*Re-Release* IVF, Boys, NICU, Surgeries, Stillbirth: Jacqueline's Story (Part 2)

Jacqueline re-shares more of her fertility story including the miraculous births of her sons! In this episode she discusses IVF, the NICU, surgeries, hospital stays, a stillbirth and dealing with the emotional and physical challenges of miscarriages and premature delivery. Jacqueline emphasizes the importance of resilience, therapy, and the power of pausing to heal, offering an intimate look at the challenges and triumphs of motherhood and infertility.

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Transcript

Hey, it's Jacqueline. Hope you're doing well. Here in Chicagoland, we got our first little dusting of snow. So as I'm sitting here recording this, I'm looking outside and a very dreary cold morning here.  I'm sure my kids will be excited though, to wake up and just see the little bit of snow.

Of course, it's just like a dusting, nothing to play in just enough to like be annoying and cold.  But it's here and it's a chilly morning. But anyway, tis the season.  So today's episode is going to be another re release. It's the second episode that ever aired of this podcast. So if you haven't yet listened to the episode that came out right before this, go ahead and do that. These few episodes that I'm going to be putting out are resharing my fertility story in full,  with all the details. This is the reason I put out this podcast. My experiences is what drives me to help others and connect with all of you.

 So give that a listen. And today's episode Is part two of my story, including the miraculous births of my sons. In this episode, I'll discuss IVF, the NICU surgeries, hospital stays, a stillbirth, and just dealing with the emotional and physical challenges of miscarriages and premature birth.

And in this episode, I'm really going to emphasize the importance of resilience, therapy, and the power of pausing to heal and really part two of my journey is kind of what catapulted us,  to our family today. So it is a longer episode, but it's important for me that new listeners hear my story to really understand where I'm coming from with this podcast and the perspective I have when I interview my guests, if you've already listened to this,  take this off as an opportunity to kind of pay it forward. In this season, you know, I'm always feeling gratitude and I thinking of others more so than ever. So I'm going to challenge you to do the same. Share this podcast with somebody in your life who could really use the connection, the knowledge, and just the feeling of not being alone in their experiences.

I am going to give another trigger warning that I do talk about loss and miscarriage and some really hard times. So if this episode isn't for you or you need to skip through stuff, no hard feelings at all. No hard feelings. I'll catch you next time. All right. Here's part two of my story. Take a listen.

So if you haven't listened to episode one, it is the first three years of my husband and I's like our fertility journey, including just trying to conceive.

And seven IUIs becoming pregnant with twins only to have two second trimester miscarriages. And then we ended the episode with. Us deciding to do IVF, so we're going to pick it up from there, this is about.  2017. We switched fertility clinics and we ended up going to Fertility Centers of Illinois. We're located in the Chicagoland area.

So we switched clinics. We went to the doctor that I heard on another podcast, Dr. Alison Rogers. I'm gonna link her Instagram account in the show notes, because she is putting out some really great content. She's an author as well. And she's just like getting real with your fertility and your body and woman's bodies.

And it's awesome. So check out her Instagram account. You won't regret it. So we started our round of IVF. And for those who aren't familiar, it involves our doctor tailored, like a protocol for us, for me and my body that she thought would work best with what kind of medications and the timing of everything.

A lot of medications are involved. It's expensive.  Unfortunately, our insurance didn't cover it at the time, so that was a bummer. Bit of a burden. So I was given my protocol. We started with the medications. If you're not familiar with IVF, again, you're doing a lot of injections and you're heavily monitored.

So every so many days you're going in, making sure your levels are fine. They're doing ultrasounds to see that your follicles all growing, all the things. And you do this for about,  I don't remember exactly. I want to say it's 10 days, two weeks until you go in for retrieval day. Aside from having total trust in Dr.

Rogers, one of the reasons we did decide to move forward with IVF as well is just based on the statistics she shared with us alone. I truthfully had no idea that IUIs, you have a five to 20 percent chance of success on an IUI. So I was 29 when we started IVF and the national average I think is like 55 percent chance of success if you're under 35.

Like with your first round of IVF or first transfer, Dr. Rogers gave us a 70 percent chance of success. So that was extremely encouraging. So that was like a big factor in let's do this. That sounds better. 70 is better than 5 to 20 percent chance of success. So we're ready to  put our egos aside and accept that we need this kind of help to have a baby.

And I am so glad that we did.  So for those who are unfamiliar with IVF, it involves a lot of monitoring, a lot of medications. My doctor worked with us to set up a protocol that seemed right for me and my body, based on what kind of dosing of medication I might need, and the timeline of everything. So, I'm not going to get into the details of all of it because literally this will be a whole episode on its own, IVF.

But, in a nutshell, you're given, um,  You know, a lot of medications to take on your own via injections. So you're doing a lot of shots and I, if I remember right, I want to say between  10 days and 14 that you're doing these shots. And actually prior to that, you're on medication to, Prep your body. Take control of your cycle.

Everything is timed based on the days of your cycle. You're on medication first, then you do the shots. And throughout those weeks, those days of taking injections, you're heavily monitored. So you're going in for ultrasounds. They're checking the growth of your follower, foll followers. Whoo, they're checking the growth of your follicles.

Not your Instagram followers. Checking the growth of your follicles, which for those who don't know, is what becomes the egg. Checking the growth of the follicles and then also if I remember right, I think you do, are doing blood tests as well. I could be wrong. It's been a while. But that's a good sign. I'm gonna pause right there and say there's a reason I only have certain memories of IVF because  as you'll hear, I have children on earth from IVF and everything I did for my To get to that point,  the injections, the monitoring, all of it.

I don't remember those details anymore. I actually, I did take like my own video diary entries, a few of those of it. Cause I really wanted to document the experience to one day show our kids. What we did to conceive them and how badly they were wanted. But  on the top of my brain, like those aren't the memories I have anymore.

I forget how my kids are here. I'm just so glad that they are here. And if you are going through IVF, like you will too. It'll feel, it feels like a hard time when you're in it. But the second you're holding that baby in your arms. It's unimaginable. And we'll talk about this too, but unfortunately IVF does not guarantee a baby.

It doesn't. I've met multiple women who go through many cycles of IVF and, and still don't have a baby. The story is different. A lot of it depends on like your underlying infertility conditions. It depends on your age. So many factors. Male factors as well. So there's a lot that goes into it, but I will say if you're going through it now,  hang in there, because The experience won't feel so heavy one day, is guess what I wanted to pause and say. 

So anyway, after you're doing all these injections and they're monitoring your follicles, then you are told to do a trigger shot. And then I want to say it was like two days later is when I was Brought into the clinic to do my egg retrieval. So the whole idea with IVF is your body is prepping to produce all of these eggs to retrieve them, to have them fertilized, to become embryos.

I went in for my  egg retrieval, which I remember being a little bit nervous about it, but honestly, I was just so excited because at this point, as you can imagine, if your body's producing all of these eggs, like  I felt so my abdomen was like pushed out and like I said, it's more like my uterus area, but I just felt so bloated and uncomfortable.

And it was almost two weeks of doing these medications that are times they have to happen at certain times. And again, life doesn't stop for all of this. I tried my best, but I, at the time I was working in events, so I do remember having to have my assistant go ahead early. earlier than me at one point because I had to do my shot at seven, between seven and nine.

So I was like, and my event started at seven. So I was like, okay, I'll just have to do my shot at home and then go and meet her there.  But then I did get the hang of it. And I, one of my events, I brought my medication with me and here I am in the bathroom of a restaurant, giving myself an injection and then hopping right back into hosting an event.

It's wild, but women are strong and we know this, but yeah, so everything was very timed. And so you're trying to build up all these follicles that turn into eggs. and you're hoping to get a good amount because your egg count will dwindle down over the days of what survives and what becomes an embryo and everything.

So we decided to do ICSI, which is when instead of taking an egg and the sperm and putting it into a petri dish and letting them fertilize on their own, what they do is ICSI is like where they put  And this is my layman's terms. I don't know all the proper, proper terms for this. And I, you can fact check me.

I'm not, I'm obviously not a doctor. I'm just telling my story from my own memory. But ICSI is when they make a little slit in the egg and it's like where they basically inject the sperm right into the egg. So it's a higher chance of fertilization. And then obviously all the eggs that become fertilized.

Start to grow into embryos and it's on day five. I think there's different protocols again I think some people do day three, maybe day six. I'm not sure. I just remember like ours were day five embryos So I might be a tad off with the exact number, but I believe they retrieved  It was in the 20s. I want to say like 22 eggs from my retrieval and those 22 eggs  dwindled down to eight embryos that we had.

And honestly, we were ecstatic because ahead of time, she was like, well, you're young, you're 29, everything looks good. We could probably expect three to four embryos. So when we got eight, I was like, what?  We were just like, Over the moon and at this point, we chose not to. So you have the choice before freezing your embryos to  have them genetically tested.

The only thing is, if you have them genetically tested, then you will be doing a frozen embryo transfer. And given our age and our genetic medical history, nothing like that. Crazy. We decided against it at the time. It was an added, I don't even like 4, 000 expense on the top of everything else we were paying for IVF.

And our doctor didn't seem  too concerned about it at the time. So we were just like, okay, we'd really to do a fresh transfer since we just went through this cycle. Um, And so we're just gonna, we're going to do it now. So we did a fresh transfer and then went ahead and froze our embryos. So at this point, yeah, we don't know genetically what the embryos are like, but we did know each clinic grades their embryos differently, but all eight of our embryos were grade AA,  which is the best. 

Rating sounds weird, but the best label, I don't know what you want to call it, that our clinic gives. So we were extremely happy about that. I don't know too much about the ratings other than I know that if you have an embryo that is say a B or a C or something like that, then I think it lowers your chances of success, like when transferring it.

So when they're choosing an embryo to transfer, they're going to go with the one that has the best grade. So we were extremely happy to find out that. All of our embryos, all eight were grade AA. That was amazing. So yeah, then they do, right there, they retrieve the eggs and then  make the embryos. And then day five, so five days later is when we came in for the  embryo transfer, which.

is a wild experience. It's definitely not as involved. I was put under when they took my, when they did the egg retrieval and everything. Transfer day is way different. Josh was in the room with me. They had everything up on a screen, like of what they were doing. And they showed us like literally  going through it, like they're putting the embryo into your body through this little tube.

Science is wild and we can see it. They just implant it, right? Into the uterus where it needs to go and  then for the next  basically two weeks We just pray that the embryo implants into my uterine lining. It was a crazy experience It was  the easier part of IVF that day was very exciting I think there was a lot riding on it for me only because I felt oh my gosh I hope this works because it was so fresh in my mind all of the shots and everything and it was just like very Daunting trying to do it along with all Work and life and everything, but we did know for some reason it doesn't work out.

We do have seven more  embryos. So we're just going to pray and try and stay calm and hope for the best. Just like with my IUIs, I, like a crazy person was taking pregnancy tests.  I did give it some time. I think I gave it, I don't know, maybe five days. And then I started testing and I started to see a faint line.

I started to compare the tests. They were getting darker and darker. And then I got the call.  I got the call congratulating us that we were pregnant. It was amazing. This is pregnant with my oldest son. He's about to be five and a little over a month again. And I'd be lying if I said,  obviously we had our moment of excitement.

Oh my gosh, we're pregnant, but  we've been pregnant before. We were pregnant with the twins and  that didn't go well. That didn't turn out the way we thought. We, we did not go home with babies. So while it was a very exciting news  and the outcome that we had hoped for, um, I still know that I still knew that we were holding our breath.

I was holding my breath. There really wasn't a good  threshold of, I thought, I think when I was going to feel okay. So you're monitored with your fertility clinic until about eight weeks. We heard the heartbeat and did ultrasounds with them. So every week we were going in just to monitor how everything is going for about a month.

Might've been a little longer. Maybe it was 10 weeks. I can't remember. And then we were released to our OB. We like graduated from the fertility clinic, which was very exciting. So that was, I guess, the first milestone we were like, okay. Take a little breath. We're okay.  Then,  once we got to our OB, we pretty much followed regular protocol.

All the appointments with having to pee in a cup and listening to the heartbeat and, or just getting weighed and nothing too exciting. Because we did IVF, I think we did get a couple more ultrasounds than normal. Also, given my history, they were just, my OB is fantastic. And I should mention that I ended up changing  I went to, I ended up changing to a different OP doctor.

After everything with losing our twins and my miscarriages, I just had a hard time  even thinking about going back there. I just, truthfully, was a little bit bitter about the way my, once I let everything process and sink in, I was a little, I wasn't happy with how my doctor had sent me home in the hospital and was, felt confident in it.

The more research I did and the more I was learning,  there really wasn't any way that. Our second  twin that Cecilia was going to survive. The chances of that happening are extremely low, especially given the trauma that I like. delivered our other twin. I know oftentimes if unfortunately a baby's heartbeat stops and then there's only one heartbeat, twin pregnancy can go on and things like that.

But given the fact that I delivered,  we really just didn't have  a lot of chance. And I don't, I know that wouldn't have helped. Like I was trying to stay positive, but I guess I was just really upset that I was home knowing that like it wasn't going to end well. Like it may be not now, maybe not an hour, but it wasn't going to go on like that.

And I wish I would have been explained more what  contractions feel like, what to look out for, what to be aware of because  delivering at home that second time was,  it was just a whole nother level of  trauma and an experience that is ingrained in me forever. So I just couldn't bear to go back to the same practice.

Also because there was just so many memories there, like memories of my girls, memories of loss. I wanted this to be a fresh start with growing our family. And so I did a bunch of research and a lot of people, I got suggestions from friends on some local OBs that were really great and I found my doctor and everyone in the practice is fantastic.

Like they are truly the reasons my, my boys are here today and they have been my support. through it all. So, so happy I switched. So, at this point, I graduated from the Fragility Clinic, went on to my OB,  and like I said, everything's like standard protocol, doing all the regular appointments. So, everything with my pregnancy was going like really well.

I felt good physically. I felt great mentally. I was struggling a bit because I was just always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but everything was going well until about 16 weeks.  Which  for obvious reasons, I was holding my breath until that point and I thought once I hit 16 weeks, I was like, okay, I actually was 17 weeks because that makes sense.

I got to 17 weeks and I was like, okay, we made it further than before. So I think,  I don't know. Are we in the clear? I hope so. I don't know. It felt great. Like I said, physically, I felt great. So until about that 17 week mark and  I started having spotting and it wasn't any crazy bleeding, but it was, you know,  And I was like, Nope, not taking any chances.

I went straight to my doctor. She knew my history. She said,  Wow. Okay. She's like your cervix. She did a check. She said, your cervix is like one to two centimeters dilated. And I'm 16 weeks. There's no reason why your cervix should be opening. So there's no reason why your cervix should be opening at 17 weeks.

So I was sent to the hospital. And. She told me that they, what they needed to do was  to put in a rescue cerclage. It's not like a surgery. It's just a procedure and basically they are like sewing up your cervix to keep it closed. Again, at this point I don't, I think, I was told that it should work.

Everything went well. I got the cerclage put in at 17 weeks.  It should work. It should hold. You don't need to worry.  You'll be fine.  And this was the maternal fetal medicine, like the high risk doctor that was handling all of this, and they are amazing as well. We've continued to work with them  throughout our journey, and I'm so thankful for their expertise.

But I'm just, my body just likes to do whatever it wants, apparently. So, 17 weeks, the cerclage was put in. Cervix is closed.  So after I had the cerclage put in, you know, I was feeling really good. My pregnancy went on. We actually had, A gender reveal planned. It was going to be in conjunction with my 30th birthday party. 

So we had almost a hundred people at my parents house hosting this party. The weight of this news was so much more, again, everyone is happy. Boy, girl, it truly didn't matter. We were just so excited to celebrate for the first time ever for our pregnancy. We were told that the cerclage was going to hold. I felt confident.

I felt good. I thought we fixed everything. So we had everybody over. As you can tell, I like to celebrate my birthday with big moments.  Gender reveal with  my son at my 30th birthday and launching this podcast at 35. So I like to make the milestones a moment as if finding out the gender of your baby is in a moment alone.

I'm a little extra like that. But anyway, it was such an awesome day and such an awesome memory. All of our closest family and friends were there. We decided to do, I gave a few days prior to the party. I gave my aunt the envelope that they had written the sex in and  She surprised us. I got confetti shooters and we were standing on the balcony at my parents house and shot them off.

And  there it goes, a bunch of blue confetti. It was amazing. I'll have to share the video of it. A whole crowd is just like crying and everything. There was just like an extra weight on an, on the experience. Cause everyone was just so happy for us. And I just couldn't believe it was happening at this point.

So that was about 19 weeks.  So because we did IVF, our. 20 week ultrasound scan, our anatomy scan, was done with Maternal Fetal Medicine, the high risk doctor inside of our hospital. They had, it's like a level 2 scan, so they just have a little bit more knowledge when it comes to ultrasound and the equipment's better.

We got like 3D images and stuff. Our doctor there was like, Was looking at the images and looking at first the nurse comes in and then the doctor comes in. I know the protocol now. I know that after the twins, I know that the nurse  doesn't say much and can't say much while she, or the ultrasound tech, I'm not sure the exact term, but. 

They don't say much. They take the pictures, they show us, they showed us his heartbeats. She didn't go through everything of what we were looking at first. She did, it was pretty obvious we saw him on there at 20 weeks, you're seeing a little teeny baby. So that was amazing. And then the doctor came in and she's, I'm going to send in the doctor so he can take a look.

And we're like, okay. So he comes in and he's looking around and everything. And  finally he turns to us and he says,  so.  I do want to show you something.  And we're like,  of course my heart sank and my husband is there with me, of course, and my mom is there too. And so then we're like, okay,  he said there is a birth defect,  but I want you to know that it's going to be okay. 

And  tears just are streaming down my eyes.  I think my husband stopped breathing for a second. I could see my mom's eyes welling up with tears, but I know she wasn't going to let one fall because  she was there, she was our support. And he showed us our baby's legs and feet and.  He said, your baby has what's called clubbed feet. 

He said, see how the foot, the feet curve  the opposite way. And I was like, okay.  He said, that's a birth defect and it's called club feet.  Again, I'm just like crying. I'm just like, tears are just streaming down my face, but he proceeds to assure us that,  Everything's going to be okay. He said  it is going to involve some  possible surgery, likely casting and physical therapy.

He said, but I'm here to tell you he's, I was born with club feet.  I was born with club feet and he even goes to show us his feet and he's looking, I am perfectly fine. I am perfectly fine. And the. I don't even know what to call it. I guess the bright side of the situation was that ultrasounds are so advanced these days that like 20 years ago, this would have been a surprise when the baby is born, but we knew what we were getting into halfway through the pregnancy so we could be prepared to help and rehabilitate club feet.

Of course, I'm just like,  man, it's just another weight is just put on top of me. I'm like, why can't one thing, one thing go well? One thing I had to have the surplus at 17 weeks now at our ultrasound. We now know that the baby has club feet and that's gonna be a burden when the baby's born. That's gonna be something we're gonna have to help them with.

So explain to us that it's gonna be okay. And so  we left that up again mixed feelings. Extremely happy. Our baby was healthy, looked great. Pregnancy was going well to our knowledge at that point. Sirk Lodge was holding, but now we also were given this information about the baby's feet and  a lot of research preceded that, even though our doctor said, don't Google, but how can you not?

How can you not? That's all I could think about for the next at least day before I finally calmed down and moved on and was just very grateful for all the positive things going on in the pregnancy and with our baby. So we moved on from there. We were focused  on moving forward.  Until about three weeks later, at 23 weeks, I was in for a routine, a routine appointment at my OB.

Given the fact that I did have the cerclage put in at 17 weeks to keep my cervix closed, she wanted to do a cervical exam just to make sure that everything was looking okay. And, uh, Boy, am I glad that she did. It was the doc, the doctor there was, is the head of the practice. She is a very smart woman and has handled many extreme cases over the years.

And I'm sure I've stumped her many a times with my body, but. She always trusts her gut and her gut is always right. And I am so glad she did that exam because it was important. My husband was out of town for work, so he wasn't at the appointment with me. My mom came with for support. Cause as you can imagine, yeah, going to the doctor at this point, especially like an OB  is a little traumatizing.

So I didn't want to do it myself. And I am so very glad that she was there with me because my doctor does the exam.  And then the look on her face changed and I just.  My, I think I stopped breathing for a second. And then she said, where's your husband? And I said, he's traveling for work. He's in Kansas. 

She's okay. We're going to stay calm, but mom, you're going to need to get him on the phone and get him home.  She said, Jacqueline, you are going over to the hospital and you are going to be there until your baby is born. Your cervix is currently.  Two centimeters dilated, even with a surplus and you're going to need to be on bedrest and be monitored there until he's born. 

So naturally tears just start streaming down my face.  I just feel like I got the wind knocked out of me. Not only am I terrified, I have no idea what you, what do you mean? I'm going to be at the hot, I'm going to the hospital until I have the baby. That's not anytime soon. Like I am 23 weeks,  23 weeks. I'm just like, that's too soon.

I know that's too early. I didn't know exactly how early. I just knew it was nowhere close to 40 weeks. So,  terrifying. Terrifying. My mom of course calls Josh and I can only imagine, I think he was like in a meeting, but  of course was going to answer his phone given the fact that I'm pregnant and he's terrified too all the time.

So yeah, calls Josh and he got on the first flight home.  I can only imagine what he was thinking on that flight, I can't even imagine from his point of view, and I can, I'm not going to speak for him, we'll get his view, we'll get his story on the, on this at some point, but I would only imagine how terrifying it could be and all the thoughts running through your head and probably just feeling helpless, so we go, I get sent over to the hospital, the first thing we are doing is we are Sat down with a doctor  with MFM.

Again, it's maternal fetal medicine, the high risk doctors.  We were sat down and this is a doctor I hadn't seen yet. I had consulted with a couple before one of them, obviously at our ultrasound and then another with the girls. But we sat down with one of the, one of the three doctors from the practice that we hadn't met yet.

And he laid things out for us. And  basically it was a terrible conversation. I'm going to be honest to the point where I never saw that doctor again. I know he was just doing his job, but he. My husband wasn't even there and he was basically telling me all these scary statistics and saying we can, we'll put you on bed rest.

We can't, he's, we could go in and try and fix the cerclage, which at 17 weeks when I got it put in,  that was already like called a rescue cerclage. Typically they're putting in cerclages like closer to like 12 weeks. I believe much sooner. So a rescue surclage is a last ditch effort to keep it closed. At 17 weeks that shouldn't be opening.

So he said we could go in and try and do that, but it is risky because you could puncture. What did he say? The amniotic sac, I believe. I could be wrong, but basically there was like a risk of that and then we could lose the pregnancy. And so I was like,  okay, terrifying. Then he's dropping all this knowledge about  This is when I learned that viability is considered like 24 weeks.

Every single day  that baby stays inside of you is so extremely important. It's so important because the development at this point is wild. That every day matters. Every day is going to help. But again, and I don't remember my exact. I was, let me think here.  I think I was like 23 weeks and four days, something like that.

So coming up on 24 weeks, but. That's, sure, that's viability, but like, chance of survival at 24 weeks is still 50%. And then even within that 50 percent of babies that survive at 24 weeks,  the risks of so many things, cerebral palsy, brain bleeds, the list went on and on. So many things, of course, like a hefty NICU stay.

At that point, baby's lungs aren't developed. They can't breathe on their own. They have to learn to  suck, swallow, breathe. It was just terrifying. And then he also started giving us some insight into. That wasn't asked for, but patients that basically he's telling us that  this  is a big thing to think about.

He said, if you end up having a child with an extreme  disability or medical necessities, he said,  you just have to think of  your marriage the rest of your life. He said, this will  I've, he said, I've seen this put a damper on marriage at marriages. And maybe he didn't say damper. He said, I've seen this tear marriages apart.

I've seen this put huge burdens on families. He said, you guys are young. You're just starting off. It's something to think about.  And he wasn't saying it,  but like after processing this conversation, I was like,  so he's telling us like.  We could also do no medical intervention  at all and just let nature take its course.

I could deliver and then they won't, I could deliver and then baby won't be resuscitated if needed, like anything.  And that was just that.  Man, I didn't, that did not sit well with me. It actually pissed me off to be honest, because I was like, you have no idea. And I didn't know this doctor. He didn't know my whole story.

Um,  to my knowledge, he didn't. And if he did, that's even worse. But I'm like, we have tried so hard to have a baby. We've already lost two babies. We've miscarried two babies. Like I. Would do anything for this baby. I mean,  anything, as long as my health isn't at risk, I'm going to fight for this baby. So  wow.

This is when the prayers began. Obviously, I don't think I've ever prayed so much. That's all I could do was ask God  to save our baby and to make this all turn out. Okay. I just, I couldn't stop. I wasn't accepting these odds that were given to me. So finally my mom stepped in because I literally was like a deer in headlights.

I'm like, I don't like how in the world was I supposed to make that kind of decision  My husband wasn't even there. He doesn't even know what's going on. There's no way. So finally my mom stepped in and was like, can we just get her over to the hospital first? And then when her husband's here, they can decide on what they want to do.

And I was like, yeah, I need to go to the hospital anyway. Like nothing has to happen right away.  I, so I got admitted,  put on strict bed rest. I could not get up to go to the bathroom. I couldn't even adjust. This was like laying flat to be completely honest. I was basically frozen and nothing was really said.

I was given steroids to.  Help the baby's lungs develop in case of delivery. I was given magnesium, which  is terrible. I remember getting really hot. Like my body was like on fire, but it's to help keep contractions away and any kind of preterm labor. And with my cervix being open and probably going to be opening more, that was the goal, I guess.

So I just had to lay there and be like pumped with meds and pray. Once Josh got there, obviously I caught him up. He is the most supportive man I've ever met. I'm sure he was scared, but he.  Was brave in front of me and there we were. We lived at the hotel, the hotel,  not the hotel, definitely not the hotel.

We lived at the hospital for what ended up  being eight days. When those eight days I, it's funny how when. You can be so ignorantly positive, but I've learned now, like, that's not, that was the best thing I could have done. My spirits were positive. I prayed, it was hard. I had nothing to do, but think about this and no timeline that goes against everything that my personality is like, I need a schedule.

I need to know what's going on. And the fact that I just had to lay there  for as long as possible and hope that my body could care for this baby. As long as humanly possible. Um,  and that's all I could do. It was terrible. So I just kept looking for it to the point where I was like, all right, I know I'm nowhere near 40 weeks, so I'm posting up for the long haul.

Like I got it. Like I Amazon snacks in and I, Oh my goodness. What else did I do? I got a big wall calendar and I'm like crossing out dates. I had friends give me like coloring books to be like, not stressed and all these things. And I should add, cause I totally forgot this part of the story.  I.  Let's see, I think I was, this was before my cerclage,  so I had to have been like,  14 weeks?

I don't know, second trimester was  truthfully a shit show. It was terrible. In addition, into all this mess with the cerclage and the ultrasound and  the genetic defect, which I hate that term, but whatever, I also found out I had gallstones.  Oh my goodness, I woke up one night, and again, I think I was like, maybe 14  15 weeks pregnant and I,  I thought it was heartburn and I was like, this feels a little soon for heartburn, but what do I know? 

I haven't been pregnant that long. I don't know what's going on. I was like, I think I have heartburn. Nope. Then I kept getting worse. And it literally, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. It was like the middle of the night and it felt like Something was just like stuck in my ribcage and it hurt so, so bad.

And then it would go away. And yeah, ended up going to, I remember telling Josh, I was like, I literally think I need to go to the hospital. It's like, I don't know what's going on, but I think I'm going to pass out. And then it would go away. And so the next day, yeah, went to the ER, got checked out for that.

And lo and behold, Gallstones. Perfect. Doing great. So then, I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. I have gallstones. They can't do anything about it now. Typically, you would have your gallbladder removed. And, or, and change your diet. That was what I was able to do. So I had to go on like a low fat diet. Which, there goes the only bonus part of, not the only, but like a bonus of being pregnant is Ooh, I'm just gonna indulge a little.

Baby wants it. Baby wants to eat a donut.  But no, now I'm on a low fat diet, so. Truly enjoying all the pleasures of motherhood at this point and pregnancy, I should say. So I'm dealing with that up until this point too, and now I'm on bed rest. And so hospital food, I'm like extremely limited to just a bunch of low fat crap.

And yeah, I wasn't having any burgers to at least bring me a little joy while I could do nothing but pray. So that was the other reason for why I had  Amazoned a bunch of snacks, because I needed some low cal snacks that wasn't like Jell O and I don't know, whatever else was on the hospital menu. So, yeah.

I had that. My mom's adorable. She brought me flowers. She got me a pillow that looked exactly like our dog, Stella. And, because Stella, and you'll learn as I talk about her more, and she makes appearances, you'll hear her, I'm sure, on the podcast. But she was my wingman through all of this. There's something about a dog, like, they know when you're upset.

They know when you need just someone to sit with you. This whole thing has been a lot, and that dog was everything to me. So not being, you know, By her which and what I thought was going to be a very long time. The pillow was very cute and comforting So I'm all posted up feeling positive and I would love to know what the nurses and doctors are thinking at this point in hindsight They're either amazed that I think I'm not determined that I'm going to be here for the next however many months four months  or I'm not They're just letting me be ignorantly naive and being like, Whoa, we give you like days and lo and behold, my entire bedrest hospital stay while pregnant with my oldest son was eight days.

It was the night before he ended up being born. I was  24 weeks and 4 days,  and they had given us a printout of all these statistics, meaning like. At 24 weeks, there's a 50 percent chance of survival at this many weeks. There's this percent chance, I guess it was helpful, but truthfully, like at that point wasn't, this is a situation where I feel like.

Ignorance would have been bliss because there's nothing I can do to change the situation. Like I can't try harder to get to like 25 weeks or anything. It's just,  my body's going to do what it's going to do. And I'm just going to listen to the doctors lay there and that's it. I can't really change it. So at 24 weeks and four days, it had been like a week and I had not. 

Sorry for the team. I had not gone to the bathroom, like, number two. I wasn't allowed to get out of the bed. I was given a bedpan to try and, like, while laying, I won't get into those details. But that wasn't happening for me. So I had not gone to the bathroom in a week. And obviously, I was having some stomach pain.

And I was like, Okay, is there any other way we can try and do this or what? And so they brought in like a commode, like a little, like a chair that goes next, chair toilet thing, that goes next to the bed. So a nurse helped me. It was late at night. Josh was It's sleeping on the couch in the hospital room. I had the nurse help me.

I did wake him up because while we're married, we still keep some things private. And I was like, I cannot go to the bathroom with you in this room. You need to take a walk. So the nurse, he left, he took a walk. The nurse  helped me on and then she gave me some privacy and I had the emergency button in my hand.

She's like, if you need anything at all, like press the button or press the button when you're done and I will, I can come assist you.  I was like, okay, no problem. So I'm in there a few minutes by myself. And now I'm just like, all of a sudden,  something's not, something is not right. It is not right at all.

I'm like, this is not a bathroom situation. And so I pressed the button  and I couldn't really see it was dark in the room again, like it was nighttime. So I pressed the button and she came in. And I was like, then I'm really starting to panic because I feel pressure down really low in my pelvis and not the kind of pressure you feel when you go to the bathroom.

And I was like, something's wrong. Something's wrong. She's asking me. I'm just like, literally hyperventilating. I'm like, something's not right. Something's not right. So she lays me down  and yeah, I was starting to deliver our baby. I was starting to deliver him. And in this moment, Everything else just flashed by.

She presses an emergency button, like an alarm goes off. This was right before shift change at the hospital. So it was like 6 58 in the morning and.  Basically, double the amount of staff came in. She said whatever code she said, came in, laid me down on the bed and said, I'm going to need you to push. Baby's coming.

You push. I did one push  and our son was out and the doctors were in there so fast. Obviously Josh ran in because I can only imagine him in the hallway, like what he witnessed at least for one second and all these alarms are going off and everyone's running into my room.  Oh my God. And when I tell you like. 

The out of body experience, I felt pushed, like what, and I barely pushed, like to just really describe like how my cervix was not doing its job. There was no labor. It was just, it failed me. I was not having contractions. There was no warning other than he had the pressure, which I now know is like him literally like falling into the birth canal.

It was insane. So they grab him and.  There's already a special bassinet or whatever there for him. There was a protocol. They warned us about it. We had to sign things that like,  they can resuscitate him and everything when he's born. And, uh, They grabbed him, they wrapped him up. They're trying to get his body temperature up.

I'm not hearing him make any sound. They do have to resuscitate him. And then all of a sudden they cut the cord, they do all the things. They wrap them in this like foil. Josh is in there now. And I'm just like looking at him with like pure terror. I don't know if everything's okay or not. And then they're handing me the baby and wrapped in this foil.

And again,  I've seen a 16 week gestation baby.  I am now 24 weeks and five days. Nothing will ever prepare you for this because again, the only images in my mind are the ones that  you see of newborns, a full term newborns. Our baby is not  fully developed. First off, he looks a little like blue and he's bruised.

He's bruised all over because of his. traumatic delivery, and he came out feet first, too. We all know that's not natural. That's breached. Babies have to be head down. But again, my body just dropped him, so that was  terrifying, and all I could think about, I was like, why are they, like, why are you handing me my baby?

Go help him. Take him. I just, I remember a doctor came in and she, who was there, and she took a phone and took a picture. Of us with our son, and I am extremely grateful to have that picture. Now it's really hard to look at just because it brings me back to that moment and  how scared I was, but it's the picture I have of him and his birth and then he was rushed away. 

He was rushed away to the NICU and thank God the hospital that we were at has a level three NICU, which was important to us. We didn't realize how important at the time, but wow, we are so lucky to be at such an amazing hospital. And then all of a sudden I'm just laying there. My husband's comforting me and I'm just like,  It was like a dream.

Like it just, I don't, I couldn't even process what was happening. We had a social worker come in and talk to us. She's like, the doctor talked to you about the odds and everything and all of this. They're doing everything they can. He's in the NICU. You'll see him eventually and all these things. And I'm just like, Oh my God.

And not only is this, and I, and this is how it has to be. They were saving his life. So. And this was just the beginning of the journey in 24 weeks, five days. That is not even remotely close to full term nowadays. And this was only like five years ago, but some babies will survive at 23 weeks. And I don't know what kind of ailments they might have.

Some babies are very fine and go on to have these like wonderful lives and medical technology has advanced so much. And it's just truly amazing what they can do for these babies, but that's not without a lot of intervention and. Time and expertise. So I was just starting to process that. I have no idea what that's going to look like.

What is, I know nothing about the NICU. I know nothing about what's going on right now. Is he alive? Is he well? I don't know. And so I'm like slightly recovering, but there is nothing more unnatural about birthing a baby. I don't care if you know what you're doing or not. First baby, 10th baby. Like,  to birth your baby at any time, at any point throughout the pregnancy, and then have your baby,  Taken away from you. 

Of course, my brain was like,  Oh my gosh, go. I didn't even want to hold him because I was just like, save him, do what you need to do for him.  I will get over the loss of this moment.  But your body is just, everything in your being is just messed up. It's not right. Like you just gave birth and you're not.

You don't have that baby on you. We had signed up for all these birthing classes. We had not got to these classes yet. I have not gotten to a breastfeeding class. I just knew I wanted to try it. I knew nothing about it. I knew nothing about pumping. Thought we had time. I think I was scheduled for the class at 30 weeks.

Didn't get there, obviously. It was after two hours I gave birth, a nurse came in and brought in a pump and was basically showing me how to hook me up to a pump. Now she didn't ask. She didn't ask if I was going to breastfeed. She didn't ask anything. Mm mm. It was never an option. She just got me pumping and I knew nothing about breastfeeding.

I did know that regardless of when you give birth, like your milk  will come in because after I lost Cecilia at 16 weeks, it took maybe a week, but milk started coming in even at 16, a 16 week delivery and one week postpartum. I didn't know what it was at first. My boobs were just like literally hard. So I had to like bind them to make it stop.

What you can imagine is just like a. Freaking terrible  cherry on top of a horrible situation. Getting milk in for a baby that you don't have, that is so messed up. So yeah, I'm now hooked up to the pump. I'm pumping because he's a preemie. Breast milk is extreme extra important at this point. And so yeah, I started doing that.

So after I gave pumping a try for the first time, I hadn't moved in eight days. I had been on bed rest, so a nurse helped me get cleaned up, get in the shower. I wasn't truthfully.  In too much pain, because again, like I didn't labor.  He was a very small baby. My son being born at 24 weeks, five days, he was actually considered big for his gestation, but he was two pounds, one ounce and 12 inches long.

Like I mentioned, I didn't labor. So I wasn't, I didn't have any, a lot of recovery in that aspect, but after not moving for eight days, my body was  pretty,  Atrophied, like I felt like I had Bambi legs. So a nurse had helped me get showered and get washed up. And it was about six hours later that Josh and I were able  to make our way down to the NICU to see our son.

Finally, he wheeled me down in a wheelchair and I will never forget entering his NICU room. I had, I knew what like a little incubator thing looked like. I was only seven years old, but my brother spent like one day in the NICU when he was little and I just remember visiting him. I knew what to expect there, but. 

What I didn't know what to expect is what our son would look like. Again, everything happened so quickly when he was born and I only saw him for a brief second. And even that was a blur. I was pretty numb just seeing him for the first time. It was confusing because I was so excited and heartbroken all at the very same time, proud that he was here.

And at that moment, a little naive to the seriousness of the situation. I was just so grateful that he was,  you know, with us and in good hands, but he had tubes coming out everywhere. He was like. Almost like a purplish color because he was so bruised and his skin was just not the right color yet. He was so tiny.

And then of course seeing his club feet for the first time and really getting a real life look at that because we had only imagined what it would look like from what we saw in the ultrasound. Of course he's adorable, but I was heartbroken because He had a little mask over his eyes. He had tubes helping him breathe through his nose and his mouth.

He had the light on him. It was a lot and he's just his little body. And I remember the NICU nurse asking if we wanted to take our picture. And when I look at that picture now, I'm just looking at him in the picture. I didn't feel right to just smile for a picture. And I just wasn't there yet. I was just, just like a zombie just from the previous nine days and all the experiences that entailed.

So.  My son ended up spending 120 days in the NICU. So  for four months, we spent  our days in and out of the NICU. Get more into that in its own episode, because otherwise we'll be here for a while because all the things that happened in those four months. It was a lot and it was really hard. It was really hard, but we truly witnessed a miracle as our son is thriving now.

And he's almost five and he's perfectly healthy, but he went through a lot in that 120 day NICU stay. And so did we, I,  we still had to work. I had  awesome 12 weeks paid, but I had also had to take some disability, obviously time off because I was on bed rest. And then I didn't want to use all of my maternity leave because.

I couldn't really do anything. I couldn't do anything for him. I wasn't like his primary caregiver. He was in the NICU. All I could do for him was pump breast milk. And that's what I did. And to be honest, I was really good at it just because that was my main focus. I knew he needed to eat and grow. And my breast milk was best.

So I was like a machine in that department. It made me have a purpose. It made me feel closer to him. It took us six hours to see him, but we didn't get to hold him for nine days after he was born. That was the first time that we both held him. And it was brief because he couldn't be out of his isolate for too long.

He was still hooked up to everything, obviously. And that was the beginning of a very long road.  No, I think I took a couple of weeks off when he was born, obviously to recover and just get my mind right and get into a little bit of a routine  and everything that was going on initially at the start of his NICU stay.

That was a lot. And then after that, I was working, luckily my husband and I both worked remote. So I would bring my laptop and try and do work up at the hospital. And then my husband and I would also switch off or I'd go there for most of the day and then go home for dinner, shower. Come back at night, it was a lot.

And we'll get into that in another episode, because I have so much to say about the NICU and the amazing people we've met there and everything they did for our son and everything he went through from surgeries to therapies and everything. So that's another part of the story. But while he was in the NICU, because I still had this gall stone problem, I decided since I can't care for my baby and I wanted to be good for him when he was coming home, which we truly didn't know.

What to expect, but we definitely knew that, like, he was born on March 1st and his due date wasn't until June 16th. So, it was in the 1st, few days that a nurse told us that's his due date. So just keep that in mind. So,  we knew that it wasn't going to be before then, and it wasn't, he ended up coming home about a week after his due date, or maybe it was 2 weeks.

I can't remember now, but I knew I had some time before I was going to be home with our son. So, About a month after he was born, month and a half, I decided to have my gallbladder removed.  As if my body hadn't been through enough, right? I was like, ah, what the heck? IVF, bedrests or collages,  traumatic birth.

Let's just tack on the old gallbladder surgery. I was told that gallstones, I could be fine, but it can act up or be a problem if you are pregnant or you have a shift in your hormones. So basically the doctor was like, if you plan to be pregnant again, I would probably just get It removed. So that's what I did.

And that was actually fine. Honestly, compared to everything I had just went to, that was a piece of cake. It was a little, it was a bit of a bummer because I couldn't hold him for four or five days because I had to recover and wasn't supposed to be lifting or doing anything crazy. But yeah, it was pretty wild.

I was down the hall from him in the same hospital, getting my gallbladder removed. And after that, I went back down and visited my son. And so.  Quite the year we had at this hospital. Fast forward,  our son came home after four months. When he was home, he had to do physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, all things to make sure that he's on track and doing things that he was supposed to do.

I will tell you this, that we were extremely blessed that he came home. with nothing, meaning he did not come home with assistance, breathing assistance or feeding assistance. He did not come home with a feeding tube, anything. He, when he left the hospital after those 120 days,  he was doing just fine. He was breathing on his own.

He was eating on his own. He had gained weight. When he came home, he was over nine pounds. So.  It was amazing what had happened in those four months and we're very lucky because that's not the norm for a 24 week, a lot of  micro preemies come home, needing oxygen at home, needing a feeding tube at home for a while.

So we were very lucky that we didn't have any of that, um, on top of everything and along with his club feet, because he was born premature, they actually kind of had a jump start on correcting that, which again, Very small silver lining for his early arrival, but that involved when he was, I was in the first couple of months of him being there, he had surgery on his Achilles tendon on both of his heels that was to lengthen and stretch the muscle. 

And then after that surgery, it was physical therapy when I was really little. And when he got big enough in the hospital, they casted his feet. The podiatrist came in to the NICU and he would. position our son's feet in a certain way and then put casts around them. So they would stay in that place. And I can't remember, I think he was getting a new cast every week.

So then he'd come back in, check it, adjust, cast again.  And they did this for a while. He came home from the hospital with casts. He also had physical therapy in the NICU. So even though he was little, they were still doing things to make sure that his feet were getting stretched and he was being mobile and tummy time and all the things you would do at home that was happening in the hospitals.

He came home with his casts and.  I can't remember how old he was when he got the casts off, but the next step after casting was to wear these boots. They're called Poncetti boots. And basically if you can picture like they look like little, I don't know, if you break your foot or something and you've got like a walking cast, he had two of those on his feet, these little boots with a bar in between connecting him again, he's a baby at this point.

So he can't crawl yet. He can't walk. He's not really turning over. He's young. So he was wearing that all day. It was, I think 23 hours a day. He was allowed to take it off for one hour a day to stretch and everything, but  that was to correct his feet because they were very turned in. So they, the boots positioned them extremely turned out.

They almost had to overcompensate  to bring them back to a neutral position. We had follow up appointments for that. Lots of appointments for our son when he came home. Honestly, it felt like a full time job on top of the full time job. And then of course, being a first time mom, this whole time working from home, I figured. 

I'll handle it until he's mobile, a little bit older, closer to one. I can work. I didn't have set hours. I just had, you know what? I was in community management and event planning and marketing stuff. So a lot of my work was computer work. I didn't really have a whole ton of phone calls. They made me my own schedule.

I did work events on nights and weekends, but my husband wasn't working during those times. So I figured that I could just do it all. I could just watch him without any childcare and work that lasted.  I don't know, maybe three, four months of me trying to figure all the things out, but again, with all of his appointments on top of it and just  trying to feed him, he ended up having a lip tie and a tongue tie that we had to figure out because he was dealing with reflux.

So we had to get that corrected and it was a lot. It was a lot. Thank God I did save my maternity leave for the end of that because yeah, I realized quickly that I'm going to need help going back to work. I think I was only actually back to work for a month before I was like, okay, I need some help. And we had a part time nanny come in, but that was hard too for me because again, we were just living in a townhouse at the time and I was working upstairs in the loft and she was downstairs with him and she was great.

She was so nice. She was a very nice nanny, but like  it was hard trying to focus on my work. Knowing that she's spending all the time with him, taking him to the park, like hanging out with him. And I'm just, and I know that's normal and some people are okay with that. I just was having such a hard time, but we had been through so much and I just wanted every moment with him.

So the nanny worked out for like three, four months. Before I made the decision to stay home full time, we knew we wanted more kids.  We knew it probably wasn't going to be an easy road based on my history. So it was just too much at the time. I just couldn't do both. I needed to focus my mind, my body, my heart on our family.

So I left.  The career I was with, I was there at the company for five years and I left on good terms and it was just right for the moment. And yeah, I haven't worked full time since I did a couple of years doing some part time work, but I have been primarily home with the kids, which has been amazing and adjustment for sure.

And definitely not the original plan. I never intended to be a stay at home mom, but that's the thing about parenthood is that plans change,  plans change, things don't always work out. And what do they say? You make plans and God laughs. That is. truth. So once we got settled at home with Hunter and figured out  our scheduling and everything, the next thing to kind of figure out before we even could think of having another child is  my cervix and what the heck happened.

So in my followup appointments, my postpartum appointments with my doctor, and after we were home from the NICU and everything, I sat down with my OB and we discussed, and she said that at this point it's incompetent cervix. Of course, no one's should open. Especially without any warning. I didn't have any trauma or any signs.

Like, it was just like, my cervix was just opening. They thought at that time, because that, that could have something to do with why I delivered the twins prematurely. And that being an early, even earlier delivery, because there was two of them, maybe the weight of it, my, my cervix just couldn't hold it. Of course, at the time, We didn't know why we lost the twins and being it was my first pregnancy, we just didn't have enough information.

And after my failed cerclage, it was pretty clear that my cervix was an issue. So our doctor referred us to  a very highly rated doctor in Chicago, thankfully, because people come to see him from all over the country who specializes in trans abdominal cerclages. Now this kind of cerclage is,  a little more invasive because you do have to have it surgically placed.

Basically, they make a small c section incision and  are able to go higher up on the cervix. So it's like a band that goes around your cervix to hold it tightly closed. I'm not using any of the proper terminology, but that's the idea. And the way our doctor explained it is like if you have a water balloon and you tie a knot and as the water Balloon gets heavier.

It's pulling on the knot, like the knots getting tighter, right? It's going to hold even better. And that's the idea of this cerclage because  when you have a transvaginal cerclage, they're just putting that in internally and they can only get so high up. So it doesn't have as much support, but when. They  do it abdominally.

They can go higher up on the cervix and it's just, it's 99 percent effective in keeping your cervix closed. And the only caveat is that you have to have a C section delivery.  They schedule it at 38 weeks. Cause they don't want you going into labor because the contract contractions. can cause uterine rupture.

I knew before we did anything, I had to have that. And again, we had so much going on. And it was like, I already told you about how I have my gallbladder and all these things. My body had been through a lot. And in hindsight, when I look back, I'm like, Whoa, like I probably could have used a good year or two to just let my body chill out.

But  I don't know. This is just who I am. I was on a mission and truthfully, like.  First, the cool reasons we had just spent millions of dollars in a four month NICU stay and a hospital stay and ambulance, it's just all the things that we were like, why not? And we had the best insurance ever with my company at that time.

So.  I figured I might as well just get this done. So, it was, I think, in November. So, Hunter was born March 1st. My gallbladder was out April.  In November, I had the transabdominal cerclage placed. And I felt so confident in this. It felt like it was the only way that I was ever going to have a full term  delivery.

And the doctor was amazing. Everything he explained made so much sense to me. And, I remember after having the consult on the phone with him, I was a little upset because  I could have used his everything in hindsight, right? You'll hear me say this all the time, like in hindsight, in hindsight, and that's just life, right?

Everyone does the best they can with the knowledge that they have, including all the doctors that have supported me. So everyone is doing their best, but you know, he was confident. He knew right away when I told him my story, even after the twins, even prior to hearing anything about Hunter, he was like, Yeah, that's incompetent cervix.

There was no question as to what happened and why you delivered prematurely. He was like, you don't just deliver babies. And especially at 14 weeks, it, that just doesn't happen. Like your cervix was never going to be strong enough to hold a pregnancy.  So  I will say that having that surgery, that was hard.

That was,  it was not comfortable. It was an outpatient surgery because he is located and she could have stayed.  In a hotel nearby. Some people were doing that. I know people who came out of town would do that, but we literally live 40 minutes away, so we'll just go home.  After I was released from the hospital, obviously I was in recovery for a while, but later that night when I was sent home, my gosh, I will never forget it.

My husband, I was like, I threw up in the car. I was in so much pain and I have a high pain tolerance, but I don't know why it hurts so bad. Um, Even to this day after having like C sections, my C sections were easier than that surgery for whatever reason. But I was very thankful that it was in place. I felt like it was safe.

We had figured out that IVF worked. We had beautiful embryos. My transfer worked.  My pregnancy worked, aside from my body holding the pregnancy. And now that I have this cerclage, we felt confident making a decision to move forward to have another child. And we knew we wanted a big family. So it was at Hunter's first surgery.

First birthday when I decided I was going to be home full time and leave my job. Part of the reason too, is because I knew not only would I be undergoing IVF again, and having to do meds for a frozen as embryo transfer, but I also now have a baby at home in the mix of it as well. So  it was best for me to focus on all of that was going on.

I started prepping for a frozen embryo transfer. For those who don't know, a frozen embryo transfer is not as involved as the initial IVF  cycle where you are trying to get embryos now that we already have them. The protocol is pretty much you're on medication to take control of your cycle. Everything is planned.

And then the medications leading up to basically the transfer day. So you're taking out the whole part of obviously retrieving eggs and all of that. So it was much easier on my body. You're still on hormones. You're still on meds, but it's a lot shorter of a time. And yeah, it's not as invasive because you're just going in for a transfer.

We were prepared for it not to work. We thought we got, maybe got lucky on the first try, but lo and behold. The second one worked and we tried when Hunter was a year old because we were like, let's just try now. It could take a few cycles. I don't want to do them back to back. So let's give us some logo room just in case and  we were blessed enough for it to work and I was ecstatic pregnant again feeling like We got this.

I had full confidence in my fertility clinic. Everyone who was monitoring me, I was seeing the high risk doctor regularly based on everything that had happened. I felt very supported in this pregnancy and we're excited. So we did another gender reveal, smaller this time. I think we had our family over and I had cake pops and everyone bit in at the same time.

And we got another boy and I was so excited. Again, like, I truly didn't care either way. I was like, if it's a girl, cool, we have a boy and a girl. If it's a boy, amazing. They're going to be so close in age and it's awesome. So  we were extremely happy. Now my pregnancy with Noah, who recently turned three was great.

I went a very long time feeling great. Of course it wasn't the whole time, so that's fun. But this time I was 23 weeks pregnant.  And I had some spotting.  See a theme here had some spotting, which is always concerning. So it was a weekend and I decided I needed to go into the hospital. Of course it was a weekend, always the weekend.

And so because it was a weekend, my doctor was not at her office. She was at the hospital, but I did find out it was our main doctor, the doctor who basically saved Hunter, the head of the practice. So I was like, you know what? I think this is a sign I better go get checked out just in case. They always told me it doesn't hurt to come in.

If you're ever worried, my doctor in the hospital, everyone there was just so supportive when it came to understanding that like mentally, like being pregnant again after loss and trauma and preterm delivery and all the things, it's not going to be easy. They pretty much let me come in whenever I wanted if I was stressing out, needed to hear a heartbeat or something like they made it happen, which is truly amazing because that took a little bit of the mental burden off of me knowing I had their support. 

So because we had Hunter, Josh stayed home with Hunter and I truly didn't think it wasn't anything serious. It was just like a little bit of like a brown spotting. And so I was like, okay, well,  fool me once I'm going to go check on this. I was 23 weeks coming up on  milestones that I know are extremely important.

So I went in, my mom came with me and I was They put me on the belt,  and I was having some contractions.  Wasn't feeling them, but they were showing up on the monitor. They were probably every 20  minutes apart.  So, she was going to admit me, and  truthfully, this time I had a feeling, like, I literally almost packed a bag. 

Just because I was afraid I was gonna go get seen at the hospital and not be able to come home for a long time and that scared me and I was right.  I was right. So I got admitted to the hospital. She noticed that I was having preterm labor. I got sent to a room. They did ultrasounds. They hooked up baby.

Baby's heartbeat was great. Heart rate. Everything was looking An ultrasound was  Then showed that I had, that I had excess amniotic fluid,  so that's called polyhydramnios. And  I guess that was what they were thinking might be the cause of the preterm labor, the contractions. Now the cause of this polyhydramnios and like excess fluid  is unknown.

We did genetic testing.  On the baby and there was nothing wrong there. They basically said, sometimes we don't know. Sometimes it's totally random and sometimes there is an underlying condition with the baby, but it just didn't know. So I was going to be in the hospital. And the biggest thing at this point was they needed to stop the contractions.

Obviously I don't want to be in labor at 23 weeks.  So as a precaution, they gave me steroids to help mature baby's lungs, just in case of delivery. Obviously, this is nothing new to me. I was also given magnesium, which I was like really not looking forward to. It was really terrible when I had it with Hunter and it proved to be terrible again, except this time I was  going through it alone because I was in the hospital by myself because Josh was home with Hunter.

So I, uh, Just remember wanting to crawl out of my skin. The magnesium just literally makes you feel like your insides are on fire. It's extremely important though. And it helps try to put the  contractions at bay, which is the whole point here. First of all, I shouldn't be in preterm labor at 23 weeks.

That's super scary. Second of all, I'm not supposed to be laboring at all because I have this abdominal circulation now. So  too strong of contractions, too much labor. If I go into labor, like. They would have no choice but to do a C section because I, otherwise my uterus could rupture.  So  I buckled up for whatever needed to be done to  Make sure that our baby was okay.

So this kind of went on for the next  two weeks. I'd say after the first week, they did get my, maybe it was after five days. My contractions subsided. I was constantly all day. I had a belt on me monitoring contractions and they had to use it as a threshold. If I could go this long without a contraction or if they were this far spread out, then they would like taper this off and that.

And I felt like an experiment, not for anyone's fault or anything. It just, that's truly just how it felt. I was just like, no one really knew. They're like, okay, well.  You've got contractions, we don't need them, we need to keep getting you as far as we can, and your history, they're probably thinking like, your history and your medical history scares us, we're not sure why you always have these problems.

No, I don't know what they were thinking, but I can only imagine, I don't know, I'm just,  I felt like a ticking time bomb, to be honest. Luckily, like I've said a million times before, I was in really good hands at the hospital. I was at least comforted being there. It wasn't ideal. I did not want to be at the hospital.

I hated that I was away from Hunter and Josh, but I knew that if, if anything was going to happen, I was in the right place and would get the attention I needed. So Josh would bring. Hunter to come see me at least once a day. But again, that was hard because he's just barely one and a half and he is not very occupied in a hospital.

So there's not much he can do. And there's like germs and everything. Luckily this was pre COVID. So, you know, they were able to visit. I was able to have visitors. The first week was scary. Second week, things calmed down in the hospital and I wasn't on strict bed rest, like I was with Hunter. None of this had anything to do with my cervix.

It was purely just the preterm. Labor, which was being caused by the polyhydramnios. Now what was causing the excess fluid? They didn't know but every so many days or  maybe it was once a week. I can't remember now, but I would go to MFM for ultrasounds and they would measure the fluid there. So it did start to go down, which is good and my contractions calmed down.

So by week two we were looking good, but Again, it was just a very tricky time because now I'm 24 weeks and they just, they did not feel comfortable sending me home. And truthfully, I did not feel comfortable going home. I was very closely monitored and I ended up spending  a whole month  in the hospital on bedrest.

As you can imagine, that was an extremely difficult time for my husband. He's working full time. He's now taking care of our son. By himself, which has always been my primary job and again, like he's our first child. So that was an adjustment. He's trying to be there for me. He's going back and forth between like our parents houses who is helping out at home.

And then we have our dog and being up at the hospital. And  I'm sure he would tell you that month was one of his hardest months ever. A lot was on him and he truly, you know, He kept us afloat and it was only after all was said and done and looking back on everything that like, man, he, I really realized everything that was on his shoulders at that point.

It was crazy when he would bring Hunter to come visit me in the hospital.  There wasn't much to do. So one of the things is that he would love to sit on my lap. Like the last half of my stay there, I was able to leave the room and it was, we would go out, it was summer. So we would go outside and he would.

Get to ride in my wheelchair with me and get some fresh air. And I don't know, we'd always put on like a special cartoon. And he'd sit in my bed, which he was obsessed, obviously, like the buttons of the hospital bed going up and down, one and a half year old stuff. And everything with Hunter was a little bit  delayed at first because a micro preemie doesn't truly catch up to their age until about two.

So he didn't walk until he was 18 months. And a lot of that had to do also with his club feet and therapy and everything. But he took his first steps in  my hospital room while I was on bedrest.  I'm glad I didn't miss it but it was heartbreaking that I wasn't like a fully functioning mom there for these moments but I'll never forget that.

We took him outside, he was walking in the garden at the hospital and yeah, that was part of the journey. So after,  after a month I was 28 weeks when I was released from the hospital. So I had spent a month there. I had made it to my third trimester. I was not told that I had to be on any kind of bed rest throughout my whole stay.

I just kept asking about my cervix and my surclosh. I'm like, no, I know there's some contractions you're dealing with. And then they went away. I'm like fluid. Okay. Got it. But I'm like, no, but like my cervix. Okay. Because I was just scared. And this is my first pregnancy with something that is supposed to be 99%.

Percent effective that I'm not supposed to have to worry about and they just reiterated over and over again. Your cervix is closed It's closed. They looked on ultrasound. They did internal exams. Like everything is closed. Everything is fine That's not the issue  and while I was happy and comforted by that I was just of course it's not because fix that Quote unquote fixed that and then now I've got something else.

So when I was released home, I wasn't put on bed rest or anything like that. I still saw my high risk doctor and they kept an eye on me, but I went on to  have a glorious third trimester. I felt totally.  I'm gonna say fine, as I think you would in the third trimester. I did get to enjoy my pregnancy. My sister was actually pregnant at the same time as I was, so that was fun.

It was a really happy time, and I didn't know it at the time, but that was going to be  the only time I would experience a full term  pregnancy, and as close to, I'm gonna say, normal of a pregnancy.  That was it for me. That was it. When even those couple weeks in the hospital were scary, I overall felt fine.

And like I said, I wasn't in any kind of pain, but I was registering contractions. And they were overly cautious, which  is what you can ask for from a doctor. They were just a little concerned with my surcloged and everything. So just so there weren't any surprises, my C section was moved up a week to 37 weeks scheduled. 

I finished out my pregnancy fine. I went in on my scheduled C section day and gave birth to the biggest baby that I had ever seen. He looked huge to Josh and I, of course, being pulled out after the C section. And he wasn't, he was just like your average, he was like seven pounds, something. And that was at 37 weeks.

So maybe he would've gotten bigger a few more weeks. He was perfect. And that's our Noah. And yeah, and now we had two. And I was feeling so very confident, in my surclage at least. We still didn't really have answers as to why the polyhydramnios. And the doctor said, you could have it with every pregnancy.

It could just be that one. One of my doctors said his wife had it with every single pregnancy, but went on to have  I just chalked it up as I'm just that lucky, just that lucky. We do still want a big family at this point, but  we got two under two. They're 20 months apart. Um, there's a lot going on.  And then Noah was born in November.

2019 so it was only months later that the world shut down and we were already hibernating anyway, like it was winter, we had a newborn and then another little one at home. So we were hunkered down at home regardless, but then everything shut down. And  actually it was right before we had just listed our townhouse for sale because we needed a bigger place.

Our family was growing, we needed a house and then everything shut down, which was scary. We sold our townhouse in four days, which was awesome. But then. Yikes. We had to find somewhere to live. I think we went out one Saturday with our realtor, looked at six houses and  ended up going with the first one.

And.  That's where we live now and it worked out. And so then we had at least the space and we moved in in May, 2020, at least the space and the yard and everything we needed to hunker down with the boys for 2020 and let's be real, most of 2021.  So  we were not in any rush to have another child. We knew we wanted one.

We didn't want to wait too long, but we were not going to do another transfer on Noah's first birthday. My body needed a break. We needed a break. And, um, Truthfully, I just wanted a minute to enjoy our children. Time was moving so fast and it had been a whirlwind since the beginning. So I know that 2020 was a very hard year for most of the world.

It's weird because for me, it was a very transformative year. In the last few years, it's been.  One of my favorite years and I think it's just because I learned to slow down. I was my best,  I felt like I was my best version of myself that year. I was such an involved mom. I took time for myself mentally and physically.

I enjoyed the little things. And when everything opened up and as the years came on, like things just got crazier and I've had to since reel it in. So instead of. Talking about doing a transfer at Noah's one year birthday, like we did with Hunter. We waited longer and we had planned that we were going to try maybe in the fall, closer to fall, winter of 2021,  we were going to do a transfer.

We didn't want to wait too long. We were getting older and this has been a long journey for us. We were just at the point, we just want to have our kids  and raise them. We don't want to just keep going through all this,  I'm not going to say drama, but just. Going through all of this trauma is a better word of my pregnancies and everything that they have involved.

We just want to have our kids here safely in the safest way possible, and then move on with our life and enjoy them and raise them. We thought closer to two years would be  more fitting to try and have another baby,  but God has other plans always. So.  It had been seven years. I haven't been on birth control.

I have not been able to get pregnant without the intervention of IVF and stuff. So  it had been seven years of not getting pregnant  and surprise,  I  Missed my period  and I was like that's weird. I'm sure my body's just messed up per ush. Let a couple days go by  Decided to take a test. I didn't tell Josh this time I was just like I don't want to get anyone's hopes up or scare anyone.

Oh, I'll just take this privately and  clear as day pregnant  pregnant  naturally, I Of course was ecstatic because that meant I didn't have to do any kind of You medications or interventions. I still have my cerclage in place. So for those who don't know, a transabdominal cerclage stays in there. You don't take it out when you have your C section, you don't have to put another one in, it stays in place. 

So I knew I was good there, that was taken care of. So getting pregnant on our own was just, you know,  Amazing. I was just like, I can't believe this is happening. Like  I told Josh right away and he was just like, holy shit.  Of course we wanted another child and we were about, I don't know, six, seven months ahead of our original schedule.

But man, when God gives you a baby out of the blue, you love it. Roll with it.  So I'll never forget. I ran over to my parents house and I literally just had to tell them right away, like that second, because it's unreal. It was like a miracle. It was insane. So I was pregnant and I feel like I start every story with this, but  my pregnancy was perfect. 

Until it wasn't. I felt so confident in my body. I felt great. All the normal symptoms, you know, tired in the first trimester, going into the second trimester, I had some other aches and pains, but nothing crazy at all. I was keeping up with my boys. I was feeling good. We decided to find out the sex of the baby.

I really wish I could be one of those people who just, Waits to find out. Cause again, it doesn't, it truly doesn't matter to me. I would be blessed to have a boy or a girl,  but again, I don't know if it's my type a personality or what, but I just like to plan and I like to buy stuff and I like to dream about this little human growing inside of me.

So this time we didn't make a big deal of it though. Everything had been a lot as you can hear. So we just really, Josh and I wanted a moment alone to find out. So we got it in an envelope,  put the boys to bed and over dinner, we just opened that envelope. And found out we were having a girl.  I was just over the moon that we were having a girl, we have boys.

So I was excited to bring someone new into the mix. And  truthfully, we had always talked about for children and plans change. And I know people can relate to this, but you know, You can have a plan of, Oh, I wanted two kids, three kids, four kids, whatever. And then once you have them, plans change, right? You don't know what you don't know.

And parenting is hard  and it looks different for everyone. And life's change, priorities change, jobs change. So it was possible that our plans. Could change after everything that we went through  knowing it was a girl. I was like, I don't know. I don't know what the future holds for us after this baby, but  I don't feel as much pressure now because we'd have a girl and we'd have boys and we'd experience it all and we're just gonna  let life play out as it is.

And I think it was just freeing too, because we had gotten pregnant on our own. So for the first time  ever, I didn't have to control like,  Our destiny of our family, or at least that's how it felt. I know I'm not in control. God is in control. However, when interventions are involved. It takes a lot of planning and decisions and sacrifice.

And it's not just things just happening to you all the time. I guess for me it was, but not in the way we wanted it to. So it was a weight off our shoulders and we were very ecstatic. And so we found out that I think it would, we were at like 13 weeks when we got the results and found out we were having a girl and I went on to have.

A very great start of the second trimester and out of nowhere, out of nowhere, I started having some lower back pain. One weekend, we had gone to a fall farm fest thing with family. And I just thought I was having like aches and pains because of labor. I had lower back pain. I didn't think that was weird.

I also had two little ones that I was running around doing everything with. So I just thought it was like part of the territory. I took it easy that day, but then the next day my back was still hurting me. But it would be on and off. But definitely in pain. And then I started having spotting. I am now I'm 20 weeks, one day.

This was now it was the afternoon. And of course it's a Sunday, always the weekend. I started having spotting. And then  as the night got closer, I almost didn't want to admit it because I  deep down in my gut just knew I'm going to the hospital and  I'm not, I did not expect what was to come, but I. Knew that I wouldn't be coming home soon again.

So,  and this time it was even scarier because we have both boys, we have both boys. So then I started bleeding, not a lot, but a little bit, and  it was time. I had to go to the hospital. This time I did pack some things because I just had a feeling. My parents were out of town.  My in laws were out of town.  We ended up calling my brother and sister in law to come over and I waited until the boys came home.

We're in bed. I don't think it would have mattered because just it felt easier. I didn't want to have to  they're little I didn't want to scare anybody. I didn't want to have to explain anything and then mommy's going to the hospital So we put the boys to bed I called my brother brother and sister in law came over to stay with the boys while Josh took me to the hospital  And I'm in the triage room.

I'm waiting for the doctor to get there. And this time I am having contractions And I am  feeling them within  30 minutes of being at that hospital, I started having painful contractions. They came out of nowhere. It wasn't just like I had before. I just have back pain. This was full blown. Contractions to the point where it was scaring me.

All I could think about was my body. I have this abdominal circlosion and I know that I'm not supposed to be contracting. And I'm like, where is the doctor? Where is the doctor? Like I, in my head, I'm thinking like I need meds. I need something to stop these contractions. I'm 20 weeks, one day.  I don't know what's going on.

Everything has been fine except for the last 24 hours. And out of nowhere, I am in labor and bleeding. And at this point I'm bleeding.  I'm bleeding a lot. I'm just  praying and waiting for the doctor to get there. And when I say that, I can't compare all of my experiences because they are truly all unique,  but I was very scared.

I was scared of losing  this miracle. I was scared of losing another daughter.  But  even more so at this moment, I was scared for myself. I was scared for my health. I was scared that my uterus was going to rupture. I was scared that I was not going to be okay. And all I could think about were my two boys at home.

The doctor looked at me when she got there and she's, you are definitely contracting, you are bleeding. She was about to leave it up to me and say, we can see like how this is going to go, but we can't wait much longer. We're going to have to go and  do a C section.  And of course I know  how,  at this point, it's my health or the baby's, because I can't go into labor with this  circloged in place, my uterus can rupture, like I can,  my life is at risk, and I couldn't do that to my husband, and I would definitely not leave my kids.

So at this point, I just turned, I went into a different mode and I was just like, okay, like, whatever we need to do. Okay.  So before.  Before they were about to  take me back to the OR, she did an ultrasound  and I saw her hesitate  to say anything, but then she, if you had any doubt at all  of what needed to be done, I just needed to tell you that I'm sorry, but there is no heartbeat.

Our daughter had passed away  prior to going into even having a C section. With all the trauma that was going on inside of me at this point, it was unknown what was going on, but I was. Bleeding a lot and she had passed away.  So  at that point, and I just couldn't wait. I just, I was being, I was put under for surgery.

It's a little different than the first C section I had, of course, because with that C section I was given an epidural, so I'm numb, but I'm awake to see my baby. This time I was put under, thank God. But man, waking up.  After that C section 

was, 

honestly, there's no words. My, I just felt like I had  my body failed again. And we spent the next few days  in the hospital and we're able to be with our daughter who we named Marin. She was 14 ounces. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I have  now seen a 16 week old baby, 24 week gestation, I should say baby.  And now our.

20 week gestation baby. And it is  so heartbreaking to see  a baby so perfectly made, but not made for earth. And it took me a long time to forgive myself and my body. I truly had no control over it. And I know this, but  there's been a lot of healing that has had to take place after experiencing all of this and it's ongoing, but I've come a long way. 

Losing Marin brought up so many feelings of.  Losing our twins that I was like officially dealing with the grief of it all at this point when we lost the twins  We didn't know yet what it was like to be a parent to feel that love for your child And know what you're missing out on now that we have our two boys and we lost Mirren  I can fully grasp now that What that would look like to be losing our other girls, if that makes sense, man, the loss of our dream and the loss of these babies, our family would have been complete years ago. 

I know that's not how the world works, and that was not God's plan, but it really forced us to take a deep dive  into our grief. We went to therapy separately. We went to therapy together.  If I can give one piece of advice and truly for any aspect in life, but especially when navigating  miscarriage, death,  trauma, infertility,  seek help. 

It's a lot to carry and it's a lot to understand on your own. And truthfully, you won't realize how it's affecting your life. And.  How you are processing your emotions or not until you are at a point where you are just overwhelmed and don't know what to do.  Therapy was very helpful. I think it was beneficial for Josh and I to go separately because we, while we are going through the same experience, we, Experience it differently, right?

Like me being the woman  and going through the physical part of it. But then Josh's point of view, carrying the burden of the rest of our life and just witnessing it all and being there in a different way. We had some  things to work out on our own.  And then we did come together and go to therapy together as well.

It's hard. It's hard to be a good spouse and a good parent  and grieve  and recover. At the same time after we lost Mirren, that was September 26th, 2021. And yes, every single one of our daughters have passed away in September. September is a very heavy month for us. We lost Charlotte, September 5th, Cecilia, September. 

18th and Maren September 26th and her wedding anniversary is September 7th. So  September is a big month for us. We try to give ourself grace. We've learned different ways to honor our daughters. Our boys at this point, they're old enough. They know.  They call them their angel sissies. Obviously Charlotte and Cecilia came before them.

So they just learned from like these teddy bears that we have. Hunter learned first. So we have these teddy bears with the girl's names on the foot. And we're like, well, those are your angel sissies. It actually opened up some very beautiful conversations about  heaven and. Angels and as he got older, this time with Marin, we had our first age appropriate talk about death.

I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to have that discussion, obviously, but our boys, Noah was a little  oblivious because he was still young, but Hunter absolutely knew that I was pregnant and that we were having a baby and it was going to be a girl. We had given them little dolls to practice with just a couple weeks prior and. 

I never, ever thought that anything would go wrong with this pregnancy. I didn't think I would deliver a baby prematurely. I didn't.  I thought that with Noah, we were just being  cautious. And then it worked out. He was our full term baby. So I just  I did not think like, how could something,  how again, could something happen?

It caught me so off guard. Not that anyone can ever prepare you for losing a child, but yeah, it was hard. So we had to explain the best we could in an age appropriate way, which thankfully we had help with that from the social workers at the hospital. They recommended books. We were able to talk with them through it a little bit on how to approach it.

And they did warn us. They were like, don't be surprised if.  You're telling them this and they're listening and then they go, Oh, can I have a snack or just totally change the subject in one ear out the other. And that's exactly what happened. It was harder for us to say it than it was for them to hear it.

And we told them while they were coloring and then they were just on their way. But, you know, as time has gone on and the boys have gotten older, they know their angel sissies names. We have different ways that we have honored them in September on their birthdays. We have done things like. Send off lanterns into the sky balloons.

We light candles and when we lost the twins, like I had mentioned we Didn't really know what to do in regards to a funeral cremation. Like I again never had children didn't feel Worthy didn't know what was appropriate  now after losing Marin and having two boys of our own we  We're not thinking that way this time. 

We were going to find a way to honor our daughter. And things were different this time. It to me made no difference. My daughter's  born at 14 weeks and 16 weeks gestation versus 20 weeks  gestation, but it does make a difference. At 20 weeks, when you lose a child, it is considered a stillbirth. She was born via C section sleeping. 

When you lose a baby prior to 20 weeks, it is a miscarriage.  That's just what they label it. But we were. Caught off guard with some things that were handled differently this time around with Marin's. We were given the option to give her a social security number. We had her cremated. We spent three days with her in the hospital as long as we could.

We got pictures with her and really just soaked in. every single moment we could. We still didn't know if we wanted to have a service or not, but we definitely wanted  her ashes and we figured we would decide on how we wanted to honor her  when the time was right. Obviously, we had a lot of healing and we had to wrap our heads around a lot of things, but we ended up not having any kind of ceremony.

Instead, we decided to have a brick. Put in the downtown of where we live. I've lived here my whole life and the spot is very special to us and we have all of our girls names on it. It's brought up feelings of needing to honor our other daughters as well. And so we have a brick that says our angels,  Charlotte, Cecilia and Maren, 2016 and 2021.

We love you.  And it's been a nice way for us to incorporate our kids in their memory as well, because we're downtown in that area a lot with them, and they love going to stop by and see the brick and say hi to their angel sissies. It's been a way for us to teach them about prayer. And so the time that followed all of this, this was September, 2021, going into the next year,  I would be lying if I said that wasn't the hardest  year of my life.

I have never felt so  defeated and lost and confused.  And part of me wanted to give up, part of me  did not. Again, we have six frozen embryos, but we both had to do a lot of soul searching and decide together, my husband and I, what is best for our family.  And we need to come at this together and in our decision, and we need to take time.

We need to take time to, to grieve and to process everything. And we did the year of 2022 was extremely transformative. It was hard. I tried a lot of different avenues to get my mind right. And my body, right. And  figure out what I wanted to do also with my life. I needed something else to do. I started working part time again.

I just, I needed to do something else. And I was having a very hard time  being fully present with my kids. And that was the first I've never  lost a child when I already had children. So now I am  parenting while. I grieve and it got to a point where I just didn't like the mom that I was being. And it wasn't my fault.

I just know, I knew I needed more. So therapy was helpful and I really had to just reprioritize and I had to focus on my kids the best I could and focus on things that made me truly happy because it has been  years at this point that I have just been so disassociated with who I am. Outside of  being a mom and trying to become a mom and surviving at this point, surviving all of the experiences  and I really had some soul searching to do.

So that's what happened  last year and a lot of good things came out of that.  I forget which podcast I was listening to, but they mentioned the phrase. There's power in the pause.  And I have never forgot that. It has been my motto since I heard it. There's power in the pause. For the longest time, I just thought my strength and perseverance and just like knowing what I wanted was going to get me through anything if I just kept going and just was stronger. 

And for some amount of time, that is true. But  again, there is power in the pause.  So I spent the year Not thinking about  having a baby. I spent the year  focusing on me and what I want and how I can be a better mom and strengthening my marriage. Again, that was the focus of the year.  So  we did do an autopsy on Maren,  which  provided a little bit of answers.

It wasn't conclusive that the cause of death was placental abruption,  which  the way everything happened made sense because. It came out of nowhere. I had very heavy bleeding.  And then she was gone. Now, we don't know why I had placental abruption. I didn't have any of the risk factors for placental abruption.

I didn't have any warning signs or any kind of trauma. But then in hindsight, the doctor started to think that we'll never know at this point, but maybe.  With the twins, there was some sort of placental issue as well, because I had delivered Charlotte so abruptly and bled. They don't know, but what we do know is that  it was my placenta that failed with Maren.

Again, not my cervix, not  polyhydramnios, excess fluid. It was preterm labor, but that's because my placenta failed. Was failing and  yeah, it was placental abruption is why we lost our daughter.  So I'm going to end this very long second part of my story here.  I'll pick back up with our discussion with our maternal fetal medicine doctor, following the results of the autopsy and where we decided to go from here in building our family and  where we are at today.

 Thank you so much for listening.  It is very important to me that you hear my story. As I've mentioned before, it's the driving force for this podcast and it has made me who I am today. And it is the reason why I want to be here for other women for every aspect of motherhood.

So we're not just going to be talking about all these horrific things that I've been through, but we're going to talk about all aspects of motherhood and how things just don't always go as intended. Just a fact. Plans are funny in parenthood. So tune in next week we'll wrap up my story and you'll hear where we're at today,   if you found value in this episode, maybe you learned something new, please share the link to the podcast, share the episode, tag me on Instagram at motherhood underscore intended.

I love to see who's listening and your feedback has been awesome. The more people watching We can reach the more women we can support. So I really appreciate you sharing this show. And if you have any feedback for the podcast, I would love if you could write a review on Spotify, you just send in a rating and on Apple, you can actually write a review along with your rating.

So I would so appreciate it. If you're wanting to discuss. This episode further, or just gain some support from some like minded women. We do have our motherhood intended community group on Facebook. You can connect with women who you have things in common with, ask questions, learn from each other. Vent about motherhood, share a funny meme. It's an awesome community and we would love to have you. 

Thanks again for listening. And I will talk to you soon.