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 extremely vivid. In my dreams, I was pregnant, but then, I experience extreme pain, and then, I would look down and see a small lifeless fetus in front of me. It was strange and scary. So, I was always a little apprehensive and afraid of having a miscarriage…
When my husband Jaimes and I first got married I was on birth control because I wanted to make sure that I was able to finish college. After two years of being on birth control, we decided that I should get off of it so that my body would have time to regulate and be ready for when we wanted to have children. However, I was I guess very fertile and so I had been off of birth control for three weeks before I was pregnant with my oldest son J…
After J was born, I knew I wanted to have a space between my children, and since I had learned how fertile I really was, I went back on to birth control. I wanted to make sure I did not get pregnant during my semester of student teaching because of how sick I got with J so I stayed on birth control until November, which was three weeks before my College graduation. J was 20 months old by then so I was excited that it would make a pretty perfect 2 1/2 year age gap. But then… December: nothing… January: nothing… I didn’t think too much of it because 2 months wasn’t that long, but it was strange since I had been able to get pregnant with J so quickly. February, March, April, all passed by and I wasn’t pregnant. And then May came and I was feeling like I was pregnant (I get sick pretty much immediately so I know even before I miss a period). I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive!
I made an appointment with the OB/GYN. They confirmed my pregnancy, calculated (from my last period) that I was about 8 weeks along, and did an ultrasound. Kelly, who I knew from church, was the technician and I was so happy to see an old friend! She couldn’t find the fetus through the regular ultrasound and so she decided to do a transvaginal ultrasound. Through it, she measured the fetus to be at about 6 weeks. She told me not to be alarmed, I could be only 6 weeks along, or it could be just measuring small. But, I was to set up another appointment for 2 weeks later to have another ultrasound to check that there was growth.
The first weekend after my first appointment was the weekend of my family reunion. Jaimes and I had already decided to keep my pregnancy secret until we found out the gender, so I didn’t say anything. My sister Savana announced during that reunion that she was expecting her 3rd child. I was excited and almost said something then. Her second and J are only a few weeks apart and so I thought it would be fun to have children together again! But I made it through the weekend without saying anything.
The next week I went to Lake Powell with my in-laws… and that was when I first started thinking something was up. I was on the lake, in the sun, ALL DAY and I wasn’t the slightest bit nauseated. That’s weird for me because seriously for the 9 months of pregnancy, I am nauseated. But, I chalked it up as being blessed to have a good day.
The day before my 10 week appointment, I noticed that I had a little blood on my underwear. I was alarmed, but calmed myself by reminding myself that one of my sisters had also spotted during her pregnancy and everything had turned out fine.
I went to my appointment, this time with J, and told the technician (new one this time) about the spotting. She tried to stay positive and started the ultrasound. Nothing… She still couldn’t find it through the regular methods. She didn’t even try the transvaginal ultrasound this time. Knowing that there was no growth, and with my spotting, she told me to prepare to lose the pregnancy within the next couple days.
Trying so hard not to cry uncontrollably in front of my then 2 year old son, I held it together until I was home.
Three days later, on July 16, 2012, I was with J when I suddenly felt cramping and pain. I put J down for his nap (forced nap), and I lost the pregnancy with about 2 hours of cramping.
Pretty devastated by the loss, and annoyed we were back at square one on trying to have another baby, Jaimes and I started to have a rough time in our marriage… something no one talks about. The work of TRYING to get pregnant is really hard on a marriage. Takes all the intimacy out of it! And to add to the hurt, we had medical bills come in from the two Dr. appointments!
August, September, October passed by. We figured it was due to my body healing and regulating after being pregnant. Then November, December, January, and we were wondering why it was becoming hard to get pregnant and if we could do something to help it. Then, finally, February came and I had that feeling again. I got a pregnancy test and it was positive. Excited, but a little apprehensive, Jaimes and I started to talk about what the plan was. We again decided not to tell anyone until we knew the gender, but, we also decided not to have a Dr appointment until I was at least 10 weeks along because we didn’t want to have to pay bills again unless I got past the 10 weeks.
All seemed to be going fine; I was sick… so that was a good sign! I was 10 weeks so I called to make an appointment for the next week. And then one night I was playing with J in his room when I felt my underwear get wet. I looked and saw blood… and not a little. I ran to the bathroom and yelled as I passed Jaimes “I’m bleeding!”
I hit the walls of my bathroom and yelled at God as I sat there and bled. I wasn’t having any pain but I was bleeding pretty heavy. I did that for about three days and then at about 1 am on the fourth day I woke up to extreme pain and then I lost the pregnancy… April 11, 2013. I was teaching at the time and I had already taken the past three days off because I had been expecting the loss… but I had to go into work that day. So I went to work hours after losing my pregnancy. I had to put on a seriously fake face! I also had to call the Dr office to cancel my appointment that would have come just 4 days later.
It was pretty lonely. No one had even known I was pregnant, so I couldn’t tell anyone that I had lost my pregnancies.
The next Sunday was a special meeting in our church called Fast and Testimony meeting and at first I didn’t want to be there but the sacrament hymn, I stand all Amazed, had humbled me and I understood that God was with me. I went to the pulpit to bear my testimony. I admitted that I had been having a difficult time with God and that I had been experiencing a hard trial in my life, but that I had been reminded by the song that I had to learn to trust God, and that maybe someday, I would understand why this was happening in my life.
That evening, my two angel visiting sisters from church came to my door. They told me they had gotten the impression that I needed them to visit. I opened up to them, telling them about my miscarriages. One of them, understanding, gave me the number to her fertility doctor.
I called the doctor the next day and made an appointment with him. He took great effort to look into my infertility and discovered that I had a past exposure to EBV and HHV6: two of the Human Herpesviruses.
My body had been fighting them for an unknown amount of time (though most likely since after Jarom) and was exhausted by the constant strain. It was because of my body’s exhaustion and the viruses themselves, that the fetuses would not survive past 6 weeks.
He put me on a strict diet and exercise plan, as well as prescribed me the antiviral Acyclovir. He told me to make sure to use protection in order to not get pregnant until the viruses had been cleared. Little did I know, I was already pregnant.
6 weeks later I had one more check up with him and he gave me the all clear but to continue to take the Acyclovir for another 6 weeks. However, I then started to feel pregnant. I took a test, and lo and behold I was pregnant! And had been the entire time…! I was nervous that since I wasn’t supposed to be pregnant and had been taking the drug the whole time that I had harmed my pregnancy. I called my OB to ask if acyclovir was OK to take during pregnancy and was told that it was… but I wasn’t convinced. But I also was afraid that if I stopped taking it before I had been prescribed that the viruses would end the pregnancy as they had before. It was a pretty rough 6 weeks. I did continue to take the drug, but always with extreme guilt, until my prescription was out.
At 12 weeks I went in for my first check up. I had an ultrasound… and everything was measuring as it should! 18 week ultrasound we found out that we were having a girl: Athena!… but they also found a “shine” on her heart that they wanted to monitor. For the entire pregnancy, I prayed constantly: “Please, let me just hold this one.” But, at the same time, the strain on mine and Jaimes marriage that had started after the first miscarriage was only worse at this point. Lack of communication, lying, misunderstandings, feeling unloved, etc… had made it so that we no longer sought comfort from each other. And it got worse and worse throughout my entire pregnancy. By the time I was 8 months pregnant, Jaimes and I were pretty much separated and talking divorce. As much as I had wanted to have Athena, I also didn’t want to bring her into this ugly world. I figured she was better in Heaven than here!–I had a lot of thoughts I wish I hadn’t about how she would be better not to be born.
Athena was born, beautifully perfect, 9lbs 3ox, 21 inches long on 25 Feb 2014!
Things didn’t get better for me and Jaimes until Athena was about 2 months old. As much as I had prayed for her, and was overjoyed that she was healthy and perfect (the shine did go away just 2 weeks before she was born)… I was so broken I didn’t cherish her as much as I should have. I also had those thoughts of Heaven being better for her than here… I will always regret that.
The year after Athena was born I looked into a lot about the question of “When does life start?” I’ve always fought for the belief that it started at conception but with my miscarriages being so early I wondered what that meant religiously (who were the spirits sent to those bodies?). I studied and found that movement can be detected at 6-7 weeks, but the Church had no “official statement” about miscarriages. I really wanted to know who those spirits were and why they had been given to me the way they had been.
I went to the Manhattan temple, sacred building in our church, in May of 2015 with those questions on my mind. The session, by an act of God, had been delayed in starting 30 minutes! I was with a friend and because of Subway closures, we had to walk an extra 7 blocks which made us show up to the temple just after 5pm (5 is the last session time) and were told we could go to the dressing rooms to see if we could do something else. When we got up to the rooms, we were told that the session hadn’t started so we could hurry up and get dressed and would probably make it. We sat in the chapel for 2 minutes when we were told the session could now start. Apparently there had been a technical problem with the speakers and they had to fix it. I was supposed to be in that temple at that time!
When I into the Celestial room, which is a room that symbolizes being in the presence of God, I was blocked by two beings who stood in my way. It was a little girl about 3 years old with semi curly reddish brown hair, and a boy about 2 years old who looked a little timid and shy. The little boy was holding onto the girls arm, slightly behind her. The little girl looked at me and said, “Mom, we are here, we are waiting for you” and then I didn’t see them anymore, but I felt their presence there in the room for quite some time afterwards.
I believe that the dreams I had when I was a teen were a gift from God to help me prepare for this trial–and to know that I could trust Him: He knew all things and He would always be there for me. And I know that He sent my children to me in the temple that day to show me that He was very aware of my needs.–This has become a huge strength for me to know as Jaimes and I have worked through a lot of our marriage issues (which are all worked out–through the grace of God–by the way!) and has been a big builder of my faith for me.
I know that families can be together forever, and that all things are possible through Christ. I am so grateful that my prayer was answered the way it was. I have seen the faces of the children I have lost and I wait for the day when I can hold them. I cherish the two children I have and tell them about their brother and sister in Heaven. I had my niece do a painting of them based off of my descriptions and it hangs in our living room.