You may feel like even in the pregnancy loss space, that you're too much, it's too complicated, your situation is too different.

That's an abortion that doesn't count.

Not here.

I I want you to have the exact opposite experience here in our community.

Our TFMR stories pregnancy loss support in the heartbreak of terminating a wanted pregnancy.

I'm Sabrina.

I'm a T FM R lost mom to my daughter Clara.

Or hydrops, cystic hygroma, potential chromosomal defects and my own health.

My decision was for all of those factors and more, and now I help other TFMR parents in their darkest hour, parenting through the impossible.

If you're listening to this, you found me and that means you're not alone anymore.

You can talk to someone about this, e-mail me or book a call.

I've been through it too, and I want to hear from you.

This is our TFMR Stories support in the heartbreak of terminating a wanted pregnancy.

Today I want to talk about a question that I get asked and it breaks my heart because with this type of baby loss, when we have to choose, when many people may not understand why we had to end our pregnancy or they think we should have done something else.

All the all the things that come up around TFMR baby loss, we're already feeling so isolated.

We're already feeling like do I belong even in the baby loss space?

Does my grief even belong?

Can I call myself a grieving parent, a grieving mother?

And sometimes I get asked, you know, do I belong here with you?

Do I belong in the TFMR community?

And it really, really does break my heart because like I said, we're already so isolated that I want you to know that if you consider that your termination was for medical reasons, you belong here.

I want to share some of the situations that people sometimes question or they, you know, they think about if they feel like they actually belong.

So I just want to invite you in if any of these are things that you question about yourself, about your decision, about your status, your like who you are in in society.

Let's start with Ohio.

People who asked me if they can join the community if their loss was because of their own health, right?

Like if it was a T FM R for maternal health reasons versus like what's versus There's no versus here, but compared to it being for the baby's health, because let's be honest, the stories that tend to get picked up in the news are about very tragic fetal stories.

So something was very, very wrong with the baby.

And you know, they create a whole news story around it and and we hear about those cases, right?

But when it was something for the mother, for the pregnant person, those stories don't get picked up as much.

But I want you to know yours was a TFMR, too.

There's even another layer of this.

Sometimes people have to end their wanted pregnancy for a mental health condition That's TFMR too.

Because the last time I checked, the brain is inside the body.

And so if there's something wrong with the organs, something wrong with health, whether it's mental health, you know, that's happening in the brain, that's happening in the body.

I see that as T FM RI see that as termination for maternal reasons, termination for medical reasons.

It's medical.

It's happening.

Mental health is medical.

So if any of these are your situations, I want you to know that you are you are so welcome here.

You are welcome.

Another thing that people ask me, especially when they're considering joining one of the groups like the TFMR Grief Circle, is they'll tell me in confidence beforehand, you know, my, my loss was for T21.

My loss was because of diagnosis of Down syndrome in the baby, in the fetus.

And they ask, is this group OK for me?

You know, will I be welcome?

And I think for whatever reason, this one diagnosis over so many others because there are so many different conditions, genetic or otherwise, or physical or even in your body, you know, that are considered Gray.

Like we talked about this in the TFMR community as a Gray diagnosis, like it could swing all the way through to being fatal, through to survivable, through to even the one in 100,000 with even the one in a million ends up being just OK.

And it's hard enough when you're going through trying to decide, you know, not knowing because we can't know.

That's one of the hardest things about TFMR is that we can't know the exact outcomes unless we were to see the pregnancy through and see how that baby's condition is presenting or, or even our own condition.

But there comes a point in every pregnancy, you know, with these diagnosis that you have to say, no, not this way, Not for this baby, or not for this pregnancy, or not for me, even if it is Gray.

And I want you to know that you're welcome here too.

And if you're struggling with the grayness of your diagnosis, those conversations are welcome here.

Even if someone else in the circle had a fatal diagnosis, we all end up dealing with the same what ifs and even wondering, well, what if, you know, they could have been OK or what if I would have made a different decision.

So we tend to come together in that place.

Whether the diagnosis was considered a Gray outcome or on a spectrum of outcomes or whether it was considered fatal, you're welcome here.

You're welcome.

Whatever the outlook was, whatever the doctors were saying, you are so welcome.

Another thing that sometimes people question, you know, is it a T FM R?

Can I consider it a T FM R if it was a surprise pregnancy, you know, because I think again, the stories that may be picked up and told and told over again.

And of course this is devastating.

If it was like a super planned pregnancy and you even did IVF and you did all these things and you maybe struggled with infertility for years and then you finally had this baby and you still had to have a T FM R and and it was so planned and you had a whatever picked out and changed jobs and had a crib and had already had your baby shower and all of those things.

Yes, of course, all of that is so devastating.

And I think TFMR, it's when we've come from this is a wanted pregnancy and then we get some kind of medical diagnosis, even if it's within like the same breath, the same day, the same hour.

Because sometimes people find out they're pregnant and it's surprise pregnancy.

And also in that moment, they also find out there's some diagnosis or there are other factors, other medical factors that will keep them from continuing and have them needing AT FM R.

So if this is your situation, you are so welcome here because it doesn't matter if our babies are with us for a minute and loved or with us for years, They're still our babies.

It's all wrapped up in all the dreams and the love and what we envisioned for them, whether we only got to have a week with them, a day, months.

You know, love goes beyond time.

It goes way, way, way beyond time.

So whether your pregnancy was a surprise or planned, you are so welcome here.

Before we continue on, if you need to talk to someone right now, e-mail me or book a call.

You don't have to figure this out alone.

You can find the links to e-mail or to book a support call.

Book a decision support call here in the show notes.

I'm here for this exact situation.

I want to hear from you again.

See the show notes for the links.

Another thing that people question, will I fit in, do I belong is their own age?

And I hear this at at both ends of the spectrum, like I'm so much older or my loss happened many years ago or or a long time ago and now and now I'm older.

Can I still be, you know, in our Facebook group or in the grief circle or even one-on-one, even getting, you know, one-on-one support with me?

And to that I say, yes, yes, because the love and the grief is there and you deserve support.

This, this is your baby.

This is the life that you were going to have with this child.

Is, is what you're grieving.

And then on the other end, people wonder, you know, I'm, I'm so young, will I fit in with all these mothers, all these other people who, you know, they lived their whole life and they did all these things and then they got married and they have these careers and then they got pregnant and then they had to have a T FM R.

You know, people wonder, will I fit in there?

And yes, because we're all parents here.

We're parents who lost a baby, you know, whether you were 181615 up through 40s, fifties, however old you are, you belong here with us, even even later to later decades.

If this happened to you decades ago and you want to come in and be in a space with other parents who remember their babies, who grieve their babies, who are looking for a place to talk about their situation, what happened to them, the TFMR, you know, we want to hear from you.

You belong.

Whether you're very young, very old, anywhere in the middle, you know, connected to this is whether your loss happened very recently.

Like you're very, very fresh out through to it was a long time ago.

Whatever you consider that, you know, some people will say to me, yeah, it was it was such a long time ago, can I still join the grief circle?

And to that I say yes.

Do you want to do?

Do you want to?

Then yes, I am not going to put any cut off on anybody else's grief.

That is for you there.

There is no cut off because there's no, there's no cutting off of our love.

And the same way as you know, if it's very fresh out here, also people, you know, they choose and they, they know what's best for them.

A lot of people who are very fresh out, maybe they want some private one-on-one support from me first.

So I'll leave all the links here.

You can send me an e-mail or get on a call if this sounds like something the kind of support that you feel like you need, especially if you're very fresh out.

But I've also had people who join the grief circles, you know, even a day after their procedure, maybe they meet with me in the time leading up to their procedure and or they know they're going to be induced on such and such date.

And then the grief circle is going to start like two or three days later.

But they already know.

They say, yes, I know I want to be with a group of people.

I know I want to talk to other people about this.

Some people have even said to me, I know that I typically keep a lot in, but I know that I don't want to keep this in.

And I know that it'll be good for me to be around other people, even if they consider themselves very quiet, but they want to hear other people talk about their experience.

Or even joining the Facebook group, you know, you can join us over there too, where people are on all timelines from when they lost their baby, very fresh out to a long, long time ago.

And you are welcome, especially if it has been a long time and you and you feel like you really have integrated the grief and the love and the loss into your life.

We want to hear from you.

We want you to be part of the community.

We want to hear your stories of hope and love and remembrance.

Yeah, You belong.

You belong no matter what your timeline is.

Another thing that people sometimes question, you know, do I fit?

Do I belong?

Just will my story fit in?

Will it be too much for people is whether this was their first pregnancy and they needed to have a T FM R.

They needed to terminate their very, very first pregnancy ever verses.

And again, there's no verses, but just maybe compared to they already have a lot of living kids.

Or even like the very tragic and devastating situations where people are carrying multiples twins or triplets and then one of the babies is very sick and they have to have a T FM R just for that baby and then they continue carrying the other baby to term.

So it's like TFMR and the loss is happening right on top of another pregnancy and holding the joy for the baby that is living and also grieving or maybe even having to put on hold that grief because then then now they're postpartum and now they, they have a living infant.

And you know, and it's, it's a lot.

It's a lot to hold all of those different situations.

It's so much to handle.

If you had to have a T FM R in your very first pregnancy, it's like your whole entire experience of this pregnancy and any pregnancies in the future is now colored by loss.

And that's so devastating.

And if you have lots of other kids and then you're waiting to to grow your brood and you know, it's like, oh, we always wanted to have so many kids.

And then you have to have a T FM R and and you lose one of your kids.

That's so devastating.

And then how do you help your other living children through their grief?

You know, it's a lot.

And then if you had to have what's medically called a selective reduction, but that's TFMR too, that's a termination for medical reasons.

And you belong, whether you have living kids, whether you want to have more kids, whether you're done, whether this TFMR also took your fertility and maybe your uterus along with it.

You know that happens to people too.

Whether this was your first and now last pregnancy, you belong.

It's your whole entire fertility journey and it belongs here with us.

We are learning to to hold our own.

And we're also here to hold, to hold your journey with you, to hold your story, to see your whole motherhood, to see your whole parenthood, your whole fatherhood as a whole, as as all of it, as not forgetting any of the babies that have gone and also not replacing any child with another or another pregnancy.

It just doesn't work that way.

And we understand that here.

And you, you belong, no matter how many kids you do or don't have, or will or won't have.

You also belong here, no matter what your gender, a gender non binary and whether you're the partner, whether you're the one who carried the baby, whether you consider yourself mother, Mama, Papa, the parent.

Sometimes I also get messages about people who have had to have a T FM R and it was a surrogate pregnancy.

And sometimes it's even the surrogate that reaches out and they're like, you know, what did I just go through?

What just happened?

How is this, you know, it's the question that we that we're all asking, you know, how, how could this have been?

You know, I mean, I understand that this was the best that we had to make this decision.

Best quotation that, you know, there was a medical emergency, there was a medical, there was a diagnosis and TFMR was deemed the most compassionate thing to do in this case.

But you know, like what I'm, I'm grappling with what it all means.

And you know, whether you're the partner, whether you're the surrogate, whether you're the one that carried the baby, you, you belong here with us.

And you're welcome here with us.

You're welcome in our Facebook group.

It's not just for mothers.

It's for all of us, all of us who parent, all of us who, who love these babies, all of us who wished we could have brought these babies into this world.

And yet the medical circumstances just did not line up.

And then where does that leave us?

It leaves us searching for a place where we actually belong.

And you know, you may feel like in another, even in the pregnancy loss space that you're too much, it's too complicated, Your situation is too different.

And there are even actually like pregnancy loss or baby loss spaces that outright exclude us as, as TFMR.

Like that's an abortion that doesn't count, not here.

I, I want you to have the exact opposite experience here in our community.

I want you to feel like, yes, I can bring my whole entire story, all the complicated bits, because all of the complicated pieces are what we need to share and the places that we need to be held even tighter and even closer.

And to hear from the other parents in the group, yes, yes, you belong here.

And yes, I want to hear your story.

And yes, even though your story is different from mine, you know, we come together because we're remembering our babies and we've been through TFMR.

So if you're questioning whether you belong here, you know, just remember it's the world that's made you question that.

It's this outside stuff and all the politics and all the definitions and all the preconceived ideas that have made you feel like you don't belong.

But here you belong.

If today's episode resonates with you, I'm here for you.

I want to hear from you if you're facing AT FM R decision or grieving after.

You can e-mail me at sabrina@thetfmrdoula.com or book your support call on my calendar.

All the links will be around here in the show notes.

You don't have to go through this alone.