Words can’t truly describe the excitement, joy and love I feel for the beautiful human being I am carrying for the very last day.
At the time I am writing this I have been pregnant for nearly 18 months (with a 1 month break) in nearly 2 years. I’m sitting here rubbing my giant belly on this rainy Sunday morning in Noosa, Australia.
There is a less than 1% chance that a woman will have 5 consecutive miscarriages. This increases the likelihood of not being able to carry a baby to full term and now I’m a little over 24 hours away from holding my new, precious baby daughter.
I wanted to take a little time to reflect on the journey I’ve had over the last two years to bring a child into the world – from feeling her soul making contact with us to seeing the two pink lines on the pee stick. So many people write birth stories and not so much pre-birth stories. I’m actually writing a book about it, but since I’m about to give birth tomorrow (and bring her earth-side). I wanted to share some of my struggles and triumphs in case you know of anyone that wants to call their soul baby into physical reality.
My intention is to inspire people to look beyond the statistics, the limitations and the roadblocks and see that miracles can happen.
Honestly, the last two years have been a roller coaster ride of emotions both spiritually, mentally and physically. It was the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows.
It’s hard to explain, but my husband and I felt the presence of our baby trying to come through each time. Now no one really knows how the system works, but we knew that someone special was supposed to be our child (I’m convinced most parents feel this way).
Here’s our ‘baby’ timeline over the last two years…
- July 2013: Started taking pre-pregnancy vitamins (folate, iron).
- August 2013: We fell pregnant after one try. We thought ‘what are the odds?’…and it happened right away.
- Mid-September: I had a blood test to confirm HGC levels were rising and then found out they were falling after a second test. At nearly 6 weeks I started bleeding, one week before my wedding.
- September 2013: Just three weeks after my loss we fell pregnant again.
- November 1st, 2013: It was my 34th birthday. We had our first ultrasound and see a baby with a strong heartbeat, good growth and everything as it should be. I had terrible morning sickness. We were nearly 7 weeks.
- November 2013: Sean and I are were on our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, At nearly 8 weeks I started to bleed. We left DR to fly home early. I wrote a blog post about it here. Turned out the heartbeat stopped for unknown reasons, I had to have a D&C.
- Jan 2014: Found out we were nearly 6 weeks pregnant. Didn’t get it confirmed via a blood test, just a handful of positive pregnancy tests with the two pink lines. I started using natural progesterone cream and monitoring my diet a little better. This was when I started to really pay attention, listen to people’s advice and study fertility issues. At three losses I officially ‘experienced recurrent miscarriages’.
- Feb 14th 2014: Valentine’s Day. I’d known I was pregnant for a few days and decided to keep it as a surprise for Sean and wrote ‘I’m pregnant’ in the card.
- March 7th 2014: Our 6 week ultrasound showed everything was fine, right on track. Around 8 weeks I started bleeding but the little heartbeat kept beating. Sean and I stayed hopeful that the baby would be okay. This was the toughest time for us.
- Late March/early April 2014: After three weeks of waiting to see an improvement, more foetal growth and a stronger heartbeat I started haemorrhaging and passed the baby naturally at the emergency room of the hospital. A majority of the pregnancy tissue was able to be kept for analysis.
- May 2014: I was booked into the Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic at the Mercy Hospital Melbourne. The previous baby I lost had Trisomy 18 and wouldn’t have lived long after her birth. Finding out it was a girl was pretty sad. Sean and I were booked in for blood tests to double check what’s going on. The doctors didn’t seem to have an explanation as to why this kept happening, but we kept trying. Oh, and I was pregnant again, the 5th time in 8 months. This time is wasn’t growing properly so I had to take a nasty tablet called Misoprostal to pass all of the pregnancy tissue at home. It was horrendously painful. I wrote a post about this pregnancy here.
- June 2014: We still felt the soul of our baby trying to connect with us. Emotionally we were exhausted and felt so concerned that we would never share our own child together. We both went to a healer. I received a powerful healing from a dear friend online. During this time we also made the decision to leave our home in Melbourne and move to Noosa to live in a beautiful home overlooking the ocean.
- July 2014: Within 14 days of our arrival I found out that I was pregnant and the journey began again. We weren’t even trying! The nausea and morning sickness kicked in pretty badly.
- August 2014: I started to bleed at around the 5 or 6 week mark and knew exactly what was happening. It appeared that my body was rejecting my 6th pregnancy, so I went to the emergency room to see what was going on. This is what I wrote when I was in the hospital:
It’s going to be okay. I love you. Be safe. I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful to god/the Universe no matter what happens. It is my honour to carry you. No matter what the outcome I am here, I am well, you are safe.
In fact, you can read the full blog post here.
After seeing the tiny heartbeat was OK I was cautiously optimistic, but it didn’t look good. I had a 50/50 chance that this little being wouldn’t stick around for very long. Each week was a milestone. For three long months I was virtually bedridden, in a beautiful room overlooking the ocean. The calming waves of the ocean helped with the nausea and the anxiety.
- Sept 2014: We went for the 12 week ultrasound and everything was fine. However, there was a slight chance of abnormality and we were sent for something called the Verifii test to rule out anything no-so-good and to also let us know the gender of our baby.
- October 2014: We found out that we’re having a baby girl. Sean and I are so thrilled.
- November 2014: My GP reveals to me that I tested positive for a mutated gene called MTHFR which is the likely causes of all of the losses. I wrote a blog post about that here. I also have placenta previa and high blood pressure.
Here is an excerpt from a letter than my husband Sean wrote to our baby in March 2014 during one of the toughest times of uncertainty:
When you are ready to be born into this world your mother and I will be waiting with open arms and open hearts. Come to us when you are ready little baby. We will trust that you are doing exactly what you need to for the greater good.
Until we see you next, be well in the energetic plain you are currently playing in. We are wishing you health, love, abundance and boundless growth.
We love you little baby,
Love,
Your Daddy (Sean).
And tomorrow we meet, hold, cuddle and kiss our beautiful baby daughter, Lulu Dawn.
With Gratitude: To all of you that have read my posts, sent me messages of hope, words of encouragement and reached out to me with your own fertility struggles, thank you so much. I’m really looking forward to sharing my new book with you when it’s ready. Honestly, I mean it from the bottom of my heart that your support has helped me so much over the last few years. Also a very special soul-hug of gratitude to my mentors and dear friends that helped me through this tough time (you know who you are). And to my beautiful husband Sean and my children, Thomas and Olivia…I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH…we made it…she’s nearly here! xo
Now, I am VERY ready to move onto the next exciting chapter with our baby.
ps. We’ll be posting photos of the baby tomorrow so please check out my Instagram or Facebook pages if you want to take a look at the beautiful new soul. xo