My story... Hoping in the future

It has been exactly 3 months and 12 days since my second pregnancy loss. We lost our angel baby on March 3, 2010.

We lost our first child last year in May, just after E's graduation from Law school.

At that time we had no idea why it had happened, and I felt a huge amount of guilt because I thought it was something that I did. I tend to operate at 100 miles per hour, so between my work at the time, the associated travelling and all the other activities that I had going on, I was convinced that it happened because I just didn't take the time that I should have with the pregnancy.

The Drs were not able to give me any answers either. My case was somewhat different because I lost the baby in the 2nd trimester, so they knew that it was not a normal miscarriage, they just could not explain why it happened.

I can easily say that last year was definitely the worst thing that I have ever experienced in my life. My membrane ruptured at 14 weeks, we ended up in the emergency room, was sent home with a 50% possibility that the baby would survive, ended up back in the hospital 2 days later when the baby came at home, with a fever and an infection due to the rupture which resulted in me having to stay in the hospital for an entire week. And after all of that I had to go back home and deal with the loss of our first baby.

I cried for weeks, and prayed about it, trying to understand why it happened. I knew in my heart that there was nothing wrong with our baby (Drs confirmed that later on), and searched every possible thing on the internet and in books to get some sort of idea as to why it happened. I came up with a few theories, primarily incompetent cervix, but still because this was our first loss, that could not be confirmed.

Eventually, I came to the point that I could not try to understand or determine God's ways, that all I could do was put my hope and trust in Him and the plan that he had for me, and E and I as a couple. It took me a while, let me tell you, to get there given my tendency to try to be self sufficient, but I definitely got to that place.

I remember the day that hope in our future and the possibility of having children one day, came back to me. To cope with what we were going through, I started keeping a journal and I remember (ok a bit too much info now) - a point where I thought I missed my period. I mean, I knew the Dr. said that it would have been irregular, but I thought perhaps we were pregnant again. And the prospect of that filled me with such joy and happiness!!! I mean I realized a few days later that that wasn't the case, but I also realized that I was excited about being pregnant in the future!

And that was a farrrrrrrr cry from the few months earlier, where I was scared to death of having to experience anything like that loss ever again. In fact I was determined to push the prospect of having children as far back as possible!

After getting that sense of hope, I thought that I needed to do something to preserve the memory of our lost child.

Even with my hope back, I did not want to know the sex of our angel baby, did not want to name it (although we already had our names picked out). And I'm still fine with that decision. We decided the same thing in this instance as well, because the names that we chose for our children have a great deal of significance to us, names of specific members of our family, who are now long deceased and who have greatly impacted us, and names that we would like to use in the future in honour of the type of ppl they were and to ensure that their memory remains.

Instead I created a hope box for our future children, where apart from the names that we have, I put things that I would want to make sure to do with our own children, if given the opportunity to have them later on. They aren't any major things, but small things that while they may seem insignificant to others, impacted me. Values that I would want to make sure our children are taught based on my own experiences, names of story books and songs that I look forward to reading and teaching them, things that E and I spoke of doing with our own children some day.

This time around, I know that I am processing this experience in a much better place. I realize that from last year to now, E and I have both grown and matured spiritually and emotionally as individuals and as a couple. God has definitely made us both stronger. I continue to tell people that its times like these that you really get to experience the love of the person you married, the levels that they would go for you and the conviction that you made the right decision in your choice of spouse.

I always knew that E was my right choice and I never thought that I would be able to love him more than I always have, but after these experiences, I tell you my heart could burst! I never thought that we could have gotten any closer, but I know that we have. We found ourselves in an area of love and intimacy, that we have never ever been before as a result of these experiences.

This time around, although I have cried (I still do sometimes when I see pregnant ladies or new mothers with their babies), my grief has not been as long as last year. I am sad that we lost our second angel baby, but I know that God has a plan for us, and there is no doubt in my mind that He will continue to be there and guide us as He has in the past.

I also, have some closure as well. At least I hope so. The Drs have finally diagnosed me with incompetent cervix, now that this second 2nd trimester loss has happened. They believe that that is what happened last year and we know that for future pregnancies, there are measures that could be put in place to prevent this from happening again.

God has brought me to a place, where I can only put my trust in Him. I now have to determine how to move through the rest of this year and Im placing my implicit trust in Him to lead me. This year was supposed to be a pregnancy and child bearing year, so the prospect of work etc. was not being considered until next year. Now with all that has happened, I will be looking for something to do, to transition back into my career. Right now though my focus is just on getting to know God more initmately and starting afresh again.

I still have bouts of sadness and what-ifs had our children survived from time to time. I sometimes feel guilty about my perceived inadequacies in being able to carry a child to term. I sometimes have fears about the future and the possibility of having another loss. But even with all of these feelings, and all the raw emotions, I am still excited about the future...