Kristen's Story

We found out I was pregnant on our 9^th wedding anniversary. I had a feeling before we took the test.  Despite the signs, however, it had been so many years of failing to conceive that I just simply couldn’t believe this was real. I wanted to live with the hope a few days longer without having to look at another (inevitably) negative pregnancy test; it took courage to finally take it.  

I remember watching the two pink lines immediately appear in the test window. As my husband peered in and saw my huge smile and tear-drenched face, we didn’t have to say anything. All that we had gone through on our journey radiated between our eyes.  We collapsed on the bed laughing, crying, and praying. That moment, we felt Heavenly Father’s spirit everywhere. The road had been long, but after a universe of tears and loss and triumphs we finally found ourselves in that moment. I knew it was a little girl. I had felt her with me for days.

My husband started googling pregnancy information. He did so through his tears of happiness. And I remember thinking how strange it was for us of all people to be googling something like that. We talked about me quitting work and fantasized about other plans too. We spent that day, and the entire pregnancy for that matter, in a state of bliss, shock, nervousness, and anticipation. Most of all gratitude. Gratitude above all things. 

We wanted a family as soon as we were married. We were both working and going to college, however, so we waited a few years to get started. Once I was on my way to graduate school, we figured that it was a good time to begin. When it had been 18 unsuccessful months of trying, we saw a fertility specialist. He said that since we had no health issues, we should just keep at it. Six months later, we were thrilled to discover we were finally pregnant. Those two years of infertility were tough. And yet the difficulty of those years would pale in comparison to the heartaches we would soon know after.

The pregnancy progressed wonderfully, and we found out we were having a boy. I was so proud of my growing baby bump. I was so happy to be pregnant.

At 27 weeks, I had an odd day in which I noticed that I wasn’t feeling the baby move. There was nothing else different, so I went to sleep and told myself I’d call the doctor in the morning. The doctor asked me to come to the hospital for a non-stress test the next day. I remember driving to the hospital feeling calm and confident, thinking, “wouldn’t it be crazy if were to deliver him early and we got to meet him today?” The thought that something could be more seriously wrong never even occurred to me.

The first nurse could not find a heartbeat. Her face looked troubled. My stomach started to hurt. She said, “It must be this old machine.” As she went to get another machine, and a doctor, I knew something was wrong. When my husband arrived, he took one look at my stricken face as I mouthed “they can’t find the heartbeat” and he looked as if his heart had just shattered on the floor. There was a lot of painful silence, an eternity of different people moving that wand around my stomach, all to no avail. Only silence. A doctor came into the room to confirm that our son had passed away. I was almost 8 months pregnant. I remember the doctor saying that this had happened to his sister and she had gone on to have other healthy babies, so we should try to have faith. I remember his words brought no comfort. I didn’t want to move on and have more babies—I wanted this baby!

Everything became one nightmarish blur. In one shattering moment, I was made into a completely new and utterly broken woman. Losing your child, your first child, especially one you have waited so long for, is akin to having your head and heart and soul and the floor underneath you ripped away all at once. It was the last thing in the world we ever expected. 

I’ll never forget the calm way in which the doctor explained I would have to give birth even though my son had already passed away. That sounded surreal: I would have to do THAT? My heart was pounding, my eyes ran out of tears. I developed a fever and infection, and was delirious from the emotional and physical pain. Our son was delivered about 12 hours later, weighing almost 3 lbs. and looking like a perfect angel. Seeing him was one of the best and worst moments of my life—I couldn’t believe my body had created something so beautiful! I remember that a drop of blood came out from his nose and I wiped it away gently—one of the few precious acts of motherhood I was able to perform for him. We were never able to discover the reason why he had passed.

The next few weeks became a blur of visitors, flowers and meals, funeral services, grief, and most of all, utter and complete disbelief. Those weeks turned to months and we just sort of floated along in a traumatized, grief-stricken, and numb state. We visited the temple and my husband felt my son’s spirit there, giving him peace. And me? I got angry. I went back to graduate school, disappeared into my work, and became bitter. My resentment was the only thing pushing me forward. I stopped caring for my health and simultaneously tried (desperately) to become pregnant again. I wanted to replace the pain with another pregnancy. I started to lose my faith in God, feeling like I had had my greatest dream given to me just to be cruelly ripped away. We had so much love to share with a child! It just wasn’t fair. Nothing made sense.

The worst part was we were not able to conceive again. My resentment grew. Now I see that I was running away from the grief by simply trying to get pregnant again. Even had we succeeded, the grief would have remained. There is no “replacing” a baby. Because I had developed internal scarring from the stillbirth, pregnancy became a bridge we could not cross. I was lost. We were lost. We had each other and in that sense we were happy. But we were afraid of people with kids, especially pregnant women, because it reminded us of our pain. And yet, we held on to some hope in the best way we could. Hope is a stubborn thing and a small part of us never let it go.

After a few of these limbo years, it suddenly dawned on us that we needed to let go of our past and simply fight to become parents. We got a strong feeling we should pursue adoption. It wasn’t just being pregnant again but simply being parents that mattered to us. And now I see this path was the road we were meant to take all along.

Invigorated by having a specific goal, we met with an adoption agency, took classes, saved money, prepared for a home study, and told everyone we could that we were looking for a birthmother. However, the whole process felt surreal because I couldn’t quite picture that an actual baby would be the outcome of all we were doing. I imagined we would wait for a birthmother for years. We made a profile on the agency website and poured everything into writing it (I put my English degrees to work!). And wouldn’t you know, our letter just so happened to immediately catch someone’s eye…

K found herself in a rocky relationship and (unexpectedly) expecting. She later told me that she always knew she was “carrying someone else’s baby” and adoption seemed to be a fairly clear, though not easy, choice for her to make. She contacted the agency and met with a few other couples. She said things didn’t quite feel right with the others. We got the call about meeting her and her ex (the birthdad) seven weeks after we applied for adoption! Our luck was changing. We left the meeting feeling excited, but not wanting to get our hopes up too much. But I loved K the first moment I met her.

One day later we got the call. We walked back into the agency and there was K with a baby tub filled with toys and other baby items, and there was a letter, and we knew she was about to ask us to be the parents of her baby. No words can describe the joy we felt.

We were a part of the rest of K’s pregnancy and we were there at the hospital when our son Atticus came into this world. I remember thinking that he looked too perfect to be true. He was so healthy, so ALIVE. Words cannot express the happiness we felt when, after many years of loss and infertility, grief and confusion, our son was lovingly placed in our arms. I felt pure joy, but I also felt guilty. I knew a bit about what our birthmom must be going through, and there is no worse pain than losing a child. And because I knew her pain, and because of the magnitude of the gift she was giving, I love her in the kind of way that very few people can understand. I will love her to the end of time. We left that hospital with a miracle in our arms. We were able to heal because of this incredible person, and we owe her EVERYTHING. We remain close with my son’s birthmother and she has been a very important part of our lives over the years as Atticus has grown.

 Motherhood softened me. No longer did I feel bitter. We were very proud parents and shared our adoption story with everyone we could. It felt like Atticus was meant to be part of our family all along. Our lives became busy with all things baby. We loved our son even MORE because he was adopted and because we had gone through so much to get to him. We spoiled him with love and attention, well, the whole family did, and they were happy years. Atticus did not replace our first son. He simply allowed us to see the sun again.

It had been six years since losing our first child and despite trying to conceive that entire time, we had finally let go of the pregnancy dream. And thankfully, that no longer hurt. Once in a while we thought about IVF or maybe even adopting again. We still, of course, wanted another baby and we wanted Atticus to have a sibling. But, that was another goal to pursue in the future as opposed to a bridge we couldn’t cross (which is what a natural pregnancy was to us). Funny how the deepest part of me always knew there was a little girl still to come. Funny how miracles come when you least expect them. A little girl was coming, a girl like the violets, like the spring flowers that manage to push through the frosty earth and surprise us all with the reminder that life continues on in the most difficult of circumstances. And it always will.

We both had a lot of fear. Fear that something would go wrong. And so, we prepared ourselves for the worst. We didn’t shop for baby clothes or have a baby shower. We felt deep appreciation and joy to be pregnant again at long last, but we also felt a need to protect our hearts should we lose this baby. I spent the pregnancy anxious and afraid, needing to listen to our fetal heartrate monitor constantly. I had nightmares about something going wrong. And yet each and every day, my faith slowly increased. My overwhelming fear started to turn into hope. I finally started talking about our full story with others and began to work through the grief from our past.

My husband and I knew all too well how fragile life can be. He was amazingly supportive during the pregnancy, especially because of the complex emotions involved. I couldn’t have made it through without him. The paradox of living a precarious dream was the most stressful, wonderful, weird, prolonged, joyful time in my life. But the pregnancy did indeed progress and my daughter was healthy and strong throughout. Any time I started to feel the fear, she somehow seemed to kick at that precise moment, almost as if she were saying, “I’m here mom. I’m strong and I’m not going anywhere!”

I was induced at 37 weeks (typical after one has had a stillbirth). My labor was short and intense. My husband and I kept it together pretty well up until our daughter started to go into distress and NICU equipment was brought into the delivery room. This was strange equipment I had never seen before, and it hit me how different everything was from when we delivered our first child. Once all the baby monitoring and measuring equipment was brought in, I started to get upset and it’s hard to explain why. I began weeping and saying over and over to my husband that I was scared “it” would happen again. But the wiser, stronger part of me, the part that could still hear my daughter’s perfect heartbeat on the monitor and the part of me in tune with Heavenly Father’s peaceful spirit knew everything would be okay. And it was.

After a painful labor, the doctor finally put a very slippery, white and red covered little baby in my arms and I remember feeling that this couldn’t be real, that she really was alive and we had made her from our love. She was a miracle! Her beauty and angelic perfection took my breath away. My husband and I could do little but stroke her face and cry tears of joy. She was this mysterious being that had lived in me as a theory, as a dream, and suddenly that dream had come true. We named our daughter Zoe Violet and she is now a bubbly, healthy, beautiful 6-month-old. Atticus loves his sister more than words can describe and we’ve all never been so happy.

Life doesn’t always work out perfectly as planned. The grieving process is complex, and there are no shortcuts. Life has shown me both tragedy and miracles, and I’ve learned a lot from them. I’ve learned I love my husband and he loves me and that allowed us to make it through stronger than ever. I’ve learned to have faith. And I’ve learned above all things that we are all very lucky to have found each other.