In a world where discussions about loss are often shrouded in silence, there's a particular kind of grief that remains even more hidden—termination for medical reasons (TFMR).
Today on Grieving Voices, I had the honor of speaking with Sabrina Fletcher, a compassionate pregnancy loss doula who brings solace to parents facing the heart-wrenching decision of terminating a wanted pregnancy for medical reasons. Sabrina bravely shared her personal journey and how she's turned her pain into purpose by supporting others through similar grief.
Key Points Discussed:
TFMR is often shrouded in silence and taboo, but it's more common than many realize. Sabrina advocates for open conversation and emotional support that upholds the dignity of those making these tough choices out of deep love for their children.
Our discussion also highlighted how even young children experience loss deeply and need acknowledgment in their grieving process—a powerful reminder not to underestimate our little ones' emotional worlds.
Sabrina emphasizes breaking generational patterns by openly discussing grief rather than suppressing feelings – an approach shaped in contrast to what she experienced growing up, where losses were dealt with privately behind closed doors.
Remember: Transforming your grief doesn't require grand gestures; small steps are just as significant.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
_______
NEED HELP?
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
This episode is sponsored by Do Grief Differently™️, my twelve-week, one-on-one, in-person/online program for grievers who have suffered any type of loss to feel better. Click here to learn new tools, grief education, and the only evidence-based method for moving beyond the pain of grief.
Would you like to join the mission of Grieving Voices in normalizing grief and supporting hurting hearts everywhere? Become a supporter of the show HERE.
In a world where discussions about loss are often shrouded in silence, there's a particular kind of grief that remains even more hidden—termination for medical reasons (TFMR).
Today on Grieving Voices, I had the honor of speaking with Sabrina Fletcher, a compassionate pregnancy loss doula who brings solace to parents facing the heart-wrenching decision of terminating a wanted pregnancy for medical reasons. Sabrina bravely shared her personal journey and how she's turned her pain into purpose by supporting others through similar grief.
Key Points Discussed:
TFMR is often shrouded in silence and taboo, but it's more common than many realize. Sabrina advocates for open conversation and emotional support that upholds the dignity of those making these tough choices out of deep love for their children.
Our discussion also highlighted how even young children experience loss deeply and need acknowledgment in their grieving process—a powerful reminder not to underestimate our little ones' emotional worlds.
Sabrina emphasizes breaking generational patterns by openly discussing grief rather than suppressing feelings – an approach shaped in contrast to what she experienced growing up, where losses were dealt with privately behind closed doors.
Remember: Transforming your grief doesn't require grand gestures; small steps are just as significant.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
_______
NEED HELP?
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
This episode is sponsored by Do Grief Differently™️, my twelve-week, one-on-one, in-person/online program for grievers who have suffered any type of loss to feel better. Click here to learn new tools, grief education, and the only evidence-based method for moving beyond the pain of grief.
Would you like to join the mission of Grieving Voices in normalizing grief and supporting hurting hearts everywhere? Become a supporter of the show HERE.
Victoria Volk
00:00:00 - 00:00:32
Thank you for tuning to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria V. And today my guest is Sabrina Fletcher. She guides bereaved parents through the heartbreak of losing a wanted pregnancy to a termination for medical reasons or also known as TFMR with groups 1 on 1 and workshops. As a pregnancy loss doula who's been there herself, She companions people as they find the light in their stories and self-expression and the deep love they carry for their babies.
Victoria Volk
00:00:32 - 00:01:25
Thank you so much for being open enough to share about this on my podcast today. I was excited to hear about this because I, you know, you even said that it's, 3 times more common than stillbirth,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:00:40 - 00:00:40
uh-hummm..
Victoria Volk
00:00:40 - 00:01:18
which was a surprising statistic to me because, I mean, I'd heard that yes, people can, you know, terminate a pregnancy because of medical reasons, but I didn't realize there was like, an acronym for it
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:18 - 00:01:19
You're right.
Victoria Volk
00:01:19 - 00:01:21
there was an underbelly or undercurrent of, like, taboo or, you know
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:21 - 00:01:21
Mmm..
Victoria Volk
00:01:21 - 00:01:23
about it and this yeah. That so I'm I think it's a loss that is not talked about, like you said, very much.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:23 - 00:01:23
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:01:23 - 00:01:25
I haven't heard it on I don't listen to a ton of other grief podcasts just because I kinda wanna stay in my own lane. But
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:25 - 00:01:25
Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:01:25 - 00:01:42
I'm excited to share this with my listeners broaden our perspective of grief and, talk about it. So thank you so much for being open to sharing your journey, which brings us to 2018. And do you mind starting there?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:43 - 00:02:05
Sure. Thank you so much, Victoria. And thank you for having me on to talk about this piece of pregnancy loss that is silenced and shamed. And in some spaces, it's becoming a little bit more openly spoken about, and I think that as more people speak about it, more people understand. Oh, okay.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:02:05 - 00:02:16
Yes. This is another type of pregnancy loss. That is what if they went through it themselves. That is what I really experienced. And like you said, I went through it myself in 2018.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:02:16 - 00:02:53
It was early 2018 and we had a bad ultrasound result where we could see and the doctor was showing us the different abnormalities and what was wrong with our baby. And one of the conditions there were various things that were showing up. One of the conditions was swelling in the head and the chest and the back of the neck. And since it was pretty much all over the body and the torso, he was calling it hydrops. So that's just the name for fetal swelling.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:02:55 - 00:03:32
And that along with other things, you know, we went home and I was researching, and I also found out and he told me at that ultrasound. He said you know, if you decide to continue the pregnancy, this is now a high-risk pregnancy, but I didn't really know the extent of that. I found out that high drops can cause similar swelling in the pregnant person and they call it mirror syndrome. So it could have caused harm to my organs as well. It's just very devastating because this was a wanted baby.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:03:32 - 00:03:49
I took this whole fertility course. I was tracking my cycles. I knew my ovulation date. We wanted her in our family, but then when we found out she was sick and also the condition that she was carrying could have harmed my health. We did decide to terminate the pregnancy.
Victoria Volk
00:03:51 - 00:03:56
And you had another child. You have already had one child. Correct? Or did I read that?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:03:56 - 00:04:02
Yeah. That's right. That's right. So my oldest daughter was 4 years old at the time.
Victoria Volk
00:04:03 - 00:04:14
And so just a matter of, I mean, trying to put this in perspective for people listening, you still have to function on the day-to-day and care for a 4-year-old.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:15 - 00:04:15
Yeah. Function.
Victoria Volk
00:04:16 - 00:04:18
Right? After receiving this news.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:18 - 00:04:18
Mmm..
Victoria Volk
00:04:18 - 00:04:28
And how did you like? How do you what did those early days and weeks looked like? And then how long did it take you to come? Like, how long did you give yourself to
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:29 - 00:04:30
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:04:30 - 00:04:35
come to that decision? And was your husband also on board right off the right out of the gate too?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:35 - 00:04:35
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:04:36 - 00:04:40
Because you were maybe sometimes that could be a conflict for some relationships.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:41 - 00:05:35
Oh, yeah. I mean, it wasn't an easy decision. I mean, it ended up being clear after we did enough research and talked to the doctors and I was looking at different medical journals and all the research that I could get my hands on that wasn't behind a paywall, you know, because I'm not a medical researcher myself. I don't I don't have all of those subscriptions. So what what I could find and what I could see, and also finding other people's stories online, it led me to see that this is also a compassionate choice to decide to induce early really, and help her pass peacefully instead of coming to term, going to term, or possibly not even making it that far and would she die in utero, or would we have to have some crazy it's not even a c section.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:05:35 - 00:06:09
It's called a exit strategy where they, like, take everything out all at once. And, you know, it's very hard on both the baby and the and the pregnant person and and she was already sick. So, you know, could she get through that kind of medical trauma to even then be, you know, with all the tubes and all the life support and everything, and then how long or you know, or would I hold her in my arms as she died? You know, there there's really no right way to go about it because there are people in my community. I went on to become a pregnancy loss doula.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:06:10 - 00:06:39
I've always wanted to be a doula. But then when this happened to me, I realized, oh, this is the place in birth that I really want to focus on. I really want to support people who are going through this. And some of those families in one pregnancy, like, maybe they carried some sort of genetic something, disposition or disorder, whatever you would like to call it. And maybe some of their children do carry it or maybe they do bring some pregnancies to term and, you know, their babies die in their arms.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:06:39 - 00:07:06
And then in another pregnancy, they decide to terminate. There's really there's no there's no right there's no right way. It's just whatever feels best for you and your family in that moment. And that's how we made our decision. We just felt like that was the best for this baby, for my body, and the fact that we already had a living daughter that we were also taking care of.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:07:06 - 00:07:17
And there's also another grief story in our family. My husband lost his mom when he was about 6 years old. And so he was like, woah. No. No.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:07:17 - 00:07:32
We cannot lose you. You have to be here for our older daughter. So that really became a big part of the decision as well. It wasn't overnight. You know, it took us a few days, but we were also up against a crunch.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:07:32 - 00:08:00
So, with the restrictive laws to have an abortion, no questions asked, we had a week. So we didn't really have that much time to decide. So we had to make this decision very quickly. I do feel like there are pieces of my decision that were taken from me. I wasn't really given all of there wasn't enough time to get all the information that I would have liked to get.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:08:01 - 00:08:19
You know, I would have liked to have an amniocentesis, but we were only 13 weeks along at that point. And you have to wait till 16, 18 weeks. And, I did ask the doctor, you know, when he was telling us all the bad news about an amniocentesis. It could have came back clear too. So that's the thing.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:08:19 - 00:08:35
Like, we were already seeing how sick she was. But you know, it is good to know all of the medical information before making, you know, a drastic medical decision like this. So it's really very very awful.
Victoria Volk
00:08:36 - 00:08:40
I'm just thinking about like someone who's having to go through this and make this decision or decides to make this decision. And yet, you know when you often think about when we hear the word abortion, right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:08:40 - 00:08:40
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:08:41 - 00:09:10
we hear the child does not they don't want the child. Right? It's for whatever reason, whatever the circumstances, like they choose that they're, they're not, it's not a good time for them for whatever reason. We don't think that someone who's sitting in the waiting room is there because they really want the baby
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:10 - 00:09:10
Uhumm..
Victoria Volk
00:09:10 - 00:09:12
and there's a medical reason why they're there or, you know,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:12 - 00:09:12
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:09:12 - 00:09:13
a circumstance like yourself.
Victoria Volk
00:09:13 - 00:09:25
And I think that's a really miscarriage. That's a miscarriage of grief. And it also is for the person who is choosing that for themselves, because I mean like it or not, there is going to be grief there involved.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:25 - 00:09:25
Uhumm..
Victoria Volk
00:09:2 - 00:09:40
You know? Even if it's not, you know, felt the full weight of it in the moment, even years later, I have no doubts that there are women that experienced grief for many years later.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:40 - 00:10:05
Mhmm. But Yeah. I definitely agree. And after going through this experience myself and having an abortion for reasons that were just so filled with love and compassion, And I never been through what I guess we could call a a lifestyle abortion but I kind of had those misconceptions too. It's like, oh, it just means they just they don't want this baby.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:05 - 00:10:23
Like, this isn't a wanted baby. But I realized, I think all of those decisions are made with the greatest amount of love and respect as well. It's like, I don't want this life for this child. There's still so much love in that decision. Or like, I can't do this to a child right now.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:23 - 00:10:38
Like, that's so much love. So, so much love. And, yes, you're right. Of course, there will be grief there. Many people do experience grief with these decisions, whether it's for medical reasons, whether it's for lifestyle reasons.
Victoria Volk
00:10:39 - 00:10:51
What do you wish would have been different about that experience and what do you think needs to change in how women are supported
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:48 - 00:10:48
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:10:49 - 00:10:51
In the medical setting in particular.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:51 - 00:11:19
Yeah. Yeah. So there are some people who I like to look to England. They have a pretty good system set up when it's going to be an abortion for medical reasons, for fetal anomaly, or the pregnant person's health, they're earmarked in a certain direction, and they end up going with bereavement midwives. So these are midwives who are grief-informed, hopefully, trauma informed.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:11:20 - 00:11:59
They, you know, they see the family. They see the baby as a baby. They see it as palliative hospice care, which it really is. It's it's end-of-life care for that baby and for or to help the the mother or the pregnant person, you know not die. And they help people to get footprints or like, make a scrapbook or you know, they'll bring in a chaplain or they'll help you with the funeral arrangements.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:12:00 - 00:12:18
You know, it's a it's a death of a family member. And I think it's that piece that was missing in my experience. Because of the laws, I ended up going to an abortion clinic, which put me in the box of lifestyle abortion. My husband was there with me, and we had so many tears and we asked for a private room. They said, oh, no.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:12:18 - 00:12:39
We don't do that thing. We were asking for these things that other people get in some places. And in some hospitals worldwide, they will do this sort of bereavement care where they have a special room that's on another floor, so you don't hear the laboring women and then babies crying. We didn't have that. We didn't have a special extra room.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:12:39 - 00:13:03
We didn't have a bereavement midwife. We didn't have someone informed in grief. We didn't have anyone saying, I'm sorry for your loss. They're really very simple, compassionate things that I wish I would have had. The doctor who helped us, did understand our whole situation, and he did say, I'm, you know, I'm so sorry for your loss.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:13:03 - 00:13:37
So that meant so much. You know? It's just those few words, like really seeing us as bereaved parents. And I asked for footprints and he was able to get them. So some pieces of my story do have some respect and honor and reverence in it, but a lot of it I mean, the counselor that they had on hand, I kept talking about grief and, like, asking for grief resources, and she was like, I don't really know.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:13:40 - 00:13:59
And I thought, oh, you know, I thought, like, I can't be the only one who's coming here because their baby is sick and they're grieving and they're having to end a wanted pregnancy. But I guess maybe I was or I don't know. So those are the things that I wish would have been different in my story.
Victoria Volk
00:13:59 - 00:14:00
Well, you know now that you weren't because it's more common than
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:00 - 00:14:00
Yes
Victoria Volk
00:14:01 - 00:14:06
3 times more common than stillbirth and
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:06 - 00:14:08
Amazing.
Speaker 1
00:14:08 - 00:14:13
And I'm sure do you have a statistic, like a more recent recent statistic as far as how common this is overall?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:15 - 00:14:35
Oh, that's that's the most recent one. So that's some research that came out of Europe, I think, combined with England because they do earmark these cases. They do have, like, specific categories. So they're they are able to see, okay, this termination is a early induction. This termination is a pregnancy loss.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:37 - 00:15:00
And that research, yeah, came out of Europe a a few years ago. And they found that with the numbers that they have in Europe and England, these countries combined, the number of stillbirths are so many, and then the number of TFMR pregnancy loss, are 3 times as many as that number.
Victoria Volk
00:15:01 - 00:15:12
Do you know of any places in the United States that are implementing some sort of like what you just described for women going through this?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:15:13 - 00:15:40
Yes. Some of the better stories that I hear are coming out of some places in the US. I've heard some really good stories out of Washington DC and then other big hospitals across the nation. But they're the bigger the bigger hospitals maybe who see more of these cases, and I think it's really prior patients like me
Victoria Volk
00:15:41 - 00:15:41
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:15:41 - 00:15:46
Writing in or calling in or speaking up after and saying, why didn't this happen?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:15:46 - 00:15:55
Or I read this story, and they got this kind of care. And why didn't we have that? And I really believe that that's why they get better care now.
Victoria Volk
00:15:56 - 00:16:20
There's an organization called death with dignity, dying with dignity, 1 or the other. And, but their whole goal is to push legislation across the country in the United States for basically to die with for people to have the ability to die with dignity. And there's a whole lot of things that go into that. But, I can see something like that being applied in this manner
Sabrina Fletcher
00:16:20 - 00:16:20
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:16:21 - 00:16:40
for the situation, like for legislation to be put into place that requires hospitals and medical care staff and maybe even perhaps, you know, and I think it's almost gonna take 1 like, lone ranger to blaze the trail and create some sort of independent facility. And then you know how it can kind of snowball from there
Sabrina Fletcher
00:16:41 - 00:16:41
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:16:42 - 00:16:59
where women feel, more supported in that decision with all the things that you said that you wish would have been there for you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:00 - 00:17:00
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:17:00 - 00:17:20
And on that note, I mean, grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations, and anything that we wish would have been different, better, or more. And so how did you and your husband together and independently kind of work through that loss? And your daughter. I mean
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:21 - 00:17:22
Mmm. My daughter.
Victoria Volk
00:17:22 - 00:17:24
Or she had an awareness of you know, by the age of 3, we've already learned how to respond to most of life
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:25 - 00:17:25
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:17:25 - 00:17:26
already by 3.
Victoria Volk
00:17:26 - 00:17:28
So can you speak to that a little bit?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:29 - 00:18:08
So as a family and her my husband, and myself, we all went on our unique grief journeys. Some of it was together. We had a memorial service for her, and my daughter was there. I wanted her to take part. I wanted there to be, you know, some sort of symbolic recognition that, yes, a family member died in our family and, you know, this was your sibling and it's okay to talk about it.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:18:08 - 00:18:19
It's okay to bring it up. It's okay to cry. It's okay to make art about it. It's okay to you know, like, she would draw. I don't even know where this came from.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:18:19 - 00:18:39
Like, instinctively, she made these, like, stone funeral Karnes. I think that's how you say it, where they, like, make these stone mounds, but they're and her so my husband's father died 2 weeks before our baby did
Victoria Volk
00:18:39 - 00:18:40
Oh, wow.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:18:40 - 00:19:01
As well. So there was there was a lot of grief and death awareness happening for her that month and in the months to follow. So I remember she said, this is for a. This is for grandfather. And she had made this stone, corn.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:01 - 00:19:25
And then she said, and this is for my sister. This is for Clara. And she had made kind of a smaller stone and brick structure. And she had placed them like right in front of both sides of our front door.
Victoria Volk
00:19:25 - 00:19:25
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:26 - 00:19:28
My husband, I saw him really throw himself into work, so he chose the, like stay busy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:28 - 00:19:53
And, also, life is really short, so I really wanna provide for my family. I really want us to be okay. I see my wife really sub me, you know, really suffering physically and going through all this. So he would work late hours. He would he would listen to me when I wanted to talk about it, but not as much talking maybe more of just needing to stay busy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:54 - 00:20:27
And for me, I think I did pretty much anything I could get my hands on. So I remember looking for a postpartum doula, looking for a grief or some sort of pregnancy loss practitioner to help me through. I did some emails with one of them. I did hire a postpartum doula. They urged me to do all of my creative things or new creative things, so drawing, painting.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:20:27 - 00:21:14
Well, some of those came later, maybe like a year or 2 later. But I did do some photography or even just like, mindless distracting things, like puzzles or little phone games and watching lighthearted TV to help with you know, those moments where it's just like, oh, I've been thinking about this all day and just going over and over and over and over in my head about it. And no thoughts are going to fix these emotions. No thoughts are going to bring her back or help us go back in time and make sure that the egg and the sperm were the perfect quality, and then she wasn't sick for whatever reason. You know?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:21:14 - 00:21:38
I couldn't go back in time to fix those things. I had to feel just a little bit more okay in that moment. I did a lot of sitting in the grass with my shoes off, my feet in the grass. So grounding just and I would just sit there. And then sometimes I would I would do, like, meditative walking, but I was so angry.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:21:38 - 00:22:04
You know, I remember walking around my garden, and I live in Mexico, and the flowers bloom all year around here. And there was this amazing, like, huge red like, bigger than my head, red flower. And I would walk by it, and I would just get so angry. Like, why are you blooming and my baby isn't here? Like, I'm walking by this beautiful flower, and it's just in my face, and yet I knew, well, I just need to walk.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:04 - 00:22:13
I need to walk by it. I need to feel this anger. I need to sit with it. But then it would be like, okay. Time to go pick up my daughter.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:14 - 00:22:23
So it was hard to manage, you know, all the time and space that grief asks along with daily tasks.
Victoria Volk
00:22:24 - 00:22:28
Yeah. It's like the stoneward spiral thought wheel was like you know,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:29 - 00:22:29
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:22:29 - 00:22:58
It's like a tornado of thoughts, and I can just I was imagining it as you were walking around this flower and just I can feel from you. It's just so important for people to hear that in those moments like you were you how you were able to just allow yourself to feel the anger. And I think so many people just don't allow themselves to feel the anger because growing up, you're taught that anger is wrong. It's bad.
Victoria Volk
00:22:58 - 00:22:58
And
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:58 - 00:23:02
Yeah. Even grief too. Like, push it down. Go to work.
Victoria Volk
00:23:02 - 00:23:06
But it is an element of grief. Anger is grief. Really.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:06 - 00:23:06
It is.
Victoria Volk
00:23:07 - 00:23:12
Did you like for your husband, you know, I meant not talking about it.
Victoria Volk
00:23:12 - 00:23:26
And you said he kept himself very busy. Did he, did you see him? Did you view it as a stuffing down or did he find, did he eventually, did he start talking about it more or how did that change for him over time?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:28 - 00:23:48
Mmmm. He would have to come on and share his whole story because it's pretty intense the way things ended up showing up for him quite later. But I guess I could say, eventually, he had some therapy, and I think that helped. So he was able to talk.
Victoria Volk
00:23:48 - 00:23:48
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:49- 00:23:54
And he's also, a sweat lodge.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:55 - 00:23:58
He runs a sweat lodge,
Victoria Volk
00:23:58 - 00:23:58
Oh
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:59 - 00:24:09
He runs a sweat lodge,
and he has a spa. And so he works with crystals and massage. And so he so his work, I think even going to work and helping others
Victoria Volk
00:24:09 - 00:24:09
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:10 - 00:24:14
Or sometimes they'll, like, trade massage. So he was also working through things at work.
Victoria Volk
00:24:14 - 00:24:15
Yeah. I can see that.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:15 - 00:24:23
And he would go and he would go in the sweat lodge. He also sings. So he has his outlets. They're just different than mine. Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:24:24 - 00:24:28
Mhmm. And honoring that for each other. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:28 - 00:24:28
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:24:28 - 00:24:28
But like you said, he was able to he would listen to you and that's sometimes all you need really is someone to just
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:30 - 00:24:30
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:24:31 - 00:24:43
try and fix, just listen. And so I'm glad he was in that line of work because that probably actually is what helped him find his way eventually to therapy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:43 - 00:24:45
Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:24:45 - 00:25:27
I was gonna ask too the question I had thought of earlier and then forgot. So growing up, what was, what were the messages? Because I how you articulated when your daughter was going through this, when you lost your baby, and then you're talking about how it was important for you, for her, that she recognized grief and you had a lot of grief going on at the time, but how to allow her to channel it and honor her feelings and things like that. So what were what was your experience with grief growing up in the beliefs that you had about loss and like because in, you know, especially in my area, like German
Sabrina Fletcher
00:25:28 - 00:25:30
Right.
Victoria Volk
00:25:30 - 00:25:34
Like or talk about our grief and what happens in the house?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:25:34 - 00:25:47
Yeah, stiff upper lip and all that and like, You know, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and carry on. No. That's definitely my lineage as well.
Victoria Volk
00:25:48 - 00:25:48
Okay.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:25:50 - 00:26:31
And I understand more now about what I experienced with grief than when it was actually going on. There really weren't any close deaths until my grandmother died when I was yeah, I was already in my twenties. But she had a brother who died in World War 2. And, I mean, that would have been so many years ago, but my mother told me that on certain days you know, I don't know what days. Now I imagine, oh, it was probably his birthday.
Victoria Volk
00:25:26 - 00:26:31
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:26:31 - 00:26:52
Or it could have been some milestone that her children were reaching and her brother wasn't there to see it. Maybe it was even her own birthday. You know, the passing of time is really hard, especially since he would have died so young, like a very young man. And then here she was, like, living a full long life, and he's not there.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:26:52 - 00:27:22
Well, my mom would say you know, she would go in her room and cry. So in a way, you know, behind closed doors That's my grief legacy. So why I decided to be so open and why I felt like it was so important? I don't know. Maybe it's a reaction to that like, seeing how it was so closed and not really talked about and like, get on with your life and just move along.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:23 - 00:27:30
I felt like it was important to talk about it and be open about it. And I saw my daughter hurting. I didn't I didn't want to just say, oh, just go to school. That didn't feel right to me.
Victoria Volk
00:27:30 - 00:27:30
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:31 - 00:27:37
You know, just get back to school.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:37 - 00:27:48
Just throw yourself into your schoolwork. I never said anything like that to her. So maybe it's a reaction to what I grew up with and felt like it wasn't enough.
Victoria Volk
00:27:49 - 00:27:57
After all the people I've talked to, the 4 plus years I've been doing this podcast, I am like almost 190 episodes. Not all.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:57 - 00:27:57
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:27:58 - 00:28:18
So not all not all interviews, but I think there's 2 camps of people. And like you just said, I think there's people that grow up and learn these things about grief that are unhelpful and hurtful and self-sabotaging. And they see that contrast when they're met with something in their lives.
Victoria Volk
00:28:18 - 00:28:29
And they remember that contrast of that experience. Like, we didn't talk about it. And I felt shamed for or you know, if you have feel shame for bringing up the person's name
Sabrina Fletcher
00:28:29 - 00:28:29
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:28:30 - 00:28:40
because, you know, it makes other people uncomfortable or angry or sad or whatever it is. So there's no room for your feelings. You know, you can grow up that way with no, there's no room.
Victoria Volk
00:28:40 - 00:28:54
So then you step down and you don't talk about it. Right? And then that continues through generations. And that's what happens. But sometimes there's camps of people, though, the other camp that sees that contrast and breaks that cycle.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:28:55 - 00:28:55
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:28:56 - 00:29:17
So congratulations on doing that because you teach your daughter how to respond to grief by how you respond to grief. And I think that's the message that I want to get across and why I started this podcast is because I'm a child griever.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:17 - 00:29:17
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:29:18 - 00:29:21
My dad died when I was young, and there was like,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:23 - 00:29:27
yeah, it's like resources. No talking about it.
Victoria Volk
00:29:27 - 00:29:30
Yep. Or well, in my case,
Victoria Volk
00:29:30 - 00:29:35
it was there was a lot of talking about it from my mother. Of course, she lost her husband, but just no room for me.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:35 - 00:29:35
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:29:36 - 00:29:48
That's what I was getting at is that even though it is talked about yet, it's not where you feel you can share. Like, you can't share.
Victoria Volk
00:29:49 - 00:29:57
There's no open sharing. And that's there's all kinds of family dynamics and how that plays out and different scenarios and circumstances. And we could sit here all day long about all of those. But
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:57 - 00:30:02
Oh, yeah. I've been the stories about that too. Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:30:03 - 00:30:16
Condenses down to either you learn these things and you continue that pattern onto your kids or you break that cycle because you see the importance of what you would have wanted for yourself and then create that
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:16 - 00:30:17
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:30:17 - 00:30:17
for your children
Victoria Volk
00:30:17 - 00:30:32
for the legacy that follows behind. So that's I think that's a very important takeaway for people listening to this, who have children who are going through grieving experiences too, because like you said, it's she lost her sister too, even though she was 4
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:32 - 00:30:32
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:30:32 - 00:30:43
years old. And it's very easy for parents to assume that, oh, they're so little. They don't understand. Anyway, I was 8 and people were saying that I see 8 year olds now. And I'm like, wow.
Victoria Volk
00:30:43 - 00:30:52
Like, I don't know if I was that articulate or that I was that smart, but I would hope I was., Like, 8 year olds understand. Come on. Like, really?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:52 - 00:30:53
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:30:53 - 00:31:54
And so do 4 year olds. So
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:55 - 00:30:55
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:30:55 - 00:31:02
Thank you for sharing in that as much as you did because I think it's important for people to hear. No matter the loss.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:31:03 - 00:31:30
Thank you. Thank you, Victoria. Yeah. I even said to my daughter a couple days ago, I just said, I really appreciate how you opened up to me and what you shared about, you know, your sadness. And, you know, when Clara we named her Clara when Clara died and how we went through that together.
Victoria Volk
00:31:31 - 00:31:35
And in the work that you're doing today, you can share that experience with people too.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:31:35 - 00:31:35
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:31:35 - 00:31:54
If they have other children that are experiencing that loss as the fam, you know, with along with the family unit. And so, or when did you start doing the work that you're doing? Because the loss happened in 2018, but when did you finally feel ready to, support others?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:31:56 - 00:31:59
Mmm. So, symbolically, I feel like I started while I was in the recovery chair.
Victoria Volk
00:31:59 - 00:32:01
Mmm. Like many people do.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:32:01 - 00:32:19
You know, after I had had my I guess we could call it a d and c, And I was like, where's my doula? Like, there's no one here saying, how are you feeling? Or I'm sitting here beside you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:32:19 - 00:32:32
Can I hold your hand? Would you like water? Something like that. You know, just those simple, caring things that we need, especially in very early grief. And with pregnancy loss, it's a grief through your body.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:32:32 - 00:33:00
So there's, like, the physical recovery that needs to happen. So I was thinking, where is she? And then I realized I'm going to be her. That's what I wanna do. And then I also realized, and I need to go through my own healing process first so that I can fully show up for other people from a healed place.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:33:02 - 00:33:40
So it was mid 2020, the fall of 2020. By the time I created an Instagram account, the TFMR doula, and just started bringing people together. And we would, you know, talk in stories or in the comments and making connections with other pregnancy loss spaces. And then I created a Facebook group for us to go a little bit deeper and have more conversations in a place where no one else is coming in and being like, well, I wouldn't have made that choice. It's like, thank you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:33:40 - 00:33:41
That's unhelpful.
Victoria Volk
00:33:41 - 00:33:42
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:33:42 - 00:34:18
You know, just like people who their loved one has died by suicide, you know, they deserve to have a special space there because there's certain layers that only they will be going through. Or if they've been a long-term caregiver for Alzheimer's or cancer or something, and then their loved loved one dies. You know? They have all that anticipatory grief years to to talk about and being in groups where where people just understand, you know, the hardships and the things that other people say to you when you're going through all of this.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:18 - 00:34:34
It's good to have those specific places for people who have been through it with other people who have been through. I mean, I can't say exactly. All of our cases are unique, but, yeah, exactly that type of loss.
Victoria Volk
00:34:34 - 00:34:34
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:34:35 - 00:34:37
And that was, like, during COVID started
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:37 - 00:34:39
It was.
Victoria Volk
00:34:39 - 00:34:40
So how did that, like I mean, there's grief in that too. Like, you just
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:40 - 00:34:40
Oh,
Victoria Volk
00:34:41 - 00:34:7
so much. Thing. I know. I started my business doing grief work and stuff 2019,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:47 - 00:34:47
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:34:48 - 00:34:49
early 2019.
Victoria Volk
00:34:49 - 00:35:14
And I gained so much momentum. And I was doing in person talks and things like that and doing in person groups. And then COVID hit, and it's like but that's when I took, you know, the opportunity to just get a lot more training and certifications online and just build my toolbox. And so that's what I did during that time. But what it how did you kind of deal with that?
Victoria Volk
00:35:14 - 00:35:24
Because there's this thing here. You just birthed out, and then it's like, oh, I mean, no pun intended. That was a terrible pun. Like, that I'm sorry.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:25 - 00:35:25
Oh, gosh.
Victoria Volk
00:35:25 - 00:35:26
I just thought that
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:26 - 00:35:28
But yeah. No. But it's a birth. Right? It is.
Speaker 2
00:35:28 - 00:35:31
It's a Mother. Yeah. It's birth from love. Right? Because you you birthed
Victoria Volk
00:35:31 - 00:35:33
it out of your experience.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:33 - 00:35:35
So It is. It is.
Victoria Volk
00:35:36 - 00:35:36
Yeah.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:36 - 00:35:45
It is. And so I was unable to do the in person pregnancy loss doula work that I wanted to.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:45 - 00:36:19
You know, I really wanted to be the sit by your side in that recovery chair and hold your hand and say, yeah. It's okay to cry because you're a bereaved mother and all the things that I needed to hear. And I also knew that I wanted to do the bulk of my support services online, So I already knew that I wanted most of it to be virtual. Like, the big community aspect of it, I always had in mind that it was going to be virtual. So whenever when everything went virtual, it helped in a way because then other people were open to receiving support in virtual ways.
Victoria Volk
00:36:21 - 00:36:24
That's true. Yeah. That's a good point.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:36:25 - 00:36:35
But that was that was my specific situation where I always knew I wanted, you know, most of it to be virtual so that we can meet internationally. Right.
Victoria Volk
00:36:35 - 00:36:39
It's more accessible. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:36:39 - 00:36:39
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:36:40 - 00:37:01
And that's the thing I think that came out of COVID is that so many of these resources that exist today are because the virtual and people are more open to that because that is the way of the world now.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:36:58 - 00:36:58
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:36:58 - 00:37:01
So there's more availability, but there's also, like you said, more buy in where people are more apt to give it a chance and see if it'll work for them.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:01 - 00:37:12
Yeah. So when I started doing live workshops or like little support groups and it was on Zoom, I knew that people already had that program at least.
Victoria Volk
00:37:12 - 00:37:12
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:13 - 00:37:16
They were familiar with it, so I could just say Zoom. I didn't need to explain what it was.
Victoria Volk
00:37:16 - 00:37:16
Right.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:16 - 00:37:53
Because before 2020, anything that was online, if you weren't already like an online entrepreneur or something, you didn't know all of these programs and the terms and the things. But now, we've all been educated on doing it all online, which it can get exhausting too in some sense. And now that, you know, COVID is not at its height, we do wanna do in-person annual retreats as well because it is important to meet. It is important to get those hugs.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:53 - 00:38:18
It is important to, you know, see people face to face. And I wanna have those experiences too, where we can really see I'm really not alone in this. Here's another flesh and blood person who has made this choice, who loves their baby deeply, who is grieving just as deeply as I am. And here we are sitting together.
Victoria Volk
00:38:19 - 00:38:20
And in Mexico. I mean
Sabrina Fletcher
00:38:20 - 00:38:28
Yes. I mean, great. So come and come and get some sun. Come and spray. Yeah.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:38:28 - 00:38:34
We we may end up doing the next one in in the US, though, because a lot of my community members are in the US.
Victoria Volk
00:38:36 - 00:38:53
So what were some of the ways I mean, I know that there was a lot that wasn't there for you, but what were some of the ways that other people supported you that you found helpful, most helpful during that time and either for your daughter or for your husband or for yourself or as a family? Like, what would you share with people?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:38:54 - 00:39:13
For myself, the biggest resource, the most helpful resource was a another Facebook group. And they were the inspiration for me creating my own as well. And they and they're still functioning. They're a great community. They're called ending a wanted pregnancy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:39:14 - 00:39:41
I think it's just ending a wanted pregnancy dot com. And you go through this application process, and then you're in the Facebook group with only other people who have been through it or their immediate partners. You know, there are no health professionals who just wanna know how to help other people. There are no grandparents or siblings who you know, wanna like, look in.
Victoria Volk
00:39:42 - 00:39:42
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:39:42 - 00:39:44
It's completely closed.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:39:44 - 00:40:08
And so because I knew that that community was so highly screened and closed and I think even secret. So at that time, Facebook had secret groups. They've changed their settings. It's something else. I mean, it still kind of exists in that way where no one else on your friend on your friend list can see that you're in this group.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:40:08 - 00:40:23
No one else can even, like, search for it and see, like, who the members are. It's unsearchable. It's secret. So I knew this was a safe place. I was able to bring all of these emotions and feelings that I couldn't talk to anybody else.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:40:23 - 00:40:59
I had a place to bring it to, and I could read what other people were feeling and thinking and going through and struggling with and ways that they were honoring their babies and you know, how they were taking part in broad pregnancy loss spaces as well. And I remember thinking, oh, I can do that. Oh, I can help myself in that way too. Oh, I can honor my baby in that way. So that was a really beautiful experience finding that group and taking part.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:40:59 - 00:41:15
You know, I've made amazing friendships through people in that group. And like I said, they inspired me to open another Facebook group. And since then, we have more. There are more. I mean, not that many, maybe like a dozen.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:41:15 - 00:41:34
But more than at the time when I went through it, it was basically just that group and maybe some anonymous forum that was visible to the public on baby center at that time. Now people tend to go to Reddit for that sort of anonymous experience, which has its place too.
Victoria Volk
00:41:36 - 00:41:42
Would you mind sharing your Facebook page, what it's called? Can is it searchable, or is yours also private and
Sabrina Fletcher
00:41:42 - 00:41:59
Well, it my mine is searchable, but it's closed. No one can see that you're in it. But I do also do a application process. So it's on my website, thetfmrdoula.com/facebookgroup. All one word.
Victoria Volk
00:42:01 - 00:42:04
And I will put the link to that in the show notes as well.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:04 - 00:42:13
Thank you. Yeah. It's it's a a wonderful space. And it's a community space. You know, I started it.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:13 - 00:42:34
I run it. I facilitate. I facilitate the space for people to come and share their stories and give and get support and ask the questions that they can't ask anywhere else because other people just say, oh, well, just be grateful that you have 2 other living kids
Victoria Volk
00:42:35 - 00:42:35
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:35 - 00:42:39
Or like, you'll get pregnant again. It's like, what? Like, can you imagine?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:39 - 00:42:47
Well, you'll get married again. Or, like, you still have your mom. You don't need your dad. Like, okay. The things that people say.
Victoria Volk
00:42:49 - 00:43:55
Without thinking. Really. I mean, like, if you say it back to them like, did you I mean, just let me say that back to you out loud so you can hear it.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:56 - 00:42:56
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:42:56 - 00:43:00
Does that sound okay?
Victoria Volk
00:43:01 - 00:43:09
I mean, what's what about that sounds okay? It's almost like, you know, I'm I, I just developed a pet loss program.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:10 - 00:42:10
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:43:10 - 00:43:17
And, it's not launched yet, but it's it's like people so commonly especially with pets, like, you can just get another pet. And it's like, okay. So
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:17 - 00:43:20
Well, yeah, you can, and it's not that pet that you
Victoria Volk
00:43:21 - 00:43:25
Right. It's like people don't say that too, like, when your grand when your mom dies.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:25 - 00:43:25
Right.
Victoria Volk
00:43:26 - 00:43:28
Well, you can just get a mom. Just get another mom. I mean
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:28 - 00:43:31
Just get another one.
Victoria Volk
00:43:31 - 00:43:32
It's, yeah, it's one of the myths
Victoria Volk
00:43:32 - 00:43:33
of grief is replace the loss and,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:34 - 00:43:34
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:43:34 - 00:43:42
You know, it's one of those things we all learn to do. Right? We learn how to acquire things and people, not what to do when we lose them. You know?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:42 - 00:43:45
Oh, that's a really good quote, Victoria.
Victoria Volk
00:43:45 - 00:43:50
It is. It is. There was something on you I was gonna ask you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:50 - 00:43:51
Sure.
Victoria Volk
00:43:51 - 00:43:56
What advice to other grievers desiring to create meaning from their grief?
Victoria Volk
00:43:56 - 00:44:12
And, you know, when I say create meaning that can that kind of rubs some people the wrong way. Like you have to create meaning, you have to do something big, but you don't. It it's I think it, I think a part of creating meaning or finding meaning, not that everything happens for a reason. Like, sometimes
Sabrina Fletcher
00:44:12 - 00:44:12
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:44:13 - 00:44:17
that can ruffle people's feathers too. Rightfully so.
Victoria Volk
00:44:17 - 00:44:42
Acceptance is a huge part of creating meaning. Personally, I think that you know, once you get to that place of acceptance of like, you can't change the past, right? You can't, but you can, you have a choice in how you transmute the emotions and the feelings that you experienced and move forward. And you've done that in a very beautiful way and enough service to others. And not everybody has to, you know, take on something like that.
Victoria Volk
00:44:42 - 00:44:42
Right.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:44:42 - 00:44:43
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:44:43 - 00:44:45
And not everybody is capable of that.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:44:45 - 00:44:45
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:44:46 - 00:44:59
Like, you know, it's a it's not a burden. And that's the thing I think where people shy away from seeking help to is they don't want to be a burden to other people. And that's a lot of what keeps people isolated in their grief.
Victoria Volk
00:44:59 - 00:45:13
But I'll get to the question here. But what advice would you give to others who desire to do something like you have done? And maybe a different way, but just do something with their grief.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:45:14 - 00:45:32
Mmm. Yeah. I like to talk about not thinking of it as, like, look for the what do we call it in the cloud? The silver lining. You know, we're not looking for you know, there's no silver lining in my baby dying in such a horrendous taboo way. There's no silver lining there.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:45:33 - 00:46:21
There just isn't. And I like to think of well, I have this little mini framework that I share with my clients and that I need to share with my community on a whole. It's like this cycle of holding and honoring our emotions. And I think this can help people get to this place where they're even doing tiny things that can help. And it may help them, you know, create meaning, find meaning, or it may help them, you know, just that day feel a little bit closer or feel more connected to their baby or even feel more connected to themselves or feel just a little bit more calm in the storm of grief.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:22 - 00:46:28
There are 3 steps, but they go around and around. You know? Just like grief is a cycle. Right?
Victoria Volk
00:46:28 - 00:46:30
Just like you did a lot of meditation around the flower. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:30 - 00:46:42
Yeah. Yeah. We just go around. We go around, and then we come back to the same place, but we have a little bit more knowledge this time, and we're gonna go a little bit deeper. It might be even more like a spiral too.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:42 - 00:46:46
Although, you know, I don't want you to spiral out. Not that sort of spiral.
Victoria Volk
00:46:46 - 00:46:47
In a good way.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:48 - 00:47:19
Yeah. Spiraling deeper into the meaning or the love or the connection. So I start with acknowledge, just acknowledging that you're having this body sensation instead of pushing it away. And also being very very gentle with this stage because I would say, with early grief, it's very intense. And early grief can be a year, 2 years for people.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:47:20 - 00:47:35
So we just take, you know, like, one little sensation like my heart. You know? It's tight. Just noticing that sensation. And even trying to notice without putting any labels on it yet.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:47:36 - 00:47:55
Even without saying it's my heart or it's this sensation or it's this name of the thing. We don't even have to put a label on it. So just acknowledging that it's there. And I stayed in this place for a really long time. All of those things that I was talking about, like, with my with my feet in the grass, it would just be like, I'm just feeling.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:47:56 - 00:48:26
I'm just feeling, and I'm just you know, it's just like flowing down into the earth, or I'm I'm walking, and I'm just feeling all of these sensations. And, like, my brain can't even put a label on it yet, and that's fine. It's okay to stay in this acknowledging place for as long as you need to. And then if you feel ready, you can move to the part of the cycle that I like to think of, as a sign. So then you can begin to assign it an emotion name.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:48:26 - 00:49:02
So like I said, like anger, you know, is feeling so angry at the world and life and you know, even mother nature for screwing up my, you know, somewhere in the genetics or the creation or the, you know, the way that she was forming or maybe, you know, there's something wrong with my own uterus or whatever. I was just so angry at all of those things and just, like, feeling the anger. And it and it's okay to label it, like anger. You know? I'm feeling the anger.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:49:02 - 00:49:22
I'm actually feeling this emotion. And then and then if that feels okay, if you'd like to move to the next part of the cycle, I think of this part as a, oh, so we went or assign. Now we're at align. And you can align in different ways. This is gonna be unique.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:49:22 - 00:50:01
This is gonna be your own self-care that works for you, whatever you need in that moment or maybe the first tiny step for something bigger that you want to do. You know, a lot of people do advocacy in TFMR. Like, they want to write a letter to their representative and tell their story and say, you know, the laws really hurt me and my family and my baby in this way, and this is what I went through. So maybe when you get to a line, maybe it's like, okay. I'm gonna take out a piece of paper, or I'm gonna open a blank document on my computer and give it a name, letter to my representative.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:50:02 - 00:50:31
That could be your align. So it's doing something for the sensations and the emotions that you're having, and then we're gonna transform, transmute. I like to think of transmutation and transformation more than finding meaning because we're taking these sensations and emotions, and then you can do something with them. Emotion, e motion, it's movement. It's it wants to move.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:50:31 - 00:51:03
It wants to move through you. It wants to move through and even out of you. But we were never taught how. I, at least, I was never taught how. I had to, you know, figure it out on my own through doing it and through, you know, being in a relationship with my husband and like, seeing my own daughter's grief and then being in these grief communities and being in these TFMR communities and talking to other pregnancy loss parents and seeing the ways that they were aligning.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:51:03 - 00:51:22
You know? Sometimes I would only see that part of their cycle because that can't be outward. It can't be inward. So maybe I was seeing how they were, aligning in a way in their life. And then once we align a little bit, then maybe new sensations come about in the body.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:51:23 - 00:51:44
And so that's why it's a cycle. So then you can begin to acknowledge those sensations or those feelings as well. And you can go through the cycle as, you know, we'll go through it an infinite amount of times in our lifetime if we're lucky, if we get the time, if we get the chance to do it.
Victoria Volk
00:51:44 - 00:51:57
And the key thing you said there is connecting with ourselves and our emotions are in our body, because it is what you went through and what other women go through in this experience is very much a body experience.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:51:58 - 00:51:59
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:51:59 - 00:52:04
So it's connecting back to the body to heal the body from within out.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:04 - 00:52:04
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:51:59 - 00:52:28
I'm curious if because the work your husband does, if you utilize some of those things and have considered or maybe you've already done this where you've had brought in women who have experienced this into his place of where he works and to experience these tools that he has to help women connect with themselves in that way.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:28 - 00:52:31
Oh, it's definitely going to be a part of the live retreats.
Victoria Volk
00:52:31 - 00:52:32
That's for sure.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:32 - 00:52:41
For sure. For sure. And I've been thinking about well, since I set everything up virtually, I just continue to do everything virtually.
Victoria Volk
00:52:41 - 00:52:41
Right.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:41 - 00:53:19
I don't have a local group yet, but, there is a midwife in town who would like me to run a group and I would definitely invite them, you know, after, you know, 6 weeks or after a few months of coming to these circles. Maybe we'll do, you know, a quarterly sweat lodge experience. And my husband actually gets a lot of people who come to him, maybe not right after a loss, but in that time, you'll understand the time period. About 3 or 4 months out or, like, a year out.
Victoria Volk
00:53:19 - 00:53:19
Mhmm. Yeah.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:20 - 00:53:39
With a big loss or life transitions, and then they go and they want to really mark that transition with a ritual, which is something that the sweat lodge can help you do or take partaking in a sweat.
Victoria Volk
00:53:41 - 00:53:51
Very cool. I think you've got a lot of amazing things brewing and I'm excited to see what, what comes of it for you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:52 - 00:53:52
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:53:52- 00:53:55
I am curious. Did you have any more children?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:55 - 00:53:55
Yes.
Victoria Volk
00:53:55- 00:53:56
Okay.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:56 - 00:54:23
I was able to get pregnant again after my loss. And I would say that pregnancy is really was the second hardest thing that I've done in my life after you know, going through the termination, after going through losing my baby.
Victoria Volk
00:54:23 - 00:54:36
That's why I asked because, it's like when people wanna replace a dog. Right? It's like, how do you know you're ready? And people often just don't even think about that. They just replace the dog and you're not replacing the loss by having another child. That's not what I'm saying. Although people can have that perception.
Victoria Volk
00:54:36 - 00:54:42
Right? Like, you wanna feel better, so you just you can just have another child. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:42 - 00:54:45
That's what people say. Yeah. The people say that.
Victoria Volk
00:54:45 - 00:54:46
People say that. You can have more kids.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:47 - 00:54:48
Not everyone can.
Victoria Volk
00:54:49 - 00:54:50
Right? Exactly.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:50 - 00:54:52
Exactly. And then
Victoria Volk
00:54:52 - 00:54:55
so the when they say that, they're making the assumption that, yes, you can too.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:56 - 00:54:56
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:54:56 - 00:54:57
Can you speak to that a little bit?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:59 - 00:54:59
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:54:59 - 00:55:02
Like, howdid you know? Like or how did you come to that? And
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:02 - 00:55:27
Well, I think of my the loss of my baby as the primary loss, the primary death.
Victoria Volk
00:55:12 - 00:55:12
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:13 - 00:55:27
There are also other things that were lost. So I lost this vision of having 2 children in my family. I lost this, you know, the hopes and desires to have my oldest daughter not be a only child.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:28 - 00:55:55
I wanted to have, you know, more than one kid. I wanted to have 2 or 3. I guess I do have 3 now in a way. But 2 living and then the one that died. And I knew that it was going to be hard, and the desire to have another child was stronger than the fear.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:56 - 00:56:27
That was when I knew that I was ready to really go back into battle. Most people who go through a termination for medical reasons do develop, like, full-blown PTSD. You know, it's like going to war. And so if you think of it like we're warriors who have been to this battle or war and lost. Now we're being asked to go right back to the same battlefield.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:56:29 - 00:56:55
You know, it's the same sensations. Maybe you pull out the same, you know, pregnancy pants. Maybe it's even, like, the same season. Some people, you know, just the dates, like, all line-up and they're going to their 12-week scan on March 12th again the next year. So they're very crazy feelings that you that you go through.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:56:56 - 00:57:14
Because you're going through it again. And then the anger too, you feel very I remember being very angry throughout the 1st trimester and thinking, you know, I feel so tired. I feel like crap. You know, I feel like I'm gonna throw up all the time. I already went through this.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:57:15 - 00:57:53
You know? Why do I have to go through this again? And of course, I was so thrilled to be pregnant again and to hopefully, you know, have a baby, have a have another sibling and to hopefully have those experiences that I was dreaming of you know, to have 2 kids or more than 2 kids and to have, like, a bigger family. I mean, it's not a big family to have 2 kids, but, bigger than 1, bigger than just parenting 1. And I mean, I had EMDR therapist.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:57:53 - 00:58:23
I had my acupuncturist. I had different doctors. I had the high-risk doctor that I was going to. I had the same doula that I my postpartum doula then became my doula through that pregnancy. In the pregnancy loss spaces, I found, like, specific monthly threads or places where people were talking about being pregnant again after loss or even more specifically being pregnant again after TFMR.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:58:25 - 00:58:43
I had a really good friend who we would check-in every day. We were like, I don't know. Our dates, like, lined up we were already in contact, and then we were both trying to conceive, and then we, like both got pregnant probably on, like, the same day. And so, you know, it's like, here we are in week 1. Now we're in week 2.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:58:43 - 00:58:59
We checked in every single day with each other, and it would just be in the morning, I'd be like, oh my gosh. I'm so scared. And I would open, you know, my Messenger app or whatever, and there's her message saying the same thing. So I didn't feel so alone.
Victoria Volk
00:58:59 - 00:58:59
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:01 - 00:59:03
That was how I got through that pregnancy.
Victoria Volk
00:59:04 - 00:59:06
With a lot of support, it sounds like.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:06 - 00:59:15
A lot. I needed a lot of support. I needed all of it, and I really pulled on all of it. And it was really hard on my husband too. You know?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:15 - 00:59:19
We were scared every single day that we would lose her too.
Victoria Volk
00:59:20 - 00:59:21
And what's her name?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:21 - 00:59:23
Her name is Aya.
Victoria Volk
00:59:23 - 00:59:25
Oh, that's beautiful.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:25 - 00:59:27
Thank you.
Victoria Volk
00:59:27 - 00:59:37
It's like the, what you said, it's holding on to the both and
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:32 - 00:59:32
Uh-huh
Victoria Volk
00:59:32 - 00:59:37
it's the feelings of fear and an excitement at the same time, enjoy,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:37 - 00:59:37
right
Victoria Volk
00:59:37 - 00:59:42
It's the both and like, it's like holding the feelings and the reality at the same time.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:43 - 00:59:43
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:59:43 - 00:59:53
And that's a tricky thing to do. And so I thank you for sharing that aspect of your story, because I think it'll be helpful for people who are going through that.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:53 - 01:00:03
Yeah. And I have a monthly thread in my Facebook group too, and I started a monthly live Zoom for us as well.
Victoria Volk
01:00:03 - 01:00:05
Awesome.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:05 - 01:00:19
Mhmm. Because I remember how hard it was. I mean, she's 4 now, and still even around, even around her birthday I start thinking about you know, everything that we went through just to get to that point.
Victoria Volk
01:00:20 - 01:00:34
On your form, there's a question I ask. I don't know if you remember what you answered, but I wanna share it if you don't remember. But it's what would you like to scream to the world in the past or recently in which people knew about your grief?
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:35 - 01:00:40
Did I write TFMR is pregnancy loss?
Victoria Volk
01:00:38 - 01:00:38
Yes
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:38 - 01:00:40
TFMR is pregnancy yeah.
Victoria Volk
01:00:40 - 01:00:45
Yes. And then you added something else. You said treat me gently
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:45 - 01:00:47
I don't read it. Can you read it?
Victoria Volk
01:00:47 - 01:00:50
Yeah. Treat me gently as you would any grieving parent.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:52 - 01:00:55
That's it. That's the one.
Victoria Volk
01:00:56 - 01:01:10
I thought that was beautiful. And so I think it's a great place to tie this episode up with a bow for people.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:01:06 - 01:01:06
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
01:01:07 - 01:01:10
Grief is grief, no matter the circumstance. And we all agree that 100%. So treat each other gently.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:01:11 - 01:01:11
Wonderful.
Victoria Volk
01:01:11 - 01:01:16
Thank you so much for sharing. Is there anything else you would like to share though that you didn't get to?
Sabrina Fletcher
01:01:18 - 01:02:09
I think I shared what was on my heart today. And maybe one more thing, just if you're going through this or if you've been through this and you're and you're just finding the acronym and you're just finding these places or you're still looking for support around this type of pregnancy loss, just know that it is out there. And I know it's really hard, like the onus is on the grieving person to go out and find support in a time where you're just so exhausted. And it's so worth it. It's so worth it to keep searching until you find the space and the people who can really support you because it will make all of the difference in the world.
Victoria Volk
01:02:10 - 01:02:14
And if you're a helper, sometimes helpers need help too.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:02:14 - 01:02:15
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
01:02:16 - 01:02:18
That's what I've found even personally.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:02:19 - 01:02:27
Mmm. Oh, yeah. No. I have a lot of therapists, teachers, nurses in my community.
Victoria Volk
01:02:27 - 01:02:27
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:02:27 - 01:02:27
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
01:02:28 - 01:02:52
Well, thank you so much for all that you shared today. And, I look forward to sharing this episode and I will put all the links to what you shared in the show notes for people to quickly and easily find support if they're needing it. And thank you for listening today. And remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.