I had always intended to keep a blog going for my daughter Morgan, or MoMo, as we lovingly refer to her nowadays. I can't count the number of times that I have tried to write, only to give up in a matter of minutes. Most of you reading this blog are (hopefully) not going to have first hand experience with the things my family has been through but to us this is/was real life. Thank you to all of those who have looked at this these pages. You are the reason I'm finally writing our story.
Honesty and openness are two very important things to me. Sometimes to a fault. I believe in being an open book, especially if it can help others. As explained in my earlier posts, my husband and I have (and are still) experiencing fertility problems. We have been pregnant three times and only one of those successfully resulted in birth.
I guess the first thing thing that comes to mind when talking about our infertility is pain and sadness. Don't get me wrong, I am blessed and over-joyed to be a mother but I still feel loss for the babies that we lost and trauma of Morgan's birth and those horrific (yes, still wonderful, too) days, weeks and months that followed.
The first pregnancy that failed was September of 2008, after two years of trying to conceive. At the time the loss for me was just one of a lot of blood with a lot of cramping. A baby was just an abstract thing to me at the time. I knew I wanted to have a child with my husband and so we tried...and tried...and tried.... The loss was much more physical than emotional. It's hard for me to admit that now but I had no idea what I lost at the time. I don't even really remember talking to my husband in any detail about it or if I even told him at all. I spent the better part of 4 days curled up in a ball on my upstairs bathroom floor. I remember just wanting the pain to go away. We would try again.
The next pregnancy was Morgan, January 2009. Finding out about her was a roller coaster all of its own and I will share that story later but now I will keep it short by just saying that the pregnancy was wonderful up until the time I went into labor at 24 weeks. What was supposed to be the happiest day in my life was also the worst day of my life. From the moment Morgan was conceived I knew she was a miracle but the thing I remember most from the morning I had her was the dread of knowing she was coming out and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was supposed to protect her and there I was putting her in the most dangerous situation imaginable. It is taking me a long time to get over any part of the guilt that I felt and still feel about that day.
Our last pregnancy was January 2011. It was unplanned and rocky from the start. Our OBGYN was not optimistic from the beginning. My hormone levels we very low and I was put on progesterone but to no avail. We lost the baby after weeks watching and waiting. I was around fifteen weeks pregnant when the final decision was made to have a DNC after no heartbeat was ever found. The eleven weeks that I knew I was expecting were also filled with ups and downs. I was throwing up, an emotional wreck and those lovely stretch marks were already creeping around my belly. My body was already starting to show so we had to tell our close family. We hoped and prayed that we would have another miracle. During that time, every part of my body and mind were in the pregnancy. I felt not only the loss of that baby but was also able to grieve for the first baby.
I'm sure I will get into more of the details to come but in the mean time, feel free to leave comments or questions. If you have anything specific you want to know, just ask. I would be more than happy to share and hopefully help along the way.
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