MY ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION, MISCARRIAGE, ADOPTION, NATURAL PREGNANCY, RAINBOW BABY STORY
PREGNANCY 1
After about three or four years of marriage, we decided we were going to try. Had no luck for six to eight months. Because I’d had DES exposure, they suggested artificial insemination.
It worked. I got pregnant and I was just over the moon! I couldn't believe it!
Plus, both my sister and my sister-in-law were expecting. On Mother's Day, we all went to brunch, took photos of the three pregnant girls together, and celebrated that we're all going to have babies. It was this amazingly magical thing.
A few weeks later when my husband and I were out, I went to the bathroom, and I had blood. It was bright red blood. I just kept thinking, That's not good.
I was so stunned. This is not what this is. This is just the spotting they tell you about.
I ended up going to the emergency room because I did start bleeding. The technician immediately said, I've had miscarriages too. I remember telling myself, No, no, no. We don't know this is a miscarriage yet. Why are you jumping to that conclusion? We don't have a proof yet that it’s a miscarriage.
We ended up having a D&C, where I had to get it all cleaned out and stuff. That was really upsetting.
The nurse said, You’re going to be okay.
And I thought, I’M NEVER GOING TO BE OKAY.
I'll never be the same and I'll never get over this. This is a black hole that I'm going to just fall into.
It was so upsetting. It was such a monumental dark cave that opened up in me: It's done. It's over. You're not pregnant anymore.
I remember knowing that my life was going to be measured by before this loss and after.
PREGNANCY 2
It took a while. We tried a lot. Tried, tried, tried, and tried. We had a funny time when we were trying. Sometimes getting to the point of like, I don't want to do this anymore than you do! We’re late – get in the bedroom!
When I got pregnant the second time, I couldn't believe I'd gotten pregnant again. I was so excited.
Then one day I went to the bathroom, and there was blood. I was like, I know what this is, and it's over.
It was Christmas morning at 5am. I wanted to wake up my husband, but I didn't. I was just crying, staring at him. I remember thinking, That's it. It's over. I'm not going to be able to do this. I can't go through this again. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm done.
It’s an emotional roller coaster. You think, How can everybody just do this and how can I not?
After that, we came to a fork in the road and the doctor said, I think the only option now is IVF. I’m like, I can't go through another failed attempt. I can't go through it again.
IVF is thousands and thousands of dollars, plus lots of hormones to make me even more full of hormones and emotions, AND it's not guaranteed. You go through all of this and you still could lose the baby. You still could.
That's when my husband said, "I think we should adopt."
ADOPTION
After three years of trying and two miscarriages, we decided to do adoption instead of IVF.
We went with a proven agency that was going to be 100% guaranteed to get your baby – because I had a friend who had two foster babies and the court gave the them back. I said, I can't. It must be guaranteed. I need a lawyer to close all the loopholes because I can't lose another baby.
We signed up in May, and then we got a phone call Labor Day weekend that they had matched us with the birth mother, and then our son was born in January. From the time we signed up to the time he was born, it was nine months – just like a pregnancy.
Our adopted baby was four months old when I got pregnant. I was like, This feels different.
PREGNANCY 3
When I went to confirm that I was truly pregnant, they did the ultrasound and all of a sudden we heard a heartbeat. We all started sobbing. I cried, my husband cried, the nurse practitioner cried. She was like, Honey, this is the baby. You're going to have this baby. To hear that heartbeat so strong was unbelievable.
Because I’ve got autoimmune issues, my gynecologist put me on some kind of blood thinner, had me take a baby aspirin every day, and immediately put me on bed rest: You're laying down until you give birth.
My pregnancy with my daughter was really rough for a time. They thought maybe there was going to be something wrong with her.
When they told me that, I just came bursting out of the room, crying through the waiting room filled with expectant mothers. My husband’s like, Next appointment they'll probably take us out the back exit.
He told me after the second miscarriage: I was so afraid you were losing your mind. I wasn’t sure. You were so just devastated. He would feel so bad after I'd had a miscarriage, and he didn't know what to do. Both times he went out and bought me a new Kate Spade purse. He just wanted to do something nice.
When I was pregnant the third time with my daughter and went for an ultrasound, they thought there was something wrong. The two parts of her colon hadn't fused yet, which could have been that it just hadn't fused yet, or it's what they see when kids are severely mentally retarded, when there's down syndrome, when they're just vegetables. It was either nothing or three really bad things – and so we won't know until we do an amnio.
In our family, we laugh about that stuff. We deflect with humor. And there were a few intense weeks where we didn't know what was happening. My sister joked to me, Man, if you get a messed up baby, is your husband going to get you the complete Kate Spade luggage set? We laughed through the pain: I want the carry on, I want the wardrobe...
We ended up going from no babies to two babies in 13 months. It was like, boom, boom. I reflect on it so much over the years. It still hurts when I think about the wedding bouquet my husband made. I have it in a little wedding box. But next to it, I have two little dried rosebuds for each time I got pregnant and we miscarried – right beside my bouquet.
It was really important to me and I'll never forget them. Whatever they were, even if it was an empty sack, it was so impactful and powerful.
I'll never forget that those were a part of me and they left me without my consent.
People will say things to try to make you feel better. Some people say, You know what? It was God's Will. There was something wrong with it. Your body knew to reject it because there was something wrong. Some people find comfort in those words, but I never did. I was like, Oh, I should be glad that I was growing a mutant? You know what I mean? That doesn't make me feel better.
It hurt that it wasn't a real baby in there and I didn't have a real baby. That hurt.
And it's a hurt that nothing can make better other than time. Time makes it better,
but it's still in there.
I think about that chapter – how exciting it was to have my baby daughter, and how hard it was to lose.
Both my children know their whole story. My daughter’s funny because she'll make a joke like, I was the one and that made it. The others weren't tough like me.
It was important to us that our children know their story so they understand how wanted and loved they were – what miracles they both were for us.
It's a lifetime ago, but it can still be right there. I can still touch it when it comes up.
I knew that miscarriages were common – but I didn’t know how emotionally devastating it was going to be.
Even though I felt very supported by my spouse, supported by my family and friends, there's a pain so deep and isolating. It was an experience and a pain I had to suffer alone.