Category Archives: Amanda

Emotions

While holding my sleeping 5 month old son today I was overcome with emotions. He was my ninth pregnancy, and only my second child here on earth.

I often think about our seven other children that we never got to meet. Would we have had more boys than girls or girls than boys? Or maybe we would have stopped after our first two and only had girls or only boys?

I’m not sure why I started to cry today while thinking about this. I have thought of this multiple times throughout the years since our first loss. I don’t always end up crying. In fact over the years I have been able to both think about and talk to people about our losses without becoming an emotional mess.

The times that I don’t cry and become emotional are not because I have really gotten over the losses but because I have been able to grieve our losses and come to believe that this is the reality we live in. Nothing we can do can take us back to the beginning of our journey to have children. At the same time, I wouldn’t change our journey, even though it was a very painful, heart wrenching ride, the destination was so worth it.

A friend of mine and I talk often about the losses both her and I have had. (She has had four losses, and is currently pregnant and due in the new year.)  We talk about the hopes and dreams we had when we found out we were pregnant for the first time. We talk about the devastation and despair that we felt after that first loss. We also have talked about the anxiety of each pregnancy afterwards and about parenting after our losses.

I believe that having this friendship has made it so much easier to grieve the loss of our children and move forward and be able to help other women and men go through the grieving process with someone by their side.

Moving forward we will continue to talk about our journeys both in the future and in the past and support each other through it all.

As I finish writing this I look down again at our son while he sleeps, and our daughter while she is playing in front of me, it makes me realize how lucky I am to have these two miracles here with us, and to have an amazing friend that has helped me grieve and grow over the last few years. 

Category : Amanda , Volunteer Bloggers

Our Baby Boy

On May 2nd at 6am we arrived at the hospital and by 6:35 our son had arrived. While he came very quickly once we got to the hospital, the last couple months of pregnancy seemed to drag on forever.

While staying at home and keeping up with our 3 year old was physically tough, the anxiety of getting closer to his birth was weighing on me emotionally. Giving birth during such an uncertain time in the world caused me more anxiety than last time, but in the end, it wasn’t as hard as I thought.

Our hospital experience this time around was very different then last time. After our daughter was born, most of our immediate family was at the hospital within an hour of her being born, and no one came to the hospital to see our son. This time I stayed in the hospital alone, while last time my husband stayed with me almost the whole time (although part of this was due to our daughter being at home).

As much as I mourned the absence of my family being with us shortly after birth, it ended up turning out okay in the end. Our daughter rushed to the door as soon as we came home from the hospital and asked to see baby right away. She asked, “Where’s baby?” before I even got through the door. She has fallen in love with him and shows it everyday since he came home.

We spent a few weeks at home by ourselves before any of our family was able to meet and hold him. When they finally came over and met him it was wonderful, so much joy and happiness.

Having what most likely is our last child home with us has been both amazing and sad. Our journey to have children was a lot longer, and way harder then we expected it to be, and because of this we are probably ending our journey on expanding our family here. This is hard for me because I always imagined myself with a larger family of three or four children, but most likely the right decision going forward.

The pain of 7 losses over the last 7 years has definitely taken a toll on both my mental and physical health. I wish things would have been easier and starting a family didn’t take so long.

We are extremely lucky to have two beautiful children who are healthy and happy. Even though our journey here was tough, I wouldn’t change it for anything. Looking into my son’s eyes and watching my daughter dance around brings me so much joy.

Category : Amanda , Volunteer Bloggers

Uncertainty

Going into my last month of pregnancy this month is so different than it was last time. Last time I was more relaxed and my only real worry was about my pregnancy and if/when I would bring my baby home, as I truly didn’t believe that she was coming home with us until after we were actually at home with her. 

This time the world has changed so much in the past few months, and we are at home practicing our social distancing. (By we I mean my daughter, 3 years old, and I as my husband is still working outside the home.) 

Now not only do I have the worries about this pregnancy/baby but I also have worries about our family becoming ill and not being able to have my husband with me during labor and delivery. I know that all these precautions are there for a reason and I completely understand them and honestly I am happy they are in place. (I work in health care and am so happy to not have to be working right now because watching all my coworkers go through the daily struggle is heartbreaking.)

Our hospital is allowing one support person to be with you in the hospital during labor, but other than that no visitors allowed. While I am happy that my husband will be able to be there with me, I am also mourning the absence of our daughter coming to the hospital and visiting her new sibling.

I’m also mourning the absence of our families coming to the hospital and meeting our new little one. We have such great memories of both families coming and visiting us the evening when our older daughter was born. It was an extra special Christmas Eve for everyone. Hopefully we will be able to start visiting family soon and we will be able to have people over at our place to visit and share in the joys of our new baby. 

Although all of these things have changed and we have no choice but to continue forward on this path, we are choosing to try and be as positive as possible and we are planning for my daughter to be watched by family members while I am at the hospital giving birth. My husband will be with me during the birth, but most likely my hospital stay will be just baby and I spending time together. One day this will all be a distant memory and maybe we will look back at it and smile with joy of my baby’s birth. 

 

Category : Amanda , Volunteer Bloggers

The Future

Our future is so uncertain. No matter how much you plan out life things don’t always go the way that you want it to.

As we look forward to our next baby joining us in May we are choosing to not make many plans for this coming year. We are definitely excited and are making some vague plans to spend time at the beach and camping, but no official plans yet.

We know that life with a new little one can go as planned or quite the opposite depending on how the baby adapts to life outside of the womb. Our daughter loved being in her car seat or the ergo carrier so it wasn’t too hard to accommodate a newborn into our plans. We will see how this new little one is.

As we move closer to our due date it has me remembering what my pregnancy with my daughter was like. I was very nervous all the way to the end. I truly believed that she may never come home with us, and even after she was home with us I still couldn’t believe she was there at times.

Those feelings are still there this time around. Some days they are worse than with my daughter but some days I am able to put the worry aside and enjoy this pregnancy.

When I was pregnant with our daughter I stopped working at 28 weeks due to the stress of my work at the time and commuting from one city to another. This pregnancy has been easier in that way and I plan to try and work until 34 weeks if I can. I am 29 weeks now, And even though we have a toddler at home I feel like I have a little more energy now than I did last time.

No one can predict how this baby will come into this world and when but one thing that is certain when this baby gets here we will start to make many plans for the future.

I will get to enjoy this baby’s first summer off of work, we will fill the days with many adventures and fun. We are looking forward to see how our daughter will interact with the new addition as well. Will she be jealous? Fall in love with our baby right away? Or not want the baby to stay here?

The future is so uncertain but it sure does look bright.

Category : Amanda , Volunteer Bloggers

Goodbye December

December is always such a hard month for me. It has so many painful memories and milestones in it, but it is also filled with so much joy and happiness.

It all started in 2013 when we found out we were pregnant and our first child would be born in Dec 2013. After only 5 weeks this pregnancy ended with a natural miscarriage and we were heartbroken. After a few months we tried again and shorty found out we were pregnant again. We were nervous but excited.

After seeing baby with a heartbeat 3 times and being 12 weeks pregnant we were so relieved and announced to the world that we were expecting a bundle of joy in May of 2014. Just after 15 weeks, on Dec 6, 2013, we found out that our baby no longer had a heartbeat, and I required a D&C as my body was not getting the message that I had a missed miscarriage.

After those two losses December just felt like a lonely time for me. Everyone else has always been happy and so excited for the holidays coming up, while I just wanted to have our 2 babies in our arms.

A few years later we found out that we were pregnant and we were due on December 20, 2016. I had so much anxiety about a December due date, let alone one so close to Christmas – what if something happened again, would I ever be able to get through December again?

Thankfully our daughter was born in December 24 and was just perfect (she still is). I still have the heartache of our losses every December, but now they are accompanied by the joy that I see in my daughter’s eyes.

I will forever be grateful that she is here with us and that December has some happiness back in it.

This December we have even more joy and happiness as we continue to expand our family with our next little one who is due in May next year. I am currently 21 weeks pregnant.

Category : Amanda , Volunteer Bloggers

Remembering

Last month we went through another milestone in our loss journey. It was the due date of our 7th loss.

At first I didn’t think it would bother me so much, but it still did. It’s been over 6 1/2 years since our first lost and every loss still hurts just as much.

This month as we remember all of the babies who have passed on before we got to hold them, I also think about how lucky I am to have our daughter here with us. She is our little miracle. When I look at her I remember the joy and pride I felt the first time I held her in my arms.

One day we will get to do that again. We will have another child. We will remain hopeful.

Category : Amanda , Volunteer Bloggers

Due dates

Our most recent due date is next month, in September. Even though it is our due date for our 7th loss it still seems to be hitting me hard.

The closer September gets the more emotional I get. Sigh… I wish I could say that it gets easier but the due date is hard no matter how many losses you’ve had.

Each new due date that passes is hard and it’s so hard to explain to others who keep saying things like “why do you get so sad about due dates?” and “Aren’t you used to it by now?”

I can say without a doubt that comments like this are not helpful, they hurt just as much as people ignoring your losses.

Please remember that people who have had repeated losses still can get sad and emotional about holidays, due dates, and other big days.

Category : Amanda , Volunteer Bloggers