I was once told that my heartache is big, but my bravery is much bigger. I didn’t believe it until now. It’s been two months since I was told there was no heartbeat, but I’ve been told that three different times. I’ve had to walk away from a “baby checkup” three different times knowing that I wouldn’t hear their heart beat again. I’ve had to be...
This is a hard memory to revisit, even though I miss my baby that I didn’t get to bring home every day. When you get used to the new normal, if you can even really call it “used to” something like this, it doesn’t make it any easier to dive deep into it. But I don’t want to forget either. As I read through my journal to prepare to write this, I came across something that I hadn’t thought about in...
For me, one of the hardest parts of losing my baby was the guilt I had for not feeling deeply bonded tohim after he was born. Even typing the words brings an internal sting. Looking back, I can nowappreciate the fact that my brain at that time was much too stressed to process what I was feeling,especially given the traumatic, chaotic circumstances surrounding the birth. Perhaps I was too afraid...
I have given birth to five living children, four girls and one boy, but I have been pregnant six times. My third pregnancy was by far the worst one, not least because of how it ended. After having our oldest two girls, our family moved from California, where we’d been living for the previous four years, to Provo, Utah. My husband Jake and I had met while attending BYU, so...
My story starts at the tender age of 18. I was a newlywed in college working a full time job. 8 months earlier I had been in an accident and suffered a brain injury that caused many side effects, including fainting spells and short term memory amnesia. I was still recovering from those issues when I met and fell in love with my husband. It was a whirlwind romance. We met and got married in 5...