pregnancy journey.

For years now I’ve tried to figure out how to tell this story. The journey for us to have a 2nd child. I knew that I was going to tell it one day, but I suppose I was waiting. Waiting for happier times, most likely. Desperately hoping that the story would have a happy ending. 

It was no secret. I loved being pregnant with Violet. Within 7 days of her being born I was wondering when we’d have our next kid. I wanted to experience the whole magical thing again. And ASAP. I missed being pregnant. I missed the big belly, feeling her move around, fantasizing about what amazing parents Erik and I were going to be because we were so in love.  

When she was born I fell in love with her, but I was suffering from an overwhelming anxiety and inexplicable need to control everything. Life wasn’t as easy anymore and I struggled. I remember, 8 months pregnant at one of our appointments, our Dr. telling us that the first year of life with a newborn was going to be the hardest year of our relationship. Erik and I looked at each other and basically laughed in her face. Pshhhhhh, not us, we thought. Foolishness!  

Wellllllll, she waaaas right.. but despite that I was pushing for another baby. I can’t remember the first time I mentioned it to Erik but I know he certainly wasn’t as inspired as I was. I persisted. He started sort of coming around. (!) And when Violet was 10 months old I peed on a stick and I couldn’t believe it - 2 glorious, pink lines! I was so excited. I could not wait to do it all again. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it all. Violet was still a baby and just starting to really show us who she was and we were a month away from moving across the country from Montreal to Vancouver, where Erik was going to have to start looking for a new job, but it didn’t matter. This was the universe’s plan and I was full of hope and life. I gave in to the cravings (I remember in particular swedish berries and scones) , bought new maternity clothes, hoarded away stuff that Violet was outgrowing and feeling quite confident enough that we made healthy babies to tell all of our family at Violet’s first birthday party that we were expecting another.  

A few weeks later, the day before Halloween we had our 12 week ultrasound. The bad news began almost the second he put the wand on my abdomen. The heart had a strange marker. He would have to keep an eye on that. The nuchal fold was very thick. My blood levels were all off. I remember with each new discovery he made he kept saying “I’m so sorry” and I was in shock and just utter disbelief that this was even happening. With my healthy little girl bouncing around the room, we discovered that our 2nd baby had a chromosomal abnormality. Not only that but my placenta was not functioning the way it was meant to. The geneticist we met with informed us that this would likely end in a pregnancy loss. A few days later we did diagnostic testing (a cvs, where they insert a needle and take a small sample of cells out of the placenta) while I prayed for a miracle. They called to confirm my worst fears. That we had a terrible decision to make. And that it was a boy.  

We drove to the ferry that day thinking we were going to be sharing our ultrasound photos with our family, but I left that appointment without any photos at all. We spent 5 weeks trying to figure out what in the world we were possibly going to do. We went back and forth endlessly but ultimately we made the agonizing decision to not continue the pregnancy. 

The aftermath wasn’t pretty. I cried, sobbed every day for a least 6 months. I was in a new city, supposed to be enjoying discovering this new place with my family and instead I was shrouded in fear and heartbreak. It was strange too because while I was utterly devastated by this loss, I had Violet by my side for almost every minute of it and she brought so much joy and relief. I had never really experienced that before. Simultaneous joy and deep pain. I know well now, kids are really good at that!

I essentially became mentally obsessed after that with having a child, but Erik, again, wasn’t so sure. We talked endlessly. I felt like the only thing that would fix this, would be to try again and he just wanted to take some time to be the 3 of us. So we did. For 2016 and 2017, we lived. We figured out how to be a family of 3. Things had gotten pretty dark in the midst of the loss and I wasn’t coping well. I saw that I had to start making some changes. I decided I needed to stop drinking. It had once been my very good friend, but it wasn’t working anymore. I also sought out counselling. Not a day went by I didn’t think about getting pregnant again.  

Life was peaceful and we were on a good path. I just didn’t feel done with having babies. We talked in many occasions (too many, as Erik would probably say) and finally decided ok, starting May 2018, let’s try and see what happens.  

A month before May 2018, I surprisingly found out I was pregnant. We were going to have a December baby. I was cautious and looking back I ignored what was going on in my body. I didn’t have many symptoms. My tests weren’t showing the accurate number of weeks I was and 1 day before my 8 week ultrasound I started bleeding. I went to the hospital, where the dr. did an ultrasound and then after in the middle of the waiting room surrounded by dozens of people proceeded to tell me in a normal volume that “there was nothing in my uterus and did I have any questions?” I went home and cried in Erik’s arms. He was surprised as he thought this one was going to work out. I passed the baby later that night.  

I told myself I was going to take 3 months to let my body heal and then we were going to try again. I got some gum surgery done, I followed my naturopaths guidance to a tee, I ate healthy and organically, I exercised, I started temping my basal body temp and doing opks, I was willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen.  

August 2018 - another positive pregnancy test. About 5 days later I started bleeding. 

February 2019 - yet another positive pregnancy test, got my hcg tested - that measures the hormone in the blood and it was low. I sat in the bad feeling of that for two days until I could go do repeat bloodwork to see if the level had doubled like it was supposed to and it had not. It had gone down. I started bleeding a few days later again. 

So at this point, I’d had 5 pregnancies and only 1 baby.  

I was really starting to feel like maybe this wasn’t going to happen. 

My obstetrician sent me to the fertility clinic.  Erik and I did every test possible and on the morning of my 40th birthday we met with the fertility specialist.  She said that we were perfectly healthy.  I'm a little too fertile and my body tries to hold on to the bad eggs as well as the good ones.  She said she believed it was going to happen for us but that if it didn't, to come back in 6 months and we could move forward with some treatments.

A few days later we conceived again for the 6th time.   

I still have moments where I feel like, is this actually going to happen? I think that’s just how it is when you’ve experienced that much loss. 

What have I learned from this?
I learned that I had to talk about it. I never could on social media, but by the time we had the third miscarriage, I’d see my friends on the street and they’d say how are you? and I’d say I’m having a miscarriage. I just couldn’t be alone in it anymore. The more I talked about it the more people shared with me their stories of loss and there are so many. And as mothers we feel these losses so deeply.  

I also learned from our 2nd angel baby that I had to take care of myself. I had to learn to be ok with whatever life threw at me. I spent a long time coping with my feelings by having wine at night and like I mentioned before, it stopped working altogether. Sometimes I do miss a glass of wine in the evening but I’ve gained something that I never want to live without again. I’ve learned how to really feel and really be ok with whatever it is that comes my way in life.  

To a certain extent I’ve had to learn to let go of outcomes. I can do what I can do, but ultimately the rest is out of my hands. I’ve learned to trust fully that what is meant to be will be and I am applying that knowledge to all sorts of situations in my life.  

It's a difficult story to tell because it's so personal. But this is what it means to be human.  The experience of pain and loss, joy and growth is what life is.  Life is partly the beautiful, crazy world we show on instagram but it's also the messy, difficult life that happens in our living rooms.  It's our job to share our stories if we want to truly connect.  And I want other women (and men) who go through pregnancy loss to know that they aren't alone.  It's still not something that many people want to talk about, but it's happening literally all the time. Many of us share that experience and we can carry each other through them.  I was carried through mine. 

I'm still scared but I know that no matter what happens in my life, that there is something to learn and some way to grow.  I am here for those of you who may be going through this.  If nothing else, I will listen and sit with you, while you feel the feelings that are sometimes too scary to feel alone. 

xo