Pregnant After Two Miscarriages: “The Baby’s Going to Die Again”

Have you ever smiled on the outside while your mind quietly fell apart?

In this week’s episode, I share a deeply personal moment from my pregnancy when anxiety gripped me after two missed miscarriages. The thought kept looping: “The baby’s going to die again.”

The grief hadn’t left. The fear hadn’t lifted.
 And yet, life around me moved on like everything was normal.
 Inside, I was screaming. “The baby’s going to die again.”

The anxiety was constant. The silence of my own thoughts? Deafening.

This episode is about what it really means to live through silent storms. The ones no one else can see. If you’ve ever been there, if you’re there now, this one’s for you.

To accompany my podcasts, I’ve been working on a series of simple, faith-rooted tools to help you realign your thoughts when life feels like it's coming apart.
 Today, I’m sharing the second one with you:

🛠️ Introducing: Realignment Tools
✨ The Reframe–Dua–Redirect Method
A 3-step practice to help you calm anxious thoughts and ground yourself in faith when your mind won’t stop spiralling.

Step 1: Reframe
Catch the intrusive thought.
Ask: Is this real, or is this fear imagining the worst?
Just that one question can loosen its grip.

Step 2: Dua
Turn the fear into a prayer.
Open your hands. Pour it out. Let the burden shift from your shoulders to His.

Step 3: Redirect
Move your energy.
Journal. Do dhikr. Step outside. Call someone. Listen to a podcast.
Interrupt the spiral by anchoring yourself in the now.

This isn’t about pretending everything’s fine.
 It’s about learning how to breathe through the storm without letting it write your story.

💬 COMMENT below: What do you do when your thoughts try to hijack your peace?
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

The baby's going to die again. The baby's going to die again. The baby's going to die again. That one sentence became a soundtrack to my pregnancy. Anxiety looping on repeat after two missed miscarriages. I sat with my family, TV on, kids playing and yet, mentally I wasn't there. I was drowning, smiling outside, spiralling inside. Assalamu alaikum and welcome to Reflections and Realizations, a space where I share my personal journey, unfiltered thoughts and honest realizations. I'm Alvina Salim, a Muslim student of psychology, and in this podcast, I dive deep into the lessons life has taught me through my experiences, faith and the lens of psychology. So, if you love deep conversations, self-reflection and the intersection of faith and psychology, join me on this journey of discovery, because... Every realization starts with a reflection. Let's go back to that dark period in my life. The baby's going to die again. Something bad's going to happen. The baby's going to die again. These thoughts played on loop in my mind shortly after falling pregnant after two missed miscarriages. Both losses were missed, which meant that whilst the baby was no longer alive, my body didn't recognize the pregnancy loss. Both times, I still had pregnancy symptoms. I continued to put on weight, had nausea and strong food aversions. And so, my mind stubbornly clung to the fear, the baby will die again and you won't even know. No one around me knew the conflict that was going on inside my head. I would sit in the evenings with my family around the TV. The children would be playing with their Lego sets and I'd be pretending to watch TV with my husband. with my heart pounding loudly in my ears. These negative thoughts didn't just visit me, they took over. They kept me frozen, unable to move forward, unable to be present. And then I noticed something. Whenever someone interrupted me, like when one of my kids asked for something or when my husband spoke, I'd feel irritation, not because of them, but because I didn't want to be interrupted out of my dark thoughts. I became very, very comfortable where I was. At the time, I didn't fully understand what was happening. Psychologist Dr. Trudy explains that our prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain responsible for planning and imagining the future, has an incredible ability to construct different possibilities. So Our imagination can be healthy or unhealthy depending on how we use it. So a healthy imagination allows us to create a hopeful vision of the future, whilst an unhealthy imagination paints a picture of doom and gloom. And because of the negativity bias, our brains naturally overestimate how bad things will be. And our brain leans towards fear. But we know that Islam calls us to husnaldhan, which is a good opinion of Allah, which is not denial, it's training of the mind. And this explains our negative thinking. This explains why when we're anxious, we assume the worst, because our brains are just wired in that way. And there's more. Psychologists have found that the way we perceive time affects our emotions and behavior. So if we dwell negatively on the past, constantly replaying traumatic moments and focusing on where we went wrong, we're considered past negative. And if we fixate negatively on the future, convinced that bad things are inevitable, we're considered future negative. And that's exactly where I was, pregnant after two miscarriages, trapped in a future negative mindset. And this isn't a new discovery. Long before modern psychology, Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, a 9th century scholar known for his work in Islamic psychology, he compared the care of the mind with the care of the body. He said that when our body is injured, we don't ignore it, we treat it. We care for it. And when our mind is distressed, we should do the same. So what he said is that we should build a reservoir of positive thoughts before hardship strikes. And he describes a practice which is very similar to cognitive behavioral therapy, you know, CBT, which suggests that we need to train our minds to think in a healthier way during times of ease so that we have the strength to endure times of hardship. Basically, his advice mirrors what therapists say today, which is train your mind when it's calm so it holds you when it's not. Now, at this time, this really difficult time in my life, I didn't have this reservoir. So as a result, my mind was completely untrained and running wild with fear. Eventually, as the pregnancy progressed, I got to the stage where I started to unpack my negative thoughts. I realized that I couldn't spend an entire pregnancy rooted in fear, just sitting there waiting, expecting for something bad to happen. So whenever I would get the intrusive thought that the baby is going to die, I had to remind myself that this thought was an exaggerated fear and it wasn't rooted in reality. Then I would connect my fear with a positive opinion of Allah. Like I'd remind myself, no, Allah loves me and he only wants good things for me. And then I'd remind myself that, and it's Allah's promise that he wouldn't test me beyond my capability. And then I would reframe my intrusive thoughts into a dua. So whenever the thought would occur that the baby's going to die, I would make dua to Allah that he blesses me with a healthy baby. But I'll be honest. That still wasn't enough. My mind kept returning to the intrusive thoughts constantly. And that's when I realized I needed a healthy distraction. Like, I realized that constantly giving airtime to my intrusive thoughts was making them bigger. So, I focused my mind on something else. With no background in grand memorization, I took on the challenge of memorizing an entire Juz during my pregnancy. And slowly, eventually, my mind started shifting. Grand memorization didn't just distract me, it restructured my focus, it rewired my mental energy into something meaningful. And I don't even remember when the intrusive thoughts stopped. All I know is that one day, I realized my focus had changed. Because instead of obsessing over the death of my baby, I was completely immersed in trying to complete my memorization before my baby arrived. And just when I thought the storm had passed, the baby was unexpectedly born five weeks early and had to stay in Niku for a month. I remember I would spend my day sitting next to her cot and listening to the beeps of the monitor. Now, as an anxious personality, seeing her tiny body hooked up to so many tubes and wires induced so much anxiety in me. Whenever the doctor would do his morning rounds, I would be tense. I'd just be sitting there like squeezing my hands until he told me that everything was okay. But this time, something was definitely different. Instead of Googling preemie growth charts and Billy Rubin levels, something my past self would have done obsessively, I spent my days revising the Quran that I had memorized during pregnancy. This kept me grounded. It kept me present. And it stopped the intrusive thoughts from taking over. And that healthy mind didn't just carry me through the Niku chaos. It carried me through the COVID lockdown that hit just weeks after I bought my baby home. It was a time when... Global anxiety was everywhere, like headlines, group chats, the silence of the empty streets, the news. But me, I was okay, partly because I was distracted, juggling a newborn fresh out of the new queue. I also had my khala with me, who needed to be entertained because she had become unhappily stuck at my place due to airport closures. And I had two kids who were reluctant home learners. But mainly, it was something deeper. I had unknowingly built a solid mental reservoir, a quiet strength I didn't even realise was there until I had to rely on it. Only very recently did it hit me that Allah had already equipped me with the mental training I needed. And that was during my pregnancy when the world was still normal. At that time, I had immersed myself in memorizing the Quran as a way to cope with my anxiety. And it served me so many months later. I've learned that negative thoughts can be overwhelming, intrusive and paralyzing. They have the power to consume us, making us feel like we're trapped in a cycle of fear and uncertainty. But as I've learned through my own experiences, and as both psychology and Islamic wisdom teach us, We're not powerless against them. We can actively reshape our thoughts by challenging irrational fears, connecting them to a positive view of Allah and transforming them into a dua. What we can do is we can give our minds healthier things to engage with, whether that's memorizing the Quran, engaging in a creative pursuit, or just simply redirecting our energy elsewhere. So if this is something you're struggling with in life right now, this spiral of intrusive thoughts, I want to share a method that's helped me personally. It's simple, practical, and rooted in both mindset and faith. I call it the Reframe Dua Redirect Method. So let's break it down. So step number one, reframe. So first, when those negative intrusive thoughts show up, and they will, pause. Don't just accept them as truth. Notice them, name them, and then challenge them. Ask yourself, is this fear grounded in reality? Or is this just my brain imagining the worst case scenario? Now, this step is all about creating distance between you and the thought. Step two. Now, take that exact fear. Don't dismiss it and accept transform it into a conversation with Allah. So instead of spiraling into what-ifs, make a dua. Say, yeah, Allah, guide me. Protect me from whatever it is I'm scared of. This step is the shift from worry to trust. And it transforms it from holding it all yourself to handing it over to the one who can actually change things. And step three, redirect. Finally, move, you know, not just physically, but mentally. Redirect your entire focus. Engage in something that grounds you. Maybe that's reading, journaling, a workout, calling a friend, or simply listening to a podcast. Just give your brain a better place to land. Because here's the thing. It's not about completely eliminating negative thoughts. Because that's unrealistic. It's about learning how to manage them so they don't end up managing you. So I want you to ask yourself, what are you feeding your mind today? Are you letting your imagination work against you or are you using it to build something better? And what small steps can you take today to start building your own reservoir of positive thoughts? This has been Reflections and Realizations. If this episode resonated with you, leave a comment below. If you want the reframe do I redirect steps, I've broken them down for you in the description box below. Thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.