Leap of Faith

Written by Brianna

So I thought it was time I dive into the craziness of pregnancy after loss.  The reason I lovingly refer to it as crazy, is because after enduring losing two babies and a first trimester miscarriage all in a row I kind of felt like the definition of insane.  You know,

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”-Albert Einstein

Since feeling insane is not the way to barrel into matters of faith, I was really touched when my husband found me this quote…

I cannot even tell you how many months these words carried me through... I sure love him. :)

Oh okay, now for that diving part. :) I thought I would share an account from my personal blog written while I was pregnant with our Rainbow Baby A.  I also feel it is important to note that I logically knew we had a choice to become pregnant again, but I never felt like I really had a choice.  To try again was like deciding whether or not to breath… I just had to.

Originally written, OCTOBER 10, 2012

I decided that it was time I give some insight into our journey to becoming pregnant again.  I am now 22 weeks pregnant, and though I am still not sure of what this baby's outcome will be I feel that I need to document this baby regardless.  I now feel I am in an emotionally stable enough place to do that.  So to keep my thoughts organized, I will break this post into categories.  Here goes...

Making a decision...

After we lost Alex the hardest part next to losing another baby was the complete lack of control I/we felt over our future.  We never felt like our family was complete, but neither one of us knew if we could take the chance of burying another baby.  Amazingly I think by the time we buried Alex we knew we would try again.  We knew there were steps that needed to be taken before we could do that, but ultimately we knew what path we needed to take.  Trust me, it is still something we prayed about fervently for confirmation, and I can honestly say we were not given a for sure answer either way.  I believed and still do that asking for another child was a righteous desire.  We don't want another one just because we make super cute babies (which we do ;).  We want to raise another child in this life because we are financially able, we have a good, solid marriage, we want to give our daughters another sibling to nurture, and we recognize our Heavenly Father's hand in all aspects of our life... like I said righteous desire.

Not to go off on a tangent, but losing a baby is kind of liking being in a plane crash (note that I know that it is far more common to lose a baby than be in a plane crash, but bear with me).  When you embark on a plane ride you know there is always a tiny chance that it may crash.  Just like when you get pregnant you know there is not a guarantee that you will get a baby to have and hold in the end, but you board the plane anyways.  You figure you know people fly every day without incident, heck you know personally several people who have flown and reach their destination worry free.  You have heard of planes crashing, but not close to as many crashes as successful flights are even mentioned.  So you go for it, because the destination is unbelievably good.

Well we are the people who have been in not one, but two plane crashes and here we are on another flight.  The reason we were able to take this leap is mostly because we have had the opportunity to see the destination.  We know what it looks, feels, and smells like.  We know we would have taken hundreds of flights just to get here.  We know the joys of parenthood, and that's what made our decision.

The medical part...

Before jumping into any big decision I am a firm believer in collecting all the information possible.  For us this included trying to find any medical reasons why my body had lost two babies.  So now it was time for testing.  Demree's loss appeared to be from a cord accident (the cord was wrapped three times around her little neck when she came out), but Alex had no apparent reason as to why her little heart just quit.  Since I lost them both at virtually the same gestation (18 weeks & 17 weeks), I really wondered if we were missing something all together. 

With both babies we chose not to have autopsies done for a couple reasons. Demree's demise seemed obvious, both Alex and Demree were the size they were supposed to be for their gestation, and they had no apparent genetic abnormalities (i.e. lower ears, cleft pallets, missing tongues)... they were perfect, just too tiny to sustain life.  I had both placentas autopsied, but nothing came up with those.  So on to me we went.  Between my OB and the perinatologist I was referred to they took at least a dozen tubes of blood and tested me for various blood clotting disorders, lupus, and any thing else they could think of.  All of this came back normal.  Next we moved on to a sonohysterogram.  This is a slightly uncomfortable test that they do to check out the structure of your uterus. Here they were looking for any septums on my uterus wall or if I had a heart shaped uterus that they had missed.  Again all came back normal.  I have a beautiful uterus, and lots of eggs in my ovaries (this is in case you were all wondering ;).  When we first went into the perinatologist, and he reviewed my history with me, I asked what my chances were of a healthy baby.  He gave me a 65% shot with my mixed history of loss and success.  Some may think that sounds defeating, but for me I was pretty impressed it was that high.  I had more failed pregnancies on my rap sheet than children living in my home, so I guess it's all in the perspective. ;)

All of the above testing took place over about two months, or as I refer to it as two cycles (for the past two years my life has been measured in cycles).  I now had no reasons from my medical professionals or other wise to not move forward and conceive again... except for the debilitating fear that had developed in my gut.

"Gonna put the world away for a minute, pretend I don't live in it.."-Zac Brown Band

While in the information phase of our decision we decided to whisk our girls off to Disneyland.  We desperately wanted to give them, and us, something to look forward too after breaking their hearts two separate times that year.  If you are in the thick of devastation I highly recommend escaping as much as possible.  The hurt doesn't go away, BUT it easier to pretend, for a minute, that this isn't happening to your family.

Stay tuned for Part 2…