FamilyFertilityLossPregnancyTrying After Loss

As if this year wasn’t bad enough, my husband and I suffered the greatest loss of our lives. 

We tried to get pregnant for our third, we were naive because our first two pregnancies happened quickly and easily without complications. This time, it wasn’t so easy. But we were determined. 

Then last May, I was feeling nauseated and crabby, I took a test and looked down to see a smiley face, which was a welcome change from the previous tests from months past. I was elated, I called my husband upstairs and told him, we both cried from joy, it was happening, we were having another baby. I called one of my closest friends and she was elated and texted a few others! Then I called my OB to make an appointment. Everything was perfect, our family was complete. 

I woke up one morning and found blood on my underwear and my heart sank. I felt sick, I didn’t know what to do, I wanted to scream, cry, run away, something to take myself out of my worst fears. I called my OB and she had me come in and everything was fine, the baby had a heartbeat. I felt like I could breathe. Since I was there my OB had me do my bloodwork and the HCG levels hadn’t doubled the way they wanted but were positive. I went in again the following week for another blood test and some genetic testing and to find out the sex. 

I was hoping for a girl, my husband wanted another healthy baby and our kids wanted a girl. My OB’s office called the next day, saying it was a girl and she had been diagnosed with Turner’s Syndrome. We had to go in for another ultrasound and to meet with the geneticist. We shortly thereafter learned we lost our girl. We were both devastated. I had a D&C, my husband couldn’t be there, so I woke up alone, and he picked me up outside the hospital. Our kids were in the car, I came home and climbed into bed where I spent the next few days. Everything hurt, it hurt to breathe and in that moment I never thought i could ever breathe again. 

As the months went on, so did I. The grief was still there, still heavy and it still hurt. As the summer progressed and my husband was home we talked but never about trying again, neither one of us was ready to have that discussion. Until one day, we were. I don’t remember who brought it up, but we agreed if it happened it happened and we wouldn’t do anything to prevent us from having another child. 

For the first time in a long time, I let go of my body issues, listening for a kid to cry, I finally felt like the woman my husband fell in love with all those years ago, the woman who didn’t care about what others thought, who would stay up and debate anyone on any political issue. 

And so, we began to rebuild, we would do movie nights, order food after the kids went to bed, we made our own beautiful date nights. We would sit outside in our front yard and look up at the stars or lie together in the hammock, hangout in the backyard and have a fire listening to our favorite music, sometimes he would play his guitar or piano for me. We started back at the basics and focused on us as a couple. We talked more, and less about the kids and little by little I felt sexy again, he felt less stressed and anxious. We began trying. 

Emily M Howe lives in Warwick, Rhode Island with her family.