October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month
Heath and I are now the face of both. We have lost a pregnancy at 14 weeks and we have lost our daughter at 23 days old. Never in my life could I have imagined being a part of this pregnancy and infant loss society but here we are and we are not giving up.
I'm a bit nervous to even share as much personal information as I'm about to share but I feel that it is important to help give a voice to this frightening reality for not just us, but for many other parents and couples wanting to become parents.
Heath and I were lucky enough to get pregnant even when we weren't really trying. Shortly after getting married we bought a house and decided it was time to start trying for a family but then my sister announced her wedding and I did not want to risk being forced to miss her special event so we put trying on hold. Heath and I decided not to prevent the chance of becoming parents but we weren't going to specifically try until a delivery date would be well after my sister's wedding date.
Well good thing we weren't preventing because we did become pregnant in December 2013. It wasn't until New Year's Day that I realized how late I was and that we should take a pregnancy test. We were both completely shocked when it turned out to be positive. We were very excited but soon learned that I would be 38 weeks pregnant for Jenny's wedding making it just about impossible for us to attend but we would cross that bridge as it got closer.
In the meantime we only shared with our best friends who were also expecting within days of our baby. We otherwise kept the pregnancy a secret because we knew miscarriage was not uncommon in the first 12 weeks and we didn't want to shoulder a loss with the whole public. As the pregnancy progressed well we decided that we would share with my family when we went home for my sister's baby shower, we would be 13 weeks pregnant. I ordered this precious onesie as a gift for my nephew-to-be that had a big deer and a baby deer on it with the words "i'm going to be a big cousin in Sept 2014". We were going to surprise the family by having my sister open this gift. Unfortunately we never got the chance to because we learned at our 12 week ultrasound that our baby had a large cystic hygroma. I remember Heath crumpling on the floor of the doctor's office when she gave us this devastating news and the referral to a perinatologist for a plan for our baby. We called immediately to share this unbelievable news with our families and they began the process of grieving with us as we learned that it was unlikely our baby would survive and/or would suffer serious health complications. Two weeks later we were not going to become parents. It was extremely painful and difficult to face this world that had no idea what tremendous loss we had just experienced. We tried to find comfort in knowing that this baby did not have to suffer for long and that we would not go through the even greater pain of losing a full term baby. We tried to find blessing in the safety of my health and the ability to try for more children. We never learned the baby's gender and therefore did not name our first baby. We grieved the loss of our baby in the privacy of our own home and with our immediate family but we looked forward to being able to start trying again after the doctor gave us the go ahead.
We were so blessed to become pregnant three months after we lost our first baby and were nervous with every doctor's visit we went to. We were lucky enough to be given the courtesy of perinatology care with our second baby and were so relieved to learn that everything looked great at the 12 week ultrasound and blood testing. Those first 12 weeks were very nerve-wracking but we survived quietly worrying together while only sharing the news with our parents. Again we didn't want the whole world to know if we went through a similar loss again. But statistics were in our favor and we believed in the statistics that we were likely to have a normal, healthy baby. We finally shared the news with the rest of our families and friends after the 12 week appointment looked so good. We lived in naive joy and celebration for 4 more months before we learned that there was an abnormality during our baby's ultrasound. Heath and I literally couldn't believe it and almost didn't want to go to the recommended follow-up appointments. We were wanting to choose to believe that it was a mistake or positioning distortion on the ultrasound. But our education told us we had to follow-up with the cardiology appointment. When the pediatric cardiologist agreed that there was an abnormailty in our baby's heart but it may be a non-issue or a simple post-birth treatment then we felt relieved. We know plenty of babies develop health issues early in life and this little heart issue would be our baby's "thing" and we would manage it well. But it wasn't so simple and our series of following doctors visits soon revealed that we had much more serious health issues to worry about for our unborn baby. Yet again we thought we would just manage like so many other parents of sick children do and we never once considered the fact that death could occur in today's era of modern medicine.
But here we are today, the parents of pregnancy and infant loss. Here we are trying yet again. Trying to find hope again after two years of pure pain, joy, fear, happiness, sadness, blessing and loss.
Now we spend every month wondering, hoping, worrying, crying, fearing and praying while we are trying.
Month after month we have to put our hope and our faith in the Lord that we will someday parent a healthy child here on earth. We yet again embark on a journey that we have no control over and where we put all of our emotions out on the line with no guarantee that we will get what we hope and pray for.
But I have learned that if we are blessed enough to become pregnant again that we will have to find a way to put our fears aside long enough to celebrate every moment that we get to cherish with a growing baby inside of me.
My hope is that Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month gives parents a
voice to the fears and pain they may have endured in their own personal
journey. I hope that it releases us from the fear of sharing our
losses publicly so that we may honor the life of the child we carried
for however long we have been blessed. I hope that in sharing your story, you not only honor your child but also help to reach others that may be struggling through their own journey of pain. However,
I hope you never know the pain that comes with difficulty becoming
pregnant, with early pregnancy loss, with late pregnancy loss, with
infant loss or with child loss. If you have living children then I hope
that you hug your children tight and never forget just how blessed you
have been. Keep those of us that have experienced loss in your prayers
and find ways to offer support and hope if you can. I hope this month
reminds all parents to be grateful for the opportunity they have been
given to parent, however long they are blessed to parent their child or
children.
Heath and I love and miss our babies with every breath that we take.
