Miscarriages and Mothers Day

When I was a little girl, Mothers Day was a fun holiday; we would wake up “early” to make my mom a special breakfast in bed(it was just regular breakfast, but when you put it on a tray with a few dandelions in a cup of water, it becomes special). We would all climb into her bed and beam as we set down her breakfast, and tell her all about how much we loved her. When we all went to church, we would sing songs about how flowers reminded us of our moms, and then we would carefully walk through the congregation to distribute brownies, cookies, or some other confection, to all of the lucky mothers in the crowd. 

I had always looked forward to my first Mothers Day. I couldn’t wait to celebrate my body’s ability to bring another life into this world. I knew motherhood would be hard, but to say that I was excited was an understatement.

But I never stopped to think that Mothers Day might not be a happy holiday for everyone.

Early last year, Seth and I decided to start our family. We felt like we would be able to handle a baby, financially, and we really wanted to bring a baby into our family. We started trying and we were so so excited. We expected not to get pregnant immediately, since most people don’t. I knew lots of people that tried for a few months before getting pregnant, so that’s what we were expecting.

So I was surprised when, the first month after trying, I had a pregnancy test come back positive. I was absolutely elated, and immediately began thinking of how and when I would tell Seth. That night, though, I lost the baby. I told myself that it wasn’t fair for me to be upset about it, I’d only known I was pregnant for less than 24 hours, so it barely counted as being pregnant. I was only about 4-5 weeks along, so the baby was still an embryo, just a tiny clump of cells. I felt stupid for being so upset. Seth was supportive and loving and made the whole process easier.

We didn’t see any reason to not keep trying, and we got pregnant again immediately. I waited a few days after the positive test to tell Seth. I ordered a cute mug off of Etsy that had “We’re Pregnant!” painted on the bottom inside of the mug. Seth came home from work that night and I brought him the mug filled with juice. Seth remarked that he didn’t recognize the mug, and I just brushed it off before turning on the tv. His face when he got to the bottom of the mug was priceless. He glanced down into it as he took the last sip, and then did a double take. “Really?? Are we really??” I cried, and we kissed, and we were so so happy.

Even before I miscarried, I knew that the pregnancy wasn’t going to stick. The week before I lost the baby, I started having really intense and painful cramps and it hurt to walk. I remember texting Seth while he was working one night and sobbing while I told him that I thought we were going to lose the baby and that I could just feel it. I miscarried at 7 weeks.

Two months later, I got pregnant with Bastian. We were so excited but so nervous because although fertile, my body didn’t seem to know how to stay pregnant. The day after my positive pregnancy test, I went to my midwife and she put me on an array of supplements to help my body prepare and “hold onto the baby”. Even after we passed the 13 week mark and were in the clear, I still worried that I’d somehow lose my baby. Even after we passed 24 weeks and the baby was viable, I still worried that I would have him too early, or that something horrible would go wrong. Up until the moment they placed my perfect baby on my chest, I was so worried that somehow, I would lose him too.

Mothers day last year was really hard. I had just had my first miscarriage. We didn’t go to church, we stayed home and Seth held me while I cried because I so badly wanted to be a mother, but my body wouldn’t let me.

Mothers day this year was bittersweet. I am so in love with my healthy baby boy, and I am SO grateful that I get to be his mom. I look at him every single day in disbelief that he is mine and that I made him and I feel so so lucky. But it’s hard knowing that I lost two babies before him. We aren’t sure if I’ll be able to have another biological baby after him, because we weren’t able to figure out why I had the serial miscarriages.

The tattoo in the picture in this post shows the tattoo I got in memory of the babies I lost. The two birds on the branch represent Seth and I, and the two flying away represent the sweet babies we never got to meet.

Infertility comes in many different forms. I realize that I used to be naive, because there are thousands of women who want to be a mom as badly as I did, who can’t. There are women who had to wait a lot longer than 4 months to get pregnant, and women who lost a lot more than 2 babies. My struggles don’t diminish theirs, and their struggles don’t diminish mine.

I know this is late, but Happy Mothers Day to all the moms who can’t have babies, who have lost babies, and all the moms who are struggling to get pregnant.