so grateful you're here. Let's dive into today's episode. 

[00:00:58] Iris Josephina: Hey, friends. Welcome to a new episode of the Inner Rhythms Podcast. This episode is a one very close to my heart, and I want to start off by a trigger warning, because I'll be sharing about my pregnancy loss experience, and I'll be sharing into detail.

[00:01:20] Iris Josephina: So if that's something that you don't wanna hear or you have difficulty hearing, maybe don't listen to this podcast. The reason I am recording this in such detail is for several reasons. One of the reasons is that pregnancy loss and miscarriage are very hushed. They're still in a taboo sphere, even in countries that pretend or claim to be open and modern.

[00:01:50] Iris Josephina: And you know, it's just my experience is that. Many countries and many people have a very taboo relationship with pregnancy loss. And this is exactly the reason why I'm opening up and I'm opening up fully about it because honestly, I'm very sick and tired of the fact that pregnancy loss doesn't have a rightful place in our society.

[00:02:16] Iris Josephina: It's not considered a rightful rite of passage. It is not treated as such, and I personally believe that pregnancy loss is something that everyone should drop everything for because people who experience pregnancy loss are very unsupported in society. And this is another reason why I just want to open up about this and just have my experience out there and have people hear it.

[00:02:51] Iris Josephina: And I'm gonna share my experience in the next few parts of this episode, because I want to, I want to share the rawness of this experience. So I've had miscarriages before years ago. And those were in moments I wasn't ready to be a mother or with men I wasn't supposed to be with. So in these moments, getting my period or starting to bleed was a relief.

[00:03:24] Iris Josephina: This time was very different in a sense that I felt really ready to become a mother. And the person that I'm with is an incredible man, and I just feel. He'd be an incredible dad and I am in my mid thirties. I'm ready. And so this readiness also made that experiencing the loss came as like a triple shock, but then the way in which it happened was very auspicious.

[00:03:57] Iris Josephina: So I already could feel that I was pregnant long before I knew. I was supposed to go on my pilgrimage to that I am that I was organizing. And so I left on my pilgrimage. I shared with my friend Elizabeth, who was the co-host for the pilgrimage that I thought I was pregnant and she already saw it in me.

[00:04:25] Iris Josephina: And you know, I was so incredibly hungry and I ate like a horse. Like I could have so much food. Oh my goodness. So I just knew, I knew I was pregnant and I remember very clearly that I had a conversation with my partner where we were video chatting while I was in Malta, and he actually said to me like, wow, you, your face looks different.

[00:04:52] Iris Josephina: I was like, what do you mean? He was like, you look pregnant, like your face looks different. And it was such a beautiful moment because having the love of your life. Affirming what you already know, and him just sensing and feeling it. It was just so special and so precious, so precious to share this. And that same day, I, I went to a beautiful temple in Malta, and this temple is known as the nerve center to the ancients.

[00:05:32] Iris Josephina: I was doing a meditation there together with my friend and the baby came to me, like it came to me in a vision, came to me in the meditation and it was so precious, so precious to feel the presence of this little creature, this little soul. And that was the moment where I was like, okay, this is real.

[00:05:59] Iris Josephina: This is really real. I feel so different, and I feel so attuned. So with this pregnancy, it just felt like my ire abilities were strengthened so much, and it was all just, it felt so right. Everything felt so right, and it felt so powerful and so attuned and so connected to my intuition. And then a few days later, my pilgrimage started.

[00:06:28] Iris Josephina: And we were meant to go back to this exact temple on the second day or the first full day of the pilgrimage. And so we went, we went to the temple and we had beautiful experiences there. All the women who were on the pilgrimage had incredible experiences there. And then at a certain point I felt like, okay, I need to go.

[00:06:56] Iris Josephina: My mind went into planning because one of the girls was gonna have a birthday the next day, and I wanted to go to the museum shop at the temple to get her a present. So I was in total like arranging mode, but I felt something was different. And so I went to the museum shop, I got the gift, and then I went to the bathroom.

[00:07:20] Iris Josephina: And when I went to the bathroom. I was in complete shock because I had started bleeding just a little bit, but it felt wrong. It didn't feel right, and so I panicked, but I was like, I need to compose myself because I'm holding space for this entire group. Like this is not about me now. So that was my first experience.

[00:07:49] Iris Josephina: And on top of that, obviously I didn't have any. Because I thought I'm pregnant. I had them in the car, but I didn't have them there in that, in that moment. And so I had to like put toilet paper in my underwear. I mean, I, I'm sure that everyone who has a period has had a experience in their life where they were bleeding unexpectedly and didn't have any period product and had to stack their panties with toilet paper.

[00:08:21] Iris Josephina: That's what I had to do. And we were supposed to go to a restaurant after, so that's what we did before we went to the cars. I told my friend, I started bleeding and she knew that I was pregnant. And so we went to the restaurant and I, you know, when I was driving to the restaurant, I already felt like, oh my God, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.

[00:08:47] Iris Josephina: As I was driving, I could feel that I, it was like the flood gates opened with blood and clots, and I was like, this is so wrong. This is not right. This is not right. And then we arrived at the restaurant. And then in the restaurant I had to deal, you know, when everything, I'm sure everyone with a period has gone through this.

[00:09:10] Iris Josephina: You need to go to a public restroom, you need to like, take your pants off because you leak through and then you need to put new underwear on and your pad and just, it's just a whole ordeal. And then this, the, the layered experience of this just made it harder. Like I was supposed to, like hold myself together and not just, you know, break down in front of a group of women I was hosting a retreat for.

[00:09:34] Iris Josephina: And I debated for a long time whether I would say anything or not, and I didn't for the whole day. I did eventually in the evening when we had the sharing circle, and everyone was so sweet and so helpful. But in that moment it was just like, I can't say this right now. Not here, not in a public restaurant like where so many people are sitting and no, it just didn't feel right.

[00:10:00] Iris Josephina: And then. I was like, I need to know whether I was right because I know I was pregnant. I intuitively, physically had felt pregnant, and I don't think this is something that many people do like test after they start bleeding. Most people start testing before they start bleeding, but I wanted to wait to test until I was with my partner, so I didn't.

[00:10:26] Iris Josephina: And so the next day I tested. For those who are curious to know, how you do that when you're already bleeding is you clean yourself up completely and then you put either a cup or a tampon and you make sure that there is no blood at all on your vulva anywhere, and then you pee on the stick. And so I was pregnant.

[00:10:50] Iris Josephina: What happens is, you know, when you are pregnant and then you start bleeding, pregnancy hormones are not gonna be out of your body immediately for the first few days after pregnancy. Especially with a early loss, you can still see the pregnancy hormone on a test being there. So I did that and it was positive, so I knew I was right and that give like a, gave like a lot of confirmation and.

[00:11:20] Iris Josephina: Relief too, that it was like I had felt it correctly. My partner had seen it correctly. We were right, but it was hard. It was very hard. And you know, I had to host an entire retreat while going through this. And not to say that it wasn't possible, it was possible because the pace of this pilgrimage was very slow.

[00:11:47] Iris Josephina: The women who. Have come and chosen to be there. Were all incredible. We had a chef that was cooking for us like three times per day, so I was very well fed, very nourished. I have community around me, so eventually I found it to be a blessing to be surrounded by women and surrounded by good food. Moving through this, but obviously nevertheless, it was hard.

[00:12:19] Iris Josephina: I didn't prepare for the hardest part. The hardest part for me was coming home after the retreat, having to cook my own food, having no one in the house when I got home. And it was really hard. It was really hard, and I went to this entire crisis with everything. I felt imposter syndrome. I wanted to quit all my work because how could this happen to me when I was doing everything right and I was a hormone coach and I was specialized in fertility and I really felt like I was betraying myself and everything that I was putting out into the world felt like a fraud and I really had to like unravel.

[00:13:08] Iris Josephina: All of that and come to the conclusion that this only enriches my experience and this only adds to my ability to do my work. And then it came also with a lot of loneliness because it's such a powerful experience that, like I said, it feels like it should be held by a whole community. And that's what I felt when it happened, and that's why I felt pretty okay.

[00:13:37] Iris Josephina: It really feels like something everyone should drop everything for, but this is far from what actually happens for a lot of people and I got to experience that part, the zero support part when I got back home and was alone and that was really fucking hard. I know, you know, a lot of people go through this in this way and it's, it's heartbreaking.

[00:14:03] Iris Josephina: This is not something we should be experiencing on our own at all. And another thing that I felt was a complete identity crisis, I feel forever changed by this experience because like I said, it was the first time I truly welcomed a baby and I was okay with becoming a mother, like fully okay, fully ready for the whole process.

[00:14:27] Iris Josephina: Now I feel like I'm not the person that I was, but I'm also not yet the person I was becoming when I was pregnant. And I feel like I'm in this liminal identity space. A space of, sorry, my kitchen devices are making sound. I feel like I'm in a liminal identity space, a space of becoming and unbecoming all at once.

[00:14:52] Iris Josephina: And it's hard because I don't really know who I am anymore. And I need to rediscover myself in many ways. It feels, and then there was also the rediscovering of my body. Things changed. I feel different in my body. My body also looks different. The fullness of my breasts has stayed. It's still there. Like my breasts are bigger and it feels odd because the purpose of them being bigger is not there anymore.

[00:15:22] Iris Josephina: I feel I really need to learn how to be in this body again. And then there is grief, there's love, there is possibility, and all of these feelings coexist and I feel this immense grief for the loss. And then at the same time, there is an immense love that I feel for this soul that was with me for just a brief while, but that love is nowhere to go right now.

[00:15:48] Iris Josephina: Then at the same time, I feel this immense power for what my body is capable of and capable of doing, and capable of holding. And then I also feel unearth shaking, fear for it happening again in the future. Like even though I rationally understand that some souls just stay briefly, the trauma of the loss and the shock, it lingers.

[00:16:13] Iris Josephina: And I innately do not wish for it to happen again. And you know, when, when the womb is really ready to carry life, full term loss just comes as a shock. And I know it will take a while for me to, to trust my body again. And then there is also feelings of confusion. I don't really feel like I'm the same person, but other people still see me as the same person and I want to be the same person for them.

[00:16:40] Iris Josephina: But then I also know that like someone impossible, it's somehow confusing to relate to other people while feeling so different after the immense transformation that is pregnancy loss. And then simultaneously with all of that, I feel immense gratitude. I feel like this little soul was here only briefly, but the messages and the teachings and the downloads that I got when they were in my belly are unlike anything I have ever experienced.

[00:17:11] Iris Josephina: And I really feel like this pregnancy opened my Oracular portals more than anything, and I don't really know yet what to do with that. I'm unsure. I'm just allowing it to be there, and I hope it'll be clear at some point. And I just wanna say, you know, if you're, if you're moving through this, please know that you're not alone.

[00:17:33] Iris Josephina: So many of us are on this journey with you and are feeling what you are feeling, and we're truly in this together, even though our society is not fit to support in the ways that we maybe need. I do feel and find. So less in the fact that I am really not alone. There are so many women with me who experience this right now.

[00:18:04] Iris Josephina: And then I want to share a few things. Okay, let me do that again, and then I'm sure that people are wondering how I'm supporting myself and what I'm doing. I am going to share what I'm doing from my personal experience. I'm not sharing this as a professional. Obviously, I'm using my professional knowledge to support myself, but this is not like a scientific medical list on what to do.

[00:18:41] Iris Josephina: I have followed my intuition more than my rational mind in this whole process. And I feel it helped me more and better than, you know, having a step-by-step protocol on what to do. So one thing that has tremendously helped me is laying flat on the earth with my belly down, just laying down, breathing, and doing nothing at all except for that, and having the feeling that I'm held by a great mother.

[00:19:14] Iris Josephina: I have also spent a lot of time connecting and sharing with my partner as much as possible and taking him with me in the experience, and also sharing it in great detail with him, and then listening to what arises for him as well, and, and feel that we both can be seen in this experience because men are completely left out of the equation here.

[00:19:41] Iris Josephina: He had such an emotional process with this as well, and I feel that we don't talk about this enough. So I have asked him whether he would be open to come and share on the podcast with me, and he's open to that. I just don't know when, when we both will feel ready to do that, but I'm very dedicated to record that episode because I feel the male perspective.

[00:20:09] Iris Josephina: Is barely ever shared at all, and you feel that's important to do. And then another thing that I've tried to do is to eat three times per day and, and focusing on protein and fat and keeping it as simple and plain as possible. Another thing that that helped me a lot was driving my car to an area where there are no people, and then just screaming my lungs out in a car.

[00:20:38] Iris Josephina: Very helpful. Highly recommend to anyone going through something and then dancing. Dancing in the house. I haven't gone out to dance. I don't want people to witness me in my dance. That's not my goal, but I had to dance to connect to my body. And then with that, there are two other types of movement that I've been focusing on.

[00:21:03] Iris Josephina: One of them is reformer Pilates. I love it because it really helps me to get back to my body. And my teacher is also a physical therapist, specialized in the pelvis, so I really trust his judgment and his knowledge. So that's been more helpful than going to the gym because I. Don't think, and this is not to talk badly about anyone teaching at the gym, but my experience is that not many people at the gym have knowledge on muscular tension after pregnancy, pelvic health after pregnancy.

[00:21:44] Iris Josephina: So this is what I've been doing. And then walking, walking, walking, walking a lot. Walking seems to be the best way for me to process things. Right now I go out in nature. I don't put headphones, but I listen to the birds and natural sounds and there is something about the forward movement of walking and then thinking that helps me process.

[00:22:10] Iris Josephina: And I actually have a friend who. I speak to quite regularly and she says Yes. The forward movement and processing really does something to our brains and it's very helpful to, to use the forward movement to process. And then I've been drinking a lot of water, a lot of coconut water, and a lot of herbal teas, and I really aim for two to two and a half liters or more per day because somehow this also always helps me process like drinking.

[00:22:42] Iris Josephina: Water, coconut water, and herbal teas. It. I cannot explain how it works in the body, but for me, I always drink more when I'm processing. And then maybe something surprising that people don't expect of me that I've been doing is eating a lot of quote unquote bad comfort foods. Of course, I take a glass of apple cider vinegar before I eat bad stuff, like one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and water.

[00:23:10] Iris Josephina: But my go-to for a long time, I think I've eaten this for two weeks straight, was frozen pizza from the supermarket and Snickers ice cream, and I gave into it fully, fully. And I'm unashamed that I did that. It helped me in the moment, and after that it was over and I'm back to my normal routines and making healthy food again.

[00:23:36] Iris Josephina: But in the moment, that was what I needed. I have no shame about that, and I just did it and it helped me. And then I also try to drink bone broth every single day and making sure that I make enough so my freezer is full of broth, so I try to make broth every single week so that I make sure it's there and I can just drink it every single day.

[00:24:04] Iris Josephina: And then I've, I've spent a lot of time writing. I, I don't like writing with pens and I don't like writing on the computer when I process something. And my partner a while ago, he gave me like a feather pen with like liquid ink, and I've written with this feather pen. In a beautiful journal, the entire story, and it's been really helpful for my processing because I really like beautiful things and there is something about writing with a feather pen, maybe it's also like some sort of forward movement, like with the walking, but it does something.

[00:24:45] Iris Josephina: It did something to my brain and I'm grateful that I had that option and trying. Crying my ass out and letting tears come in any moment they want to come. Regardless of where I am in that moment, whether it's a Stu supermarket or on the street or in my house or with another person, I didn't care. I just let my tears come as they wanted to come.

[00:25:12] Iris Josephina: And sometimes they still come. And that's, that's what I still do and it helps. And then another thing that I had to do, because. My way of, of connecting with people dear to me, especially after I got back home, was via my phone because my family is, not here. I live far away from my family. I live far away from most of my friends.

[00:25:38] Iris Josephina: I'm in a long distance relationship, so I. I really had to say to my friends and my family, like, I don't know how long it will take me to respond to messages. And I had to ignore Messenger apps as long and much as possible because it would frustrate me, it would make me cry, it would make me feel uncomfortable.

[00:26:01] Iris Josephina: It would make me feel that I was behind with stuff and I, I was just like, you know what? I just can't do this. I just don't wanna be on. Messenger apps right now, and that was really helpful. And I also spend a lot of time reading, so I have a Kindle, which I absolutely love, and I spend a lot of long moments to read my favorite fiction books.

[00:26:30] Iris Josephina: And I noticed that being in someone else's story really helps me unwind and help my system to calm down. I've also watched some shows on Netflix. I am very hooked to a series called Love Blind, and I've watched every single version of every single country that is out there. And yeah, that's the show.

[00:26:57] Iris Josephina: That was the show that just helped me process while I was eating my pizza and eating my Snickers ice cream. And it helped. And then at a certain point I was like, okay, fuck this. I'm not, I don't wanna do this anymore. I don't wanna watch this anymore. And that was really the moment that I realized like, okay, I am ready to like move forward a little bit more.

[00:27:20] Iris Josephina: I. And then there's a few other things that I practically have done that I found helpful. So I did magnesium food baths. I, I actually wanted to take like full on baths in a bathtub, but I don't have a bathtub, so I had to do magnesium food baths. And then I did yoni steams and I'm taking some supplements.

[00:27:45] Iris Josephina: So I've been taking a prenatal, an Omega-3. Dried organ supplements, specifically liver. I have taken some cellular support, so NAD and ubiquinol, and then I've also been taking saffron to support my brain. saffron is very much not recommended when you are pregnant, that I've felt I really needed some brain and serotonin support.

[00:28:13] Iris Josephina: So that's what I've been taking. And yeah, sharing with family and friends as much as I wanted and was capable of for some people, you know, it took me a longer while to get in touch with them. Some people also very much didn't know that I went through pregnancy loss for a long time, but you know, I had to think about myself and.

[00:28:41] Iris Josephina: What I needed, and I finally feel that I'm seeing the light again. Because for a long while after it all happened, I thought, you know what? Maybe I'm not supposed to be a mom. This feels so wrong to experience. Maybe I'm just not meant to be mom. And I literally also told my partner after it all happened, like I.

[00:29:07] Iris Josephina: I don't wanna, I can't do this anymore. I don't wanna do this anymore. Which I think is a very normal response. But it's also scary, obviously, especially for a partner to to hear that, especially when they really also want to have children. But that mindset kind of like faded, and I think it's like a protection mechanism, like a biological protection mechanism that as soon as a miscarriage or a pregnancy loss happens.

[00:29:38] Iris Josephina: The body goes like, we're not doing this again anytime soon. Just to give you, you know, a moment to recalibrate and to strengthen the body again, like generally speaking, they say like, I don't try for another pregnancy for three months or so after going through miscarriage or pregnancy loss. And you know, honestly, I feel maybe I need to take four or five or even six months.

[00:30:05] Iris Josephina: I don't know. I don't know yet. We'll see how it goes, but one thing that I do know is that this experience has changed me forever. It has marked me in ways that I haven't been marked before, and it also humbles me for accepting the mystery of life for not wanting to control. The outcome of situations so much, especially when they have to do with the body and just very deeply, deeply trust.

[00:30:44] Iris Josephina: And at the same time, it also has created so much closeness between my partner and I and how we look at this whole experience and how we look at the future and the proactive things that we are doing, like practically so. Yeah, I feel this experience enriched me. It also made me better at my work. I can see that now where I couldn't see that earlier and it even inspired me to, sorry, you can take that out.

[00:31:23] Iris Josephina: That was a scooter and it even inspired me to put out a fertility course that I am. You know, planning to bring out, I have had this, this course for a long time, just laying around, but it just never felt right for me to put that out because somehow I felt I didn't have enough experience with all aspects of fertility, and now I feel like I do.

[00:31:55] Iris Josephina: So I'm going to put out a preconception course that focuses on. How to prepare for conception, both for female and male bodies, and also offer community classes for people to share their story and focus on the full spectrum. Because getting pregnant is one thing. Staying pregnant is another thing, and I feel like I now have.

[00:32:29] Iris Josephina: More tools to compassionately finalize this course and offer it to the world, to anyone who needs it. And so that's what I'm gonna do now, focusing my work on this. And I also have created some master classes that I'm gonna put out. So there's a masterclass coming on, charting your cycle, which is a very important aspect of fertility.

[00:32:58] Iris Josephina: I have a masterclass on improving stress resilience, and I have one on a healthy cycle, and I have one on detoxification processes in the body, which are very important for hormone health. So all of that is coming and I cannot wait to share all of that with you. And I also want to say. Like, thank you for, for receiving my story, for listening all the way until the end of this episode, and I'm very open to hear from you.

[00:33:32] Iris Josephina: So you can always send me a DM on Instagram to share how this episode landed for you. You can also respond here in the Spotify part of the podcast if you're listening on Spotify. And you can also email me at info@cycleseeds.com. If there's just anything that you feel like sharing, because I know this steers up some feelings, especially if you have experienced something similar.

[00:34:01] Iris Josephina: So thank you so much for listening, for receiving. I'll see you in the next episode. Okay. This wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Want to know more about me? The best way to reach me is via At Cycles Seeds on Instagram. And if you heard something today and you think, oh my God, wow, I learned something new.

[00:34:24] Iris Josephina: Feel free to share the podcast on your social media and tag me or leave a review of rating. In this way, you help me reach more people like you. Thank you so much. I.