To start my blog posts, let’s begin in 2014, where my biggest life events happened. At this point, my now husband and I had been dating on and off since 2008. The distance was proving to be difficult as we both were trying to grow our own careers but trying to maintain a healthy relationship. By the end of 2013, the realization hit that we wanted our future to be together. Right after the New Year, we ended up looking at engagement rings, and then right after my birthday in February 2014, I found out I was pregnant. For anyone that knew me, I was anti-baby for SO long. My career was most important to me and I felt I was finally getting to the place I wanted to be with it.
I knew immediately I was pregnant before I even had confirmation. This is so hard to admit here for all to see, but I couldn’t get excited about this pregnancy for many reasons. The first might be ridiculous for some, but I saw a medium who had mentioned I would have a miscarriage. I know that shouldn’t have been at the forefront of my mind, but it was. Second, we lived in two different countries. No actual proposal had happened, I had a business in a different country and now where would I have this baby? There was so much stress with this pregnancy that it was hard for me to see the bright side; we created life.
When we had our first ultrasound, that’s when my mindset cleared. To hear that heartbeat, to see that small little tadpole baby, to get a due date, it was a huge turning point. I knew things would work out as it needed to. That visit showed I was 6 weeks and 4 days due on November 17, 2014. That date will forever stay with me. That is the day I was supposed to hold (what I feel in my gut) was my baby boy. So, imagine my surprise when at 8 weeks and 5 days I started to have light spotting around 2 am. I remember every moment that night because of course it was 2 am on a weekend and I was in Toronto. I called the emergency doctor at my practice in Rochester. There was nothing I could do until Monday. That is what I was told and what I knew in my heart. I had to wait it out. I had to let my body take its course. I never had heavy bleeding. I never saw clots. The blood remained dark brown. Monday when I went for my ultrasound with my mom and got the news, all I wanted to do was break down. “Things happen for a reason”, “there was something not right with the embryo”, “at least we know you can get pregnant”; that’s what I was told by my family that knew and by my doctor. These were all people who had never had this experience and heck, my doctor, HE would literally never experience it. I truly can not even put into words what this loss was like and how it affected me.
All that followed in the months after this miscarriage had really made me grow up in a whole new way. I ended up having another miscarriage immediately after the first. This one didn’t feel as real, maybe because I was days away from my dating ultrasound? I didn’t physically see or hear the baby? I was sick as a dog, I thought that meant a healthy baby. Maybe I was just numb from what had happened two months before? I made life twice, I carried life twice, I lost life twice. I knew I mentally needed a break. The only good thing that had happened was I was proposed to at the start of June. We were ready to at least get this part of my life on track since the pregnancy wasn’t going so well.
I am in the wedding industry as a makeup artist, hairstylist, and spray tan artist. I SEE IT ALL when it comes to wedding planning and the actual wedding day. I knew I didn’t want anything big so we decided to just have a small ceremony performed by my uncle in my uncle’s church just weeks after getting engaged. We just had our immediate family there and we were finally able to start the process of me moving to Canada to live with my husband. I was happy to take a break from my heartbreaking pregnancy journey at that point and focus on being a wife and living with my husband full time.
With the wedding now done, the fun times of filing the paperwork for Permanent Residency and getting my name changed for documents in the States began. Somehow, I messed up my passport paperwork so the expedited process that should have taken a week took close to three weeks. So I was away from my new husband for much longer than anticipated. Imagine my surprise when at the end of the month I found out I was pregnant AGAIN. I had SO many emotions at this point. We said we were going to stop actively trying, I had just gotten over my second miscarriage and I just was not expecting to be pregnant. I was beyond nervous at this point to be pregnant for the third time within months and I found out apart from my husband. The one positive this time was that I was in Rochester, so I immediately started testing to make sure I didn’t need progesterone to ensure a viable pregnancy.
Thankfully after all the bloodwork with progesterone levels and HCG numbers doubling properly, I was starting to get excited. I just felt that this pregnancy would stick. I was sick again and something in me just felt different in a good way. Once the dating ultrasound came and we got our due date, all I could do was hope for the best. And literally every single day for the entire pregnancy I prayed for a healthy baby and full-term pregnancy. 9 months later, our rainbow Easter baby showed up! That birth story is for another time, get ready!
But for now, this is my take away from 2014. I wanted a big career. I ended up pregnant. My best friend became my husband. I lost two babies that made me realize how much life I would miss if I only focused on a career. Those two losses helped me gain a new perspective on life. No matter how small, a loss is a loss. They are felt on different levels from other women’s loss experiences but not a day goes by that I or they don’t think of what those children would be like or look like.
I then think about how my Sofia wouldn’t be here. She is my mini-me and took a huge chunk of my heart. It is amazing how precious a Life truly is. I swear her sibling’s handpicked her for our family! She is just what we needed at that time. It is still hard to think about all that happened, but I’ll cherish what the losses have brought to me and my family. I am so lucky to now be the mother of three beautiful and healthy babies, and have a pretty cool baby daddy too!