Do you feel as though you're drowning when you glance down at your bump? The one who declares, "Life will never be the same," or "You can never go back"? Perhaps you're ready to become a mother in some part of you, but you're not sure how to handle the unexpected pregnancy and adjust to this new role.

It's normal to feel nostalgic for your life before becoming pregnant or even to consider quitting motherhood.

Grief is a natural response to entering a new season

Having a baby naturally causes you to experience feelings of loss. Your goals in life might have shifted; you might mourn having a tummy free of stretch marks and having the opportunity to live a life devoid of childbearing or pregnancy. You are mourning when this shift causes you to feel unhappy or depressed.

Although most people associate grieving with death, grief can also be experienced during other life transitions.

A few of the most stressful life events are getting married, having a child, changing jobs, and moving. It's great that you're getting married, but you've lost your single life. It's great that you're purchasing a home, but your mobility has changed. Every life shift involves some degree of loss. Therefore, a person facing an unanticipated pregnancy is grieving, even though she might not be aware that she is grieving.

Grief isn’t a linear process

Bereavement is a multifaceted emotion that can take various forms. There are various stages in the grieving process, including denial, anger, bargaining, despair, and acceptance. 

When your pregnancy test results are positive and you haven't had time to process the news, there's that moment of shock. The denial is that shock.

Then, we typically lose it. "What caused this to happen to me? How could this have happened to me? How will this impact my life?"

And we become irate; we may become irate with God, the cosmos, our partner, ourselves, or the salesperson who gave us the condom.

Next, we engage in bargaining: "All right, so perhaps this pregnancy test isn't accurate." I should go buy a better pregnancy test because this one is so inexpensive.

Then we eventually reached the depressive phase. I'm going to be a mom, all right. I have to decide whether or not to become a mother. We experience that phase of melancholy and learn what it means to us.

Eventually, we may reach a state of acceptance, in which we are content with the circumstances. Not that we can't experience sadness in the future. However, we manage to get by on a daily basis in spite of the circumstances."

While everyone's reaction to grief is different, this is an example of how it could appear. Something can cause you to repeat the entire procedure. While some phases might end quickly, others might take a long time.

Everyone wants it to be this easy to follow. Unfortunately, things don't operate like that. We frequently have to repeat the cycle and don't always go through the steps in the same order. It makes sense.

The good news is that, if we are truly grieving appropriately, the acceptance phase increases in length as we move through the cycle.

How to recognize your grief

Paying attention to your mental and physical signs is essential to comprehending what you are going through. According to Kristen, when we neglect our emotional well-being, our bodies react by making us slow down. A few examples of these physical reactions include headaches, elevated heart rates, tightness in the chest, loss of appetite, overindulging, and digestive problems.

Processing your grief and finding health

The purpose of grieving is to reach increasingly extended stages of acceptance so that your thoughts are not disrupted and you may readily feel happy. Each person's experience with this process is unique and takes time.

Why it’s important to grieve You can fit more items in it when you push it down since there is more space when you push down. But eventually, you'll be unable to ignore it. It's overstuffed. After that, one of two things occurs: either the bag becomes trapped and is impossible to remove, or once it is removed, the weight causes items to burst out the bottom or rocket out the top.

Emotions might become trapped inside us if we push them inside and don't deal with them. And that's where we typically experience addiction problems, despair, anxiety, self-defeating behavior, and maybe even self-harm. Alternatively, we begin to express our wrath and hatred towards others.

That's the reason I believe it's critical that we handle problems as they arise. Going through the grief process is not fun. To avoid letting it fester, it's always preferable to address and resolve issues as soon as they arise."

Practical tips

• Connect with friends and family
• Close your eyes and take three deep breaths to get back to center and be more grounded.
• Eat your favorite dessert without feeling guilty
• Watch your favorite movie or read a book that you love

Treating oneself with kindness can help mitigate the overwhelming effects of the grieving process and promote healing. Make a conscious effort to schedule downtime and activities that will allow you to unwind and feel a little more optimistic. It helps to find small moments of happiness and calm in your life.