Losing a child has always been at the top of my “unimaginable” list. I couldn’t comprehend what it would feel like, nor the type of strength it would take to make it through. I even frequently said, “I don’t think that will happen to me because God knows I couldn’t handle it”… Our son Charley was stillborn at 39 weeks April, of 2007. I’ll never forget the amazing spirit in our home the week...
It took me a long time to write this. It’s hard to write about big things (big things that are little), difficult to put feelings into words and convey them the way you want. Especially when those feelings are deeply personal. But I have talked with several people who were able to learn through my own experiences, and who were grateful that I shared my perspective on such an intimate issue...
Because my closest female relatives (mother and aunts) experienced infertility and extremely difficult pregnancies (my mom almost died due to pregnancy complications when I was 8), I was anxious from a very young age about what it would be like for me to have children. I ended up being very sick during my pregnancies, but not as sick as my mother, and I have not experienced infertility or infant...
Our Son was born on Nov. 29th, 2012. This event happened 5 years after trying to get pregnant. During those 5 years I had 2 miscarriages. The birth of our son brought an immense amount of joy but looking back the years leading up to his birth were hard and filled with a lot of different emotions. Growing up I always wanted to be a mom and never had any indication that it would be a struggle for...
I couldn’t have known. We had been married almost 3 years when we felt it was time to try to have a baby. We were living in a community where waiting that long must have meant something was wrong with us. Despite the questioning and wondering we could sense from so many around us, we knew that none of that mattered. We had an extremely long path of schooling ahead of us, but knew waiting...
What is hard about my experience with miscarriages and infertility is they feel like they sit in this ‘in-between’ zone. They feel ambiguous, and so it’s been hard sometimes to mourn them properly or express the feelings I need to express about them. I’ve had three miscarriages. They all happened between 6 and 10 weeks, the ‘normal’ time frame for a miscarriage. It really isn’t that long to be...
In August 2016, we found out we were expecting our first baby due April 12, 2017. Everything progressed well throughout the pregnancy and just before Thanksgiving 2016, we found out we were having a little girl. The doctors did monthly ultrasounds to closely monitor the baby’s growth and heart as I have an autoimmune disease called Ulcerative Colitis, and they wanted to be extra precautious. She...
So, this may get long. I have been wanting to write this whole thing out for a very long time, but have never known what I was going to do with it if I did. There may be some that seems “off topic” but for me, its all connected. So, here is my story… I have never been one to remember my dreams, but when I was about 17, I had the same dream twice two consecutive nights that were...
[This story is told through a series of journal and blog posts] 1/16/2012 I am unsure of how I need to start this post: somehow, I feel I need to write it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. If not for you, then for myself. For my posterity. For anyone who may need to hear it. Because I guess it deals less with fertility and more with matters of life and faith. In posts past, you may...
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...
Miscarriage. Such an interesting word. The thing I hate most about it is the lack of “baby” or “infant” anywhere in the term. From a faith perspective, what does a miscarriage mean? If you believe in a life beyond, does that mean there was a baby that was supposed to grow but never really did, and you will see that soul in the next life? Does it mean that there was a perfect spirit, but the body...
I found out I was pregnant at the end of June 2019, about four days before we moved to a new house. I was excited but also really nervous about the pregnancy. I was sick the entirety of my first pregnancy and it definitely wasn’t the most fun experience. Everything seemed to be going well and I wasn’t nearly as sick as I was the first time around. So that made me very excited! We went in for our...
We got married a little later in life than expected. Because of this, my husband Byron and I knew we had a shortened time frame for having kids and we decided on 3-4 kids as our ideal number. After our first year of marriage, we decided to start trying. I knew that getting pregnant could take up to a year for some couples so I was prepared for that. I was pleasantly surprised when we got pregnant...
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...
Our sweet angel Olivia was born still on February 19th, 2019. Our story is not an easy one to tell, but I know that sharing it has helped me heal and has helped keep the memory of our sweet baby girl alive. Sunday night: It had been a few days since I had felt her kick. There were still movements going on, but they weren’t the same. I had felt distinct hard kicks…but not since Friday. I...
After my husband & I had been married for 3 years and moved across the country, we decided it was time to have a baby. We tried for a year, with no success. At that point, my OB gave me a few different options to pursue that might increase our chance of pregnancy. I sat in my car after the appointment as my thoughts wandered to some of my dearest friends who were caught up...
Sarah and Emily would turn 29 years old at the end of this year. I can’t believe it’s been so long. And yet I have never written down their story. For the first few years I tried to organize things in my head, but I always got too bogged down in the details and the grief. In these days of the COVID19 pandemic, I might never have told the story otherwise. In 1988, when my 3rd son Ryan was a...
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...
I had been married for five months when my husband and I decided we would like to try to have children. We were not in the most lucrative of circumstances. It was 2009, and the economy had just crashed. My husband and I had both just graduated before we married, and chose to move in with my parents while my husband searched for a job and finished up his honors thesis and an online course. Since...