Hello friends, welcome back to Tarot Reflections. My name's Megan te Boekhorst, I'm your mental health tarot reader, your messenger from the Universe, your mirror to reflect your inner self. How are you doing today?
I'm just going to dive right in to today's episode, because it's a little bit of a heavy one and a long one. Today I am talking about regret. And I'm going to be upfront with you - I'm scared to share what I'm about to share on today's podcast.
Before I dive into it, I want to provide a content warning. I'm going to be diving into some big things that might trigger some painful memories and emotions. I'll be talking pregnancy loss and miscarriage, trauma, personal gross and bloody medical details, infertility, and sex. No hard feelings if you need to exit out of this podcast right now. And if you're my parents or family, please kindly exit out now. You don't need to hear about my sex life, do you?
Are my parents gone? Okay, good.
Last January, I was in a car accident. I hit a patch of ice in a curve while on the highway, lost control, slid for a long time desperately trying to regain control, and then rolled the car landing upright into the ditch. I was lucky to walk away with just a concussion.
Not long after I began spotting or so I thought. This was highly, EXTREMELY unusual for me, but I paid little to no attention to it. I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS. There are many complications with this, and if you're curious to learn more I'll leave a link in the show notes, but what's important to know now is that it causes my periods to be highly irregular unless I'm on birth control. It also significantly reduces my chances of conceiving. In fact, in my specific case, I have about a 1% chance of carrying a fetus to term without any medical interventions. And that's only before I'm 35 years old.
So while unusual, I attributed the spotting to more of my PCOS.
At the time, I was also over three months into my relationship with my ex. For confidentiality purposes, I'm calling him C. Which, by the way, is the first initial for literally all of my significant romantic relationships so they will all be C from here on out. Good luck keeping track of that mess. My period didn't arrive on time in November or December, so to be safe I took a pregnancy test. It was negative. With things getting serious, or so I thought, I decided to start taking birth control again to avoid all scares.
So from then out, I was protected by my safe sex measures and my near infertility.
So I really didn't expect more than a period out of my spotting.
On February 13th, I woke up next to C with intense uterine cramping. Again, I thought my period must have been coming as the spotting was getting heavier. I got up, popped some Tylenol, and crawled into bed like nothing was wrong. It was too new to tell C I had pain like he wouldn't believe. He left my place and I felt low all day. I didn't text him much. Cramping was on and off but worsening through the day. And as I was getting ready for bed, I was brushing my teeth naked.
And I watched as something fell out of my vagina slowly.
I immediately thought there was no way this was a miscarriage, because there was no way that was possible, so what the fuck was it. It was thick, gross, bloody, and solid but squishy. In size, it was bigger than a toonie. I took it with me to the doctors appointment I set for Valentine's Day morning. He sent it off for further testing.
The bleeding continued and it continued for a week and a half after by the way. That was one of the more annoying parts at the time.
In that time, I didn't talk much to C and I didn't hear from him. Not even a Valentine's Day text. When I was finally feeling better later that night, I sent him a funny Valentine's text and we chatted a bit. But I knew he knew something was off.
About a week and a half later, my doctor called me and told me to go to the ER that day for an ultrasound. Results had come back and the tissue was placenta tissue. I had experienced a miscarriage and we needed to make sure two things. One, that I completed the miscarriage. And two, that it was not an ectopic pregnancy.
Because what had come out of me was a symptom for an ectopic pregnancy. Which, for those who don't know, is when the egg attaches to the fallopian tubes, rather than inside the uterus. It is a non-viable pregnancy. The fetus would not make it to a survivable age. And an ectopic pregnancy rupture can kill the pregnant person.
By now, I told C a little bit about what happened and that miscarriage had crossed the minds of my mother and my doctor. But there was no way that could be. He was confused too, because he knew of my PCOS and its impact on fertility. Though, it was then I learned he didn't understand the nuances of fertility and how pregnancy could still happen.
I waited until after the results of the ultrasound were in to tell him it had in fact been a miscarriage and the risks it carried.
For 48 hours and a chunk of time, I was in fairly constant fear that I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. I was scared for what might happen if I needed to complete the miscarriage. I was grateful I lived in Canada and that doctors would have the power to treat an ectopic pregnancy and that I would have the safety to make my own decisions regarding my medical care. I knew people in countries around the world including the one right below me wouldn't have that same freedom.
My pregnancy was not ectopic and the miscarriage had completed. I had not been far along by any means. I will never know if the car accident caused the miscarriage, or the PCOS. Probably the PCOS.
And don't get me wrong, I was not and I'm still not ready to be a parent and be responsible for a baby. But that does not change the fact that I had a lot of valid emotions regarding what I experienced. A lot of painful emotions, a lot of sad emotions, and a lot of confusing emotions.
In that time, I tried to brush those feelings away. I tried to ignore them and pretend like what had happened to me, didn't.
For C's part, he expressed concern for me and wanted to help. But he didn't know what to do. He was happy to accept the reason for my feelings were just hormones and wen't along with my insistence that I was fine. When I asked how he was, he said it didn't impact him, that he wasn't the one who went through it. So he felt nothing.
I'm sure he had good intentions, and I'm also sure he had no personal feelings regarding the miscarriage. But him saying that made me feel so very alone. So very on my own, despite his offer to be there for me. It was the first time I honestly felt like we were on two different pages and he was not in the relationship with me.
I was really successful at pretending like this never happened to me until recently. Until after the breakup. Until Roe was overturned. Until some things started happening in the lives of people I love that triggered it.
I'm sharing this story with you because it is a story of regret. Not for the fetus that was never meant to be brought into this world. Not for the start of the end of what I had hoped was my future partner. But a story of regret on not being honest to those involved. In not expressing my needs. In not explaining my losses.
I never told C how his reaction, his coldness, to the miscarriage hurt me. In how it pushed me away or made me start to feel unsafe in the relationship we only just begun. In how alone I felt during it.
I never expressed how I was afraid. How I was sad. How angry I was at my body for not being able to conceive and cary a child even thought that wasn't what I wanted at the time. How I could both mourn the possibility that had been in that fertilized egg and celebrate that it didn't take.
I also never told C about the impact this miscarriage had on my finances. How I had to take time off work for doctors appointments and lost those wages. How I worried about how it would be perceived at work as so many workplaces do discriminate against people with uteruses because of the time they need off in relation to those uteruses.
And I never told him how mad I was that he never considered any of those factors and offered to help. That he had the privilege of ignorance. I was mad he never offered to take me out to dinner to make up for it or to help me feel better or something to acknowledge that what happened to me wasn't easy, was scary, and that he played a role in that. Never acknowledged that while I was the one who had the miscarriage, it was our fetus. Or offer to help with my birth control costs so it wouldn't happen again. How the salary disparity between us - which was HUGE by the way - made that anger even stronger, fair or not.
I ignored those regrets and feelings just as well as I ignored the miscarriage. But they festered. They lasted. And they have resurfaced with everything that has happened recently.
I have very mindfully chosen not to reach out to C and ask to talk. To air my anger and pain or share my experience. I know it wouldn't serve me now. I know I wouldn't get what I'd want from that. Because it's too late to get what I want. Because what I want was a partner who understood the gravity of what happened as it was happening and be there without having to be asked or told what to do.
What I can do with this regret is learn from it. Learn to speak up and share things that are important to me. Learn that my thoughts and feelings and experiences are valid. Learn to consider what I may feel if I don't take action. Understanding these lessons have let me start to let go of that regret and return to peace.
What regrets do you carry and still need to learn from?
Now, onto today's reading.
Our message for the week ahead comes from... the Eight of Swords.
This week, I want you to explore any feelings you may have around being stuck. And feelings of entrapment. Of having no way out of a corner. The Eight of Swords is is telling us that the fear you're feeling about this situation has blinded you to any solutions you may have. In many cases, the Eight of Swords is also telling us this may be a situation of our own making. As such, the feeling of powerlessness is false. You are in control of what is happening and you have the ability to get yourself out of this jam. Let go of fear and be honest with the role you're playing here.
And our message for mental health resilience this week is through... the Ace of Pentacles Reversed.
To see the Ace Reversed is to indicate a bad investment. Are there any areas of self-care you've invested in that just aren't working for you? It may be time to stop. You may be investing too much of yourself into something that is taking more of your mental wellbeing than it's giving back.
It may also be a warning of a bad investment. I have a tangible example for you that will also walk you through how I use my readings for introspection and self reflection.
I have never had luck with journalling. I've told my therapists they shouldn't bother assigning me journals as homework because I will not do it. It never sticks, and I have spent too much money on pretty notebooks that sit empty. However recently I've been considering giving journalling another attempt. There are many reasons behind this thinking that are unimportant. However, when I see the Ace of Pentacles Reversed today, just as I decided to pick up another notebook and give it another go, it's forced me to be honest with myself. It's not going to happen. And I'll invest money and emotional energy into guilt over not doing it. So right now, as I'm walking through this all, I am letting the thought of trying journaling again back into the Universe.
Before I go, I'm recording this on August 8th, the day of the Lion's Gate Portal. And I just read this beautiful affirmation for today that I want to share.
I am here to express myself through radiant, regal self love.
My revolution is founded in love, joy, compassion, and radical self acceptance.
That's everything for this episode my friends. If you've enjoyed Tarot Reflections, please leave us a rating and review. Pass the link on to your friends. Tag us in your content on Instagram at meganmentally. Follow our TikTok at tarotreflectionspod. And if you want more content to connect with your authentic self, more insights into how to protect and nurture your mental health, you have to sign up for Permission to Thrive. It's your weekly permission slip to do what you gotta do to strengthen your mental health and cultivate the life you want to live. The link to subscribe is found in the show notes.
Until next time.