What I Wish I Knew beyond Pregnancy Loss

Sharna Southan
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

What I wish I knew beyond Pregnancy Loss: The Intersection of Fertility, Trauma & Purpose This podcast is a space for deep, honest conversations about fertility struggles, pregnancy loss, and the unseen layers of healing. Here, we explore the intersection of trauma, the nervous system, and emotional recovery—because healing is not just about moving forward; it’s about understanding how loss changes us and how we can reclaim our power. Whether you’re navigating life after loss, facing reproductive challenges, or seeking purpose in your own healing journey, this is where we go beyond the surface. Through expert insights, personal stories, and trauma-informed support, you’ll gain the tools to heal, grow, and step into a future that honours your past while embracing what’s next. Your story matters. Your healing matters. And there is more waiting for you beyond loss

  1. 4d ago

    EP138: When your body fears what your heart wants: Tokophobia, Reproductive Anxiety Disorder — with Alexia Leachman

    The preconception conversation that nobody is having — what pregnancy loss actually does to the body before the next pregnancy, and why standard care is missing the layer that matters most. Join my FREE live training Preconception Readiness After Loss, Wednesday 8th July, 9:30am AEST. Register HERE   Now for todays episode: Some women know they want to be a mother. And yet something inside them, something wordless, something physical, makes every step toward that feel impossible. Not because they don't want it. Because their nervous system has decided it isn't safe. That experience finally has a name. In this episode, I'm joined by Alexia Leachman, founder of Fearless Birthing, creator of the Head Trash Clearance Method, and the originator of Reproductive Anxiety Disorder (RAD). After her own pregnancy loss and a journey to understand a fear she couldn't explain, Alexia has spent over a decade helping women and professionals understand what happens when the body fears what the heart wants most. This conversation goes deep, and it might give you language you've been searching for your whole life.   We cover: What tokophobia actually is — and why so many women live with it without ever knowing it has a name The moment Alexia calls "the casse" — when a pregnancy test broke something open inside her that she couldn't explain How pregnancy loss intersects with tokophobia, including women who terminate wanted pregnancies because their nervous system cannot tolerate being pregnant Why the root of reproductive fear is often pre-verbal — rooted in your own birth, your mother's nervous system, and intergenerational trauma Reproductive Anxiety Disorder: why Alexia believes tokophobia is far bigger than one window of a woman's life, and how it shows up from puberty through perimenopause How unresolved reproductive fear affects fertility — and why the body won't allow conception when it doesn't feel safe to birth The Head Trash Clearance Method: why Alexia built it, how it works with the energy system to clear fear from the body, and why she believes in getting rid of anxiety rather than managing it What it looks like when two daughters are born into very different nervous system environments — and how Alexia sees that playing out now Why professionals — therapists, midwives, doulas, GPs — need to know this framework, and what screening for RAD could change for women everywhere     Connect with Alexia www.head-trash.com   www.fearless-birthing.com  https://www.facebook.com/alexia.leachman  https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexialeachman/ Podcasts: Fear Free Childbirth Head Trash & Healing Show Tik-Tokophobia   Resources mentioned: Alexia's main hub: headtrash.com Fearless Birthing: fearlessbirthing.com Personal site & private work: alexialeachman.com RAD white paper (free download): fearlessbirthing.com/whitepaper Free 1-hour professional training on tokophobia and RAD available via Fearless Birthing Books: Betrayed by Your Biology, Fearless Birthing, Clear Anxiety for Good   If this episode resonated with you: If you're a woman who has felt confused, broken, or ashamed by your relationship with pregnancy, fertility, or birth — this episode was made for you. You are not broken. Your body has been trying to protect you. And there is a path through. If you're a practitioner who works with women in their reproductive years — this is the framework your training didn't give you. Understanding tokophobia and RAD could change everything about how you show up for your clients. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts if this conversation gave you something — it helps more women find their way here.

    1h 1m

  2. Jun 14

    EP137: The grief nobody talks about: Abortion, trauma, and the emotions you're allowed to feel- Guest Shalina

    In this episode, Sharna sits down with Shalina Lodhia, criminologist counsellor and founder of a trauma-informed practice specialising in intergenerational trauma, domestic and family violence, and abortion grief. Shalina shares her own deeply personal experience of navigating abortion, twice, under very different life circumstances, and what she's learned about the grief that so often follows in silence. This is a conversation about the emotions no one tells you it's okay to feel. The paradox of relief and loss. The isolation of having to hide an experience that your body is living through. And the complete absence of support that so many women encounter both during and after. In this episode, Shalina and Sharna explore: The emotional reality of having an abortion at 23, in hiding, with no support and no information about what comes after How the experience shifted in her thirties as awareness, spirituality, and self-knowledge changed how she processed the grief Why the medical system so often fails women in these moments, treating them as a number rather than a human being in distress The paradox of conflicting emotions, relief, grief, guilt, peace, and why all of them are valid at the same time The role of intergenerational trauma and why, for some women, the decision not to continue a pregnancy is an act of conscious cycle-breaking How Shalina now supports other women through abortion grief, including those in abusive relationships navigating impossible choices Why post-abortion support is one of the most overlooked gaps in women's healthcare in Australia A message for anyone listening: Whatever your reason for having an abortion, it is valid. You are allowed to feel every emotion, including ones that seem to contradict each other. You are not alone in this. If this episode resonates with you, please share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you're ready to talk to someone who gets it, Shalina's details are linked below. Connect with Shalina Lodhia:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/counsellorshalinalodhia/ Instagram: counsellorshalina TikTok: counsellorshalina LinkedIn: @counsellorshalina YouTube: @SED8official (my musical channel, and a few of my old podcast episodes are there) If you found this episode valuable, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more women find these conversations when they need them most.

    57 min

  3. Jun 7

    EP136: The Missing Piece Day 1: The Gap in Pregnancy Loss Care - with Sharna Southan

    Pregnancy loss is not being fully understood, and because of it, it is not being fully supported. Join the free community to access all three replays: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thereproductivelossleadershipnetwork  In Day 1 of The Missing Piece Masterclass, Sharna opens with the foundational question: what has the entire field been getting wrong, and what is it costing your clients? She walks through: Why the medical system classifies pregnancy loss as a resolved event once bleeding stops, and why that's dangerously incomplete The somatic blind spot: why talk therapy alone cannot reach trauma stored in the body, the nervous system, and the cells The language gap: how the words society and providers use flatten a woman's experience and prolong her healing The systemic gap: why practitioners aren't failing their clients, the system they were trained inside is Day 2 covers the science. Day 3 covers the solution. Join the free community to access all three replays: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thereproductivelossleadershipnetwork

    49 min

  4. May 31

    EP135: The hidden losses inside an infertility journey — with Natasha D'Arcangelo

    If you have ever felt the ceiling in your practice — or lived the gap in pregnancy loss support yourself — The Missing Piece is a FREE 3-day masterclass where we name what traditional grief support has been missing and build the framework bereaved mothers actually deserve. Starts 1st June - Join HERE     What does grief look like when there's no baby to mourn — but the losses keep coming anyway? In this episode, I sit down with Natasha D'Arcangelo, licensed mental health counsellor and Chief Clinical Officer at LB Health, to talk about a side of reproductive loss that rarely gets named: the cumulative grief of infertility. Natasha shares her own ten-year journey to motherhood — including two rounds of IVF, four fibroid removal surgeries, a hysterectomy at 35, a failed domestic adoption match, and an international adoption process that spanned a global pandemic. It's a story full of grief, resilience, plot twists, and hard-won wisdom. But this episode isn't just personal. Natasha brings her clinical lens to everything — and the result is a conversation that's equal parts raw and practical. In this episode we cover: Why infertility is a grief experience, even when there's never been a positive pregnancy test The shame spiral of feeling like your body "had one job" — and how therapy helped Natasha recognise and release that narrative What it's really like to match with a birth mother, prepare your home, and then have it fall through The layers of loss inside adoption journeys that people rarely talk about How to find the right therapist (and why it's okay — expected, even — to try more than one) Red flags to watch for in a therapeutic relationship Why the people around you, however well-meaning, often make it worse — and what actually helps The unexpected role her dog played in pulling her out of depression Connect with Natasha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natasha-darcangelo/ www.natashalmhc.com    If this episode resonated with you, you might also be interested in exploring what it means to process reproductive loss as trauma — not just grief. That's exactly what we explore inside the Pregnancy Loss Recovery Method™.

    1h 1m

  5. May 25

    EP134: Fertility awareness, Cycle literacy & reclaiming trust with Guest Emma Goff

    If you have ever felt the ceiling in your practice — or lived the gap in pregnancy loss support yourself — The Missing Piece is a free three day masterclass where we name what traditional grief support has been missing and build the framework bereaved mothers actually deserve. Starts 1st June - Join HERE   What if your menstrual cycle had been trying to tell you something for years, and no one ever taught you how to listen? In this episode, Sharna sits down with Emma Goff, certified fertility awareness educator, miscarriage doula, and host of the Cyclical Doula Podcast. Emma works at the intersection of cycle literacy, body trust, and reproductive loss, and this conversation is one of the most practically empowering episodes we've recorded. Emma shares her own journey into this work — including growing up as the child of a mother who experienced multiple pregnancy losses — and how that shaped the deeply attuned, cyclical support she now offers women navigating fertility, loss, and everything in between. In this episode we cover: Why your menstrual cycle is a vital sign — and what it might be telling you about your reproductive health right now The impact of long-term hormonal birth control on ovulation and cycle health — and what "coming back online" actually looks like What to expect from your body after pregnancy loss (including the often-overlooked postpartum experience that follows every loss) How to begin tracking your cycle after loss using cervical fluid and basal body temperature — and why this can be profoundly empowering Why that first bleed after loss doesn't have to blindside you — and how cycle awareness can help you prepare emotionally and physically The fertility window, subsequent pregnancy anxiety, and trusting your body to show you when it's ready How Emma walks beside her clients through pregnancy, loss, and beyond — as a cyclical doula, not just a birth professional Using fertility awareness methods to avoid pregnancy after loss without returning to hormonal contraception This episode is for every woman who was handed a pill and never once asked how her cycle actually worked. It's for the woman who felt something was wrong for years and was told she was fine. And it's for the woman standing on the other side of loss, wondering how to find her way back to her body. Connect with Emma: https://www.instagram.com/cyclicaldoula https://www.facebook.com/cyclicaldoula https://emmamma.com   https://emmamma.com/podcast  info@emmamma.com

    46 min

  6. May 10

    EP133: I wanted to unzip my flesh and float away — Guest Kate Carson on somatic healing after loss

    The Missing Piece Masterclass | June 1st Many bereaved mothers are still moving through pregnancy loss feeling unseen, unsupported, or expected to "move on" before their nervous systems have ever truly processed what happened. And many practitioners are doing their absolute best… while quietly sensing there is still something missing. The medical system calls it a medical event. Traditional training calls it grief. But pregnancy loss is trauma. And trauma lives in the body. Join me for a free masterclass exploring: ✨ THE GAP – What traditional training misses ✨ THE SCIENCE – The neuroscience of reproductive trauma ✨ THE SOLUTION – The trauma-informed approach that works This is not just another training. It's an invitation into deeper understanding. Register: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thereproductivelossleadershipnetwork  I'm genuinely so excited to hold this space with you 🤍   NOW on to the Episode:  In this deeply honest conversation, I'm joined again by Kate Carson — somatic love, sex, and relationship coach and long-time admin of the Ending a Wanted Pregnancy support group — to talk about one of the most overlooked dimensions of pregnancy loss recovery: the relationship between a woman and her own body. Kate shares her own story of losing her daughter Laurel at 35 weeks, travelling to Colorado for termination care, and the years of somatic discovery that followed. What began as a desperate wish to "unzip the flesh and float away" became the foundation of her entire healing philosophy — and her life's work. In this episode, we explore: Why 97% of women are already in a strained relationship with their bodies before loss — and what reproductive trauma does on top of that The difference between grief, depression, and trauma in the body (and how to feel the distinction from the inside) Why retelling your story over and over can be more retraumatizing than healing — and what to do instead The postpartum reality no one talks about when your baby doesn't come home: hormones, milk, pelvic floor, and the cascade that happens regardless Practical nervous system regulation tools you can use in the acute stages of grief — including vagal toning, movement as cycle completion, and the 30-second surrender practice Why "next kind thing" is more useful than "love your body" when you're deep in the shadow world How peer support groups can be the premium product in grief recovery — and why lived experience matters alongside clinical training The truth that your body only ever reveals what you're ready for This conversation is a permission slip to stop fighting your body and start listening to it — because everything you need to heal is already in there. Connect with Kate: Socials: All Social Links: Facebook: @katecsays https://www.facebook.com/katecsays Insta: @nightbloomcoaching https://www.instagram.com/nightbloomcoaching/  Reddit: @katecsays https://www.reddit.com/user/KateCSays/  TikTok: @nightbloomcoaching https://www.tiktok.com/ @nightbloomcoaching Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-carson-70694b92/ Website: www.nightbloomcoaching.com  If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it helps more women find this conversation when they need it most.

    58 min

  7. May 3

    E132: Four losses and Two moments that could have killed her — Guest Jayme Serbell

    What does maternal mental health actually look like for bereaved mothers? Not the Instagram version. The real one — with rage, and fear, and loving a child you can barely look at, while grieving another you'll never hold. Today I'm joined by Jayme Serbell, a writer and memoirist whose journey to parenthood spans 6 pregnancies, multiple losses including 3 early miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy that cost her a fallopian tube, a devastating twin pregnancy where she was faced with an impossible medical decision, a postpartum haemorrhage that nearly took her life, and a postpartum rage diagnosis that finally put language to something she'd been carrying alone. Jayme speaks with extraordinary honesty about the cumulative weight of loss — how grief compounds, how trauma travels into every pregnancy, every birth, every ordinary moment with a child you fought so hard to hold. And how, even after all of it, the healing happens — slowly, on its own timeline. In this episode we explore: How Jayme's second pregnancy connected the dots on an unrecognised first loss — and the disorientation of grieving both at once The way trying to conceive after recurrent loss stripped the intimacy out of one of the most intimate acts of her life The impossible decision she and her husband faced in her twin pregnancy, and what it meant to carry both boys — one living, one not — until birth The postpartum haemorrhage that left her separated from her newborn in the ICU, and how trauma from that birth shaped everything that followed What postpartum rage actually looks and feels like — and why the shame around it runs so deep How an ectopic misdiagnosis led to the loss of a fallopian tube and an entirely different kind of grief: anger at the system that failed her The way her losses compounded inside her postpartum experience — and why bereaved mothers are at higher risk that rarely gets named Trusting your body's knowing, firing doctors who dismiss you, and giving past versions of yourself the grace they deserved Jayme is currently writing a memoir about her journey to parenthood and writes at Jayme Shares Things on Substack. Connect with Jayme: https://www.instagram.com/jaymesharesthings/ https://jaymesharesthings.substack.com/  If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it helps more bereaved mothers find this space. Connect with Sharna on Instagram: @reproductivelossleadership Interested in becoming a Pregnancy Loss & Trauma-Informed Specialist? Head to the show notes to find the Certification application. Please note: Nothing shared in this episode constitutes medical advice. If you need further support, please reach out to your healthcare provider. Be gentle with yourself.

    1h 4m

  8. Apr 26

    EP131: She worked as a nurse. She still had no one to call. Guest Laura Weppler

    What happens when the person who knows the most about fertility, who works inside the clinic every single day, still can't find the support she needs when loss hits her own life?   That's exactly what today's guest discovered. Laura Weppler is a fertility support professional, certified fertility doula, and registered nurse with over 12 years inside the fertility system. She's also a woman who navigated her own deeply traumatic pregnancy loss, multiple failed embryo transfers, and the relentless emotional spiral that no amount of clinical knowledge could protect her from. Now through her practice, Navigating Fertility with Laura, she's building the bridge between the medical and emotional sides of care that she desperately needed herself. In this conversation, Sharna and Laura explore what it really means to move through fertility treatment and pregnancy loss without adequate support, and why even the most informed women are still falling through the cracks. In this episode we cover: Laura's personal journey through IUIs, a traumatic miscarriage, multiple surgeries, a torn cervix, and failed IVF transfers — and why working inside the fertility clinic didn't protect her from the isolation Why ignorance truly is bliss with a first pregnancy — and what changes forever after loss The moment a doctor shamed a patient on a recorded call, and what it revealed about how women are being silenced inside the system Why the Google rabbit hole never gives you what you're actually looking for — and what does How fertility treatment strips couples of intimacy, identity, and joy — and what it takes to come back to yourself The case for building a village around yourself — and why one provider is never enough What on-demand, text-based support actually looks like in practice, and why it changes everything for women mid-cycle Connect with Laura: Instagram: @navigatingfertilitywithlaura Website: www.navigatingyourfertility.com   Email: laura@navigatingyourfertility.com Podcast: Fertility Nurses Unfiltered — launching March 3rd @fertilitynursesunfiltered Connect with Sharna: International Institute for Reproductive Loss & Trauma Leadership: https://www.instagram.com/reproductivelossleadership/  Follow & DM Sharna to Enquire or Apply for the certification If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it helps more women find these conversations when they need them most.

    1h 2m
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What I wish I knew beyond Pregnancy Loss: The Intersection of Fertility, Trauma & Purpose This podcast is a space for deep, honest conversations about fertility struggles, pregnancy loss, and the unseen layers of healing. Here, we explore the intersection of trauma, the nervous system, and emotional recovery—because healing is not just about moving forward; it’s about understanding how loss changes us and how we can reclaim our power. Whether you’re navigating life after loss, facing reproductive challenges, or seeking purpose in your own healing journey, this is where we go beyond the surface. Through expert insights, personal stories, and trauma-informed support, you’ll gain the tools to heal, grow, and step into a future that honours your past while embracing what’s next. Your story matters. Your healing matters. And there is more waiting for you beyond loss

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