TRIGGER WARNING: Pregnancy/Infant/Child Loss.
As a part of our Rainbow Baby project, we are sharing the beautiful and heartbreaking stories of Lil Helper mamas who have experienced loss in different forms. There's so much taboo surrounding this subject, and many parents are left feeling alone while walking down this impossible path... But the truth is, you're never alone, and we hope these stories give you a glimmer of hope in the darkest of nights.
"My husband and I were so naive the first time we found out I was pregnant, we were so joyous and just assumed positive meant a baby in the end. But, we were wrong. My first pregnancy ended in a D&C due so a blighted ovum which left me falling into a deep depression. I haven’t told many people this but I had to one day talk myself out of ramming my car into a tree after the surgery, I wanted to make the pain stop. Thankfully with friends, family, and my husband, the darkness lifted.
It felt like it had fully lifted when I found out a few months later that I was pregnant again, but it ended weeks later in an early loss. The same thing happened a few months later, three losses in less than a year. Looking back, I’m not sure how I didn’t become even more depressed.
I had extensive testing done after the third loss loss and the doctors could find nothing wrong, “everything looked perfect”, they said:
We finally could breathe when I was brought into my OB super early to find a heartbeat when I became pregnant for the fourth time. I was high risk due to my losses but the pregnancy went well. Our son, Barrett Wilder was born on 12/30/17 and was the most prefect and healthy boy. He’s the light of our life. I often look at him while he’s still and sleeping and wonder what he had to fight in my womb to survive.
We had three more losses after Barrett was born. Positive tests were so numbing to me. I never got to do a super cute “SURPRISE! We are pregnant!!” announcement with my husband or friends and family. It was more of a Melli, “I’m pregnant again” and many would reply “let’s hope this one works.” The experience that many have when they find out that they’re pregnant was stripped from me.
I am now 35 weeks pregnant with another boy, Ellison (Ellis) Jett. He’s yet another triple rainbow baby, a true miracle. I can’t say that this pregnancy has been easy, I’ve been a wreck and worried something would happen to him but he’s strong, big and will meet us soon.
I’d go through everything I went through to have my boys but I do find myself crying at night wishing I knew what our other six babies looked like and wish to hold them and rock them to sleep. Each baby has a name and we will always ensure our boys know about them.
Gabriel, Millie, Mae, Theo, Josephine, and Charleston - they’re the bright color in the rainbows that make up my rainbow babies." - Chelle W. of Pack of Jacks
"Right now I should be counting the weeks in pieces of fruit and comparing the size of my growing baby to a plum or an avocado or a papaya. Instead my weeks are measured by my weekly blood draws to test my HCG levels and hoping for a decline in my numbers. And my baby is not there anymore. My thoughts are not consumed by the baby supplies we need to buy or the theme to decorate the nursery in. The fun photo idea I had for our family to announce the pregnancy is now just that...an idea. My thoughts are missing this baby I will never get to hold and the scary threat that this pregnancy could actually give me cancer.
I was so excited to see those little pink lines. I had thought I was done having babies, but then I found myself in an amazing relationship and started to get total baby fever. We really wanted a baby together. Pretty much as soon as we started trying, I found myself staring at that positive pregnancy test. I booked an appointment at the medical clinic and during that appointment, the nurse practitioner gave me the timeline of upcoming dates, ultrasounds and any testing to be done. She mentioned the term "viable pregnancy" at one point and I remember feeling like I was punched in the stomach when I heard those words. It hadn't crossed my mind that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage and that I could be that one in four. I had two very healthy and relatively easy pregnancies before this one, so I was anticipating nothing but smooth sailing. My ten week ultrasound was booked for the following week and I was so excited to see my little one on that screen and to share that experience with Will.
Ultrasound day came and the tech got started with the familiar feel of that cold gel on my tummy. After a few quiet minutes of what I thought was just a routine ultrasound, she said to me that she wasn't seeing what she was supposed to be seeing and asked if we could do a vaginal ultrasound as well. That ultrasound did not give many more details. She said she still was not seeing what she was supposed to see. My heart sank. That didn't sound like good news to me. I asked for more details and she told me that she is not a doctor and can't tell me any results, but she suggested going to the Emergency Room and and telling them that I just had an ultrasound and I wanted to get my results right away.
A few hours later we were being told by the doctor that there was no heartbeat and that the ultrasound was showing that the fetus had stopped growing a couple weeks earlier. My options were to naturally let my body expel it, or to take a pill to speed that process up a bit or to book a D&C. I was having a lot of trouble comprehending the fact that none of these options left me still pregnant with a perfect and healthy baby growing inside me. I looked at Will, who looked sad and helpless and I started to cry. I wasn't ready to give up on my baby. Maybe my dates were wrong and the pregnancy wasn't as far along as I thought it was. Maybe that's why it was measuring tiny and there wasn't a heartbeat yet. Those don't show for several weeks into a pregnancy so maybe I was just not far enough along yet. I babbled all of those options to the ER Doctor and he looked at Will with a sadness but look of assurance in his eyes, as if to say "she is not getting it...." He was right. I wasn't getting it. No. I can't give up. I asked for another ultrasound and he agreed to give me another one in a few days. This was more to appease me than anything else. A few days later, it was the same thing all over again. The technician did both the abdominal and vaginal ultrasound. I was again sent to the ER to have a doctor read the report right away. A different doctor came to see me with pretty much the same news I had heard a few days earlier. Baby looked to have stopped growing around 8 weeks and because it has not come out on its own already, she suggested that the best option would be a D&C. The surgery was scheduled for just a couple days later and I will write a blog post about that experience and the exhausting and emotional days that followed.
Weeks earlier we had shared the happy news of our pregnancy with our family and close friends. We told my girls that they were going to be big sisters. Everyone was so excited, especially my girls. And now this was the devastating news we had to share. In this moment, I understood why people tended to keep the first trimester pregnancy news to themselves. However, these were the people I leaned on for support after we lost our baby and I would have felt extremely alone if I did not have that love from them this past few weeks. I am still leaning on them as I deal with the 1 in 1000 statistic that I became a part after being diagnosed with a rare pregnancy condition that I had never even heard of before, also to be shared in another blog post. This post is already pretty heavy as it is.
This journey is far from over and I honestly don't know what the future holds for us. I know what I would love to happen but I am just faced with a bunch of question marks and what ifs. I know that our baby is my favourite what if. And that one day we will meet again. I am hoping we all get to enjoy a rainbow at the end of all this rain." - Lil Helper family member and author of redlipsmomhips.com Brooke B.
"In June of 2017 my husband and I were ecstatic to see two pink lines on a pregnancy test. We had already planned for months. I went off my hormonal birth control, and talked to my doctor about trying to conceive. I started taking prenatal vitamins. We called the doctor and got booked for our first ultrasound. We told our immediate families and there were lots of happy tears.
At our first ultrasound, the tech said that I was measuring at only about 5 weeks, not 8. But after being on birth control for so long, my cycles had been long and unpredictable, so we scheduled another ultrasound for 3 weeks later.
It was at our second ultrasound that I lost hope. The previously chatty technician was quiet and reserved. We were told to go next door to my doctor’s office. When the tech left the room I held back tears as I looked at my husband because we both knew this was not what was ‘supposed to happen’. I held back tears in the next waiting room, and fell apart when my doctor told me there was no heartbeat, and the pregnancy was not viable. My first pregnancy never grew past five weeks.
We called our immediate families and more tears, different tears, were shed. Since I was not having any symptoms of miscarriage, my husband and I chose to have the doctor help us, and I went to the hospital for a D&C. I will forever be grateful for my doctor’s kindness and my husband’s support.
The hardest part was carrying my grief in secret. That our friends didn’t know we were trying to conceive. Having to smile through ‘harmless’ inquiries about when we’d have kids. Rage crying in my car in the hospital parking lot after follow-up bloodwork because I saw a pregnant woman. I sat on the couch for days after, pouring my grief into crocheting a rainbow wall hanging to decorate the nursery I dreamed of. We’re told to keep our pregnancies private until 12 weeks when the risk of miscarriage drops - but I believe we need to share our joy so we feel safe sharing our grief if it comes.
We waited for my cycle to return to begin trying which took several months. I had an incredibly healthy period at the end of August and felt ready to start trying again. I now believe this is what my body needed, and my beautiful rainbow baby was born in June of 2018, almost exactly 1 year from the date we first tested positive for the pregnancy I lost.
Aileen is my light, my love, and my greatest joy. Just like a rainbow she colours my world even when dark clouds and bad days hover nearby. She reminds me to slow down and enjoy the little things, and I am so grateful to be her mom." - Lil Helper Ambassador and Content Team Member Caitlin M.
"I was asked to share a bit about my story and I think that it’s important to say that this is only just a chapter of my story.
My husband and I have been trying for another baby since Sept 2018. I have various health conditions that make trying difficult meaning we knew that we would need to utilize a fertility clinic. For months the medications didn’t work a lot of heartbreak and negative tests. Finally in April 2019 we got that Positive test our hearts had been yearning for. Unfortunately, around the 14 week mark I went into labour and we lost our little babe.
I will spare the details of our story that way as I’ve learned first hand how Ill equipped many hospitals are to dealing with loss. What I will say is that every part of my heart shattered many times over.
The next few weeks were rough and I needed emergency surgery due to some complications and It was quite a long time healing physically. It’s almost a year later and I’m still working on healing emotionally from it all. We are still trying for our rainbow baby, and honestly I’m not sure when or if that will happen.
However, my way of healing through all this was to be extremely transparent about my loss. I think the greatest disservice we are doing to each other as women is not talking about it. Talking about loss or even the struggles to get pregnant is so important. Be that through stories, images or even products that bring light to something that unites so many of us. So loss was a chapter of my life and now it’s infertility and healing.
I want to end my story with one piece of advice I have for anyone that goes through this: “no matter what your journey your emotions are valid. Love yourself along the way and surround yourself with people that just understand exactly what your heart is feeling. YOU are NOT alone." - Lil Helper Ambassador and former Delight Team Member Rachel H.
"I don't know how much more vulnerable I could be, laying on an extra bed mat to contain the bleeding with the transvaginal ultrasound probe peeping around...."It was an early loss, probably bad genetics." My last glimmer of hope was snuffed out with this statement. Somehow I had been able to write off the cramping and the bleeding and even the news earlier that week that the hormone level wasn't rising enough to sustain the pregnancy (it was still rising... there was still hope!). But this? I couldn't deny guided tour my from my OB and the motionless images on the ultrasound screen didn't lie. A few weeks before I was less then thrilled at the positive pregnancy test. And now...waves of sorrow and guilt. Sorrow and guilt that I had grumbled "it's too soon" when I read the home pregnancy test results. Sorrow and guilt that I had squandered the only time I had with the child by moping and thinking only of myself and finances. Sorrow and guilt that I hadn't shown love for the child from the very beginning like he deserved.
We buried the remains quietly and didn't tell anyone hardly anyone about it. It was an early loss, nobody had even suspected we were pregnant. It seemed like something I should just be able to get over quickly. It was an *early* loss after all. I didn't have any memories to share, I never heard his first cry and never even felt the flutter of baby kicks. If I told someone it felt like I was "trying to get attention". It was my first miscarriage, some women have had multiple. It was a first trimester loss, plenty of women lose children in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters, at birth or during infancy. I felt like I lost someone I didn't know, so it should be easy to move on. But it hurt.
In all honesty, my miscarriage felt like justice. After all, how many couples struggle with infertility and would be ecstatic to see that positive test? It seemed as though nature, seated on a throne of judgment, had declared "take the child away, she is ungrateful and therefore undeserving". I felt responsible. I tried to move forward silently. I clung to a particular devotion and in meditation discovered that sorrow and joy are very often interwoven. An overwhelmingly sorrowful situation can be laced with joy and vise versa. I picked up the practice of deliberately seeking out joy around me when I was particularly overwhelmed with sadness. This turned out to be a daily battle of deflecting the feelings of saddness, anxiety, guilt and shame and making a conscious effort to find the joy. Joy in a warm cup of coffee. Joy in my older son's glee at seeing me first thing in the morning. Joy in my husband returning home from work 5 minutes earlier then expected. Some days it took a considerable amount of effort to find some good, but in reality there was joy all around me.
I was fortunate to conceive another child only a few months later, my rainbow baby ❤. I decided that even if I had the privilege of carrying the child for only a few days or weeks, I would put forth extra effort to treasure whatever time I had with him despite how I was feeling.
My rainbow baby is 2.5 years old now and I was blessed with yet another baby who was born last year ❤. The toddler and infant years are chaos and so many times I just want this phase to be over: the tantrums, the nap fighting, the unexpected messes (like the poop baked to the dryer drum when independent toddler man "cleaned up" his soiled underwear by putting then on a time dry for hour and a half). There's a lot of frustration, but it's laced with joy if I would only stop to look for it. Every June 26th, my miscarried baby's due date, I'm reminded to treasure the time with my babies and to work a little harder to find joy even on particularly trying days." - Anonymous Lil Helper family member
"‘Pregnant’ it read, followed by ‘1-2 weeks’ in the adjacent window. I was over the moon! And just a little bit smug. After our “conversation” a few weeks prior I just had a sense that ‘IT’ had happened, and on the first try!
A whirlwind courtship followed by a few blissful and tough years of marriage and I was ready for a family.
“Babe let’s have a babe!” I said one night, out of the blue. To which I received a blank stare followed by-
“Didn’t we say we’d wait 5 years before trying?”
However true that was, things had changed for me and I was ready now! “Well My Love, if you really want me to wait another 2-3 years you’ve got to give me something!”
Which was how Luka entered our lives. A feisty, sweet, mischievous, roly poly puppy of mixed and large breed. She was to be my pre-parenting boot camp and, little did I know then, my constant companion in heartbreak.
Fast forward to those wonderful words on the test - “Pregnant”, “1-2 weeks”. I couldn’t wait to tell Stefan!
He was as excited as I, after finding my surprise (a tiny pair of socks with the test on top), and we immediately started dreaming together. I called and set up an appointment with our family doctor and sourced a midwife. We talked everyday about who this little person might be and planned how to break the news to our parents. We waited until 12 weeks and I thought I was going to burst with the news! Our parents each received a tiny post-Christmas gift to unwrap that announced our news. Lots of tears and excitement all around.
After that, the floodgates opened. We told everyone our good news and revelled in their joy for us.
I was at work the following night when I started to feel a little off. A few cramps and general uneasiness. I went to the bathroom and there it was...blood. I was bleeding.
I called my husband and we went to the emergency room. Three hours later and the face of the doctor told us all we needed to know.
“What happens now?” Heartbreak filled my voice.
“Well,” he replied, obviously wishing he was anywhere else, “you’ll go home and you’ll pass some tissue.” …
“Do we need to bring it back here?” I was completely at sea about our next steps.
“NO!” He was completely aghast and then dismissive, “It will probably be too small to even tell what it is.”
We left the hospital in silence. In the car my husband called his family to tell them what happened. Numbness was setting in and hearing others grief for us just grated on me. I exploded at him and then sobbed the whole way home. Luka crawled into bed with me and snuggled me as I cried. My mind was a whirl of confusion and questions. What would happen now? Would it hurt? What would I do/feel when I saw my baby? Could I really just ‘flush the toilet’ after?
Desperately in need of reassurance, I called my sister's mentor who is a Family Physician. After our conversation I felt a bit more prepared but still hollow with grief.
That night the pains started late. I was up for 11 hours cramping, vomiting and trying to make my way through a miscarriage while sobbing out my grief. Luka stayed with me the whole time.
She was with me during the transition of the next few months as I recovered and changed jobs. Then another miscarriage. This one was so early I had just begun to suspect when the bleeding started. More grief.
After baby #2 I threw myself into figuring out what was going on. Was I overweight? Did I have fertility issues? Were my husband and I not compatible?
“No”, the Doctors all said. “You have been able to get pregnant, which is a good sign. Come see us again in a year if you still haven’t managed to conceive.”
I did everything possible from that point on to make sure I was in the best shape possible going forward. Ate organic, worked out daily and walked with Luka, took vitamins religiously, tracked my cycle and every other thing I could think of that would help.
Then it happened! Almost 18 months later I was pregnant again! I was cautiously excited this time and waited anxiously for our first ultrasound. We got in early at 10 weeks and were so excited to see our teeny bean. “It’s not unusual not to hear a heartbeat at this point”, the tech noted, “it’s still early.”
Two weeks and 1 day later, I was at work and felt something weird. I ran to the bathroom...I was bleeding.
“Don’t worry. Not all prenatal bleeding is a sign of miscarriage.” My boss reassured me, “just go home and lie down and call your midwife.”
That night the cramps started. The cruel irony that it was the exact same timeframe as Baby #1, 12 weeks and 1 day, was not lost on me. Only 6 hours this time and much less painful physically. Luka followed me from room to room all night long as I miscarried our third baby. This time I felt dead inside. Like I had no hope left or energy to seek it.
All around me my friends were having their first, second, third and fourth babies and I kept losing mine. I spiraled into a depression it would take me months to claw my way back from.
One day Stefan came home from work early, carrying a shrub. “Come on babe.” He took my hand and pulled me from the spot I had rooted to the couch the last few months. He took me into the woods in the backyard and planted it. Then he helped me paint the names and dates of all our babies on stones and set them around the base of the tree. “This is our memorial for our beloved babies. And now we are going to pray that if it’s ever His will that we have a baby, that we receive a double blessing for our faith.” I sat by that tree for hours and finally cried out the grief I was choking on until it was exhausted. There was a light again.
A few months later, I was certain I was pregnant. The benefit of paying such close attention to your body is that you do ‘just know’ way sooner. I figured I was about 10 days along and decided I absolutely would NOT take a pregnancy test until the answer would be 100% accurate. I couldn’t take a false positive.
3 weeks later, there it was- ‘Pregnant’ and ‘3-4 weeks’. We told no one at first, and then I got brutally sick. Not morning sickness but a cold that degenerated into strep that turned into bronchitis. When I had been absent from work for 2 weeks we finally told my boss. When that absence stretched to a full month he took me aside and said he wanted me to go down to part time. “Your nervous system is so stressed out I am afraid you won’t keep this baby if you work this hard.”
That felt like a slap in the face after all the hard work I put in to be at peak health. When I mentioned it to my husband he immediately said he had the same concern. I agreed to cut down my hours to part time.
I insisted on booking our first ultrasound late (11 weeks) so there would be no question about the results. I knew that whatever we saw on the ultrasound the next 2 weeks would be a hell of anxiety waiting for 12 weeks to be well behind us.
Stefan wasn’t allowed in with me during the ultrasound. I lay on the table and stared fixedly at the ceiling.
“Is this your first pregnancy?” the tech queried. “No, this is my 4th pregnancy but no living children.” I returned.
“Oh.”
Silence…She seemed subdued as she finished the scan. Me, still staring at the ceiling tiles and trying to choke down the panic and tears.
“Ok, I’ll go get your husband now.”
Now the tears. My mind was whirling- ‘Would she go get him first if it was good news? Why didn’t she say anything after the “Oh”? Lord I might start screaming right here if my baby is dead.’
Stefan and the tech came back in and he saw my tense face. He gripped my hand as she began scanning and then he started to laugh. I was confused and too scared to look.
“Do you see what’s happening here?” She asked. I turned to look, the wand is passing over and around showing a miracle.
“There are two!” I said, barely able to believe my eyes.
“Yep. You are having twins!”
I immediately burst into tears while Stefan was laughing and laughing.
“Oh, and you are more like 12 weeks 6 days along.” She says while we are overwhelmed with joy. At that point I started ugly crying and barely stopped for 7 hours.
Not only did we receive a ‘double blessing’ but we were already past the gestation that we lost our previous babies at! Identical boys born full term and naturally, against all doctors predictions." - Lil Helper Ambassador and former project manager Paige M.
"I knew I was pregnant with our daughter a week and a half before a test showed positive. They say when you know, you know, and something inside of me just clicked. She was long awaited; I had just had a miscarriage two and a half months prior and we were still reeling from the loss of my husband's mom. We had been trying for a while, not as long as some, but long enough that my doctor was starting to do tests, recommend medication, and discuss next steps in our fertility journey when I became pregnant the first time.
The first time is like a bad dream now. I discovered I was pregnant just before my husband's business trip, and while he was gone rushed to the emergency room on a weekend morning to have an ultrasound to check for viability. They couldn't be sure. A week later, my husband and I held each other as we learned I had experienced a miscarriage and this was not our shot.
When I told my husband I was pregnant again, I distinctly remember him saying, "this time it's real." Something felt different for both of us. I don't know if it was hope, a higher power, or just knowing our daughter was making her way, but it felt real. My pregnancy was not the easiest; I went to the doctor for every mishap, worried that this was the appointment where the rug would be pulled out from under our feet and we would be once again heart broken, but she just kept growing! At around 28 weeks, I was monitored bi-weekly for preeclampsia and told that I would be induced at 37. Our rainbow was almost here! We hadn't prepared anything yet; it was still a waiting game in both our minds of if, not when. Fortunately, our family jumped in and helped us put everything together at the last minute.
On August 17, 2019, at 4:01 am, after 3.5 hours of labor, our daughter had arrived! She is everything I ever could have hoped for and more. My whole world changed the day she was born, as it changed when I learned of my miscarriage. For the first few months after she was born, we were both tense; it was like we were waiting for someone to come to the door and say, "alright, time to take the baby back," but no one ever did. Nine months later, I still check her breath every night and think about how lucky we are. A little storm brought us a beautiful, smart, wondrous rainbow and we are both so thankful for her everyday." - Lil Helper Ambassador Robyn H.
"When I was asked to write about our Rainbow story by Ariel I knew I had to. I remember all the feelings that came with the loss of our Angel Baby during Thanksgiving 2018. Yes, October 7, 2018 I had a miscarriage making me 1 in 4 women who would go through that terrible experience. I was about 6 weeks pregnant. I remember feeling like it was all my fault. Maybe if I had drank more water, ate better, slept better, did anything and everything differently I wouldn’t have lost our Baby. I remember how alone I felt, and how terribly sad and angry I was when I would see another women post about her new pregnancy. I always wished them a congratulations, but in my head I would also think “Why wasn’t I allowed to meet my little Angel?” Even sometimes now to this day I think about how if I hadn’t lost I could have been celebrating a May birthday. But I am not, I am 1 in 4, left to think of that “what would life be if that Angel was here”.
My story:
One morning at the end of September I woke up and realized that I felt off. Something just wasn’t sitting right. And the more I thought about the last couple weeks I couldn’t remember the
last time I had had a period, and when I asked my husband he couldn’t remember either. So, I took a pregnancy test. It was a Saturday, we were getting ready to start our day and those two pink lines showed up right away. I was so shocked and got super excited, showing my husband while he was showering. We were so happy to be expanding to our family.
I started to take the prenatals right away and looked for a family doctor. By my calculations I was about 5 weeks, so I could wait a couple weeks before getting the first scan.
Then Thanksgiving weekend came.
Saturday October 6 I went to sleep feeling super pregnant in the first trimester, feeling all the changes happening in your body. Then the next morning I woke up and just didn’t feel right. I didn’t have the butterfly feeling anymore, my breasts felt softer; my heart and soul felt sad. In my mind I knew that I was going to lose this pregnancy. And sure enough, the cramping started and so did the bleeding. It was one of the hardest Thanksgiving’s to ever go through. It was even harder knowing that that afternoon my husband and I would be
spending Thanksgiving with his Dad’s side of the family with our son. A bunch of people who loved to ask everyone when they would be having more.
While visiting with my husband's family the bleeding started to get worse. I went to a walk-in clinic to get my numbers checked. The doctor sent me to get blood work and an ultrasound. I saw him a couple days later where he shared the sad news that yes, I had miscarried. He would watch me for a couple of weeks and make sure my hCG levels were going down and leveled out before he cleared me.
Once I was given a go head to try again I was so scared, I didn’t know if I wanted to. Could I go through that loss and hurt again? I was so excited for this baby, and then all of a sudden it was taken. I was told to track when I was ovulating. I found this to be so stressful, and every month that I would get those negative tests and a period I felt so terrible. Was I only ever meant to have one child? I loved him so much, but my husband and I really wished to give him a full time sibling. What happened if I couldn’t give that to him? Finally, I had to let go of the tracking. I knew a couple other families trying so I gave all the tests I had bought to track to another Momma trying, and put the trust in God. There had to be a couple reasons we didn’t have our Angel Baby in May 2019.
My husband was given access to his older children May 17, 2019, the same day I took a test and found out that we were pregnant with our Rainbow Baby. God knew that something bigger would be taking place. Introducing three children who hadn’t seen their dad in a year, and an infant would have been a disaster for this house. There would have been so many questions, so many hurt feelings. That he waited, and blessed our family with the growth of the older three children back into our lives and a pregnancy with a Rainbow Baby.
Our Rainbow was born January 20, 2020. We had a little girl.
During the pregnancy with our Rainbow baby I was so nervous. I held off on telling anyone for the longest time. It wasn’t until I was almost 30 weeks that my husband’s oldest three children were told. Somehow our son had been able to say nothing about the baby until finally one of the older children asked, he’s going to be a good secret keeper. They were concerned but happy. Everyone in our family was, but those who knew about our loss a year earlier also understood
that I was nervous to talk about it too much. Throughout the whole pregnancy I was so scared I was going to miscarry again. The biggest excitement during our Rainbow pregnancy was we did not find out the gender until the birth. One of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.
I still think of our dear Angel Baby. I look at our Rainbow Baby and wonder how I got so lucky to be her and her brothers Momma. Her older Angel Sibling was looking out for her and blessed our home when they chose to send her to us. I know our Angel Baby is with some family members watching over our Rainbow. I always wonder what life would have been like if our Angel was here, but I am blessed and thankful for my little Earth Baby’s too.
For all Momma’s and Daddy’s going through the loss, don’t hide away. We are with you. It is one of the hardest things to talk about sometimes, but I have found that talking about my
experience with our Angel and our Rainbow helps me to live every day and be the best Momma for all the children in my home. Momma’s and Daddy’s, you are not alone, you are loved, you will get through this." - Lil Helper Ambassador Codi G.
"My husband and I met in 2004 when I was 15 years old. We have been together ever since. In 2015 we got married and discussed our ideas of having a family. I have always wanted to be a mom and could not wait for the day that I could start my family. We decided we were going to wait a little longer so that we could save for a house.
Well, when we were finally in a place that we could start trying for our family, in barely a month I discovered I was pregnant. I was so incredibly excited. I always had a fear of not being able to get pregnant and have the family I had always dreamed about. So, this was just incredible I was pregnant within a short period of time.
I went to my family doctor to get the blood work to confirm it. My doctor called me the next day and said she wanted me to repeat my bloodwork as my hCG levels were a little low for being approximately 3-4 weeks along. I didn’t think much of it as I was still in a happy daze from finding out that we were expecting.
I repeated the bloodwork and my doctor called me the day after. She explained that my hCG levels had actually dropped in those few days. That hit me like a brick, did it mean what I thought it meant? She then said the word that I was terrified to hear, miscarriage.
I was devastated, my husband was devastated, and our hearts broke in half that day.
I had some great support during this time, and it helped me greatly to talk to other moms that went through the same experiences. We had to wait for a few months before we could try again. I was still not completely over the pain of losing our first pregnancy, but I was not going to let the pain and fear stop me from having my family.
So, we started trying again, and again another miscarriage. I was once again hit hard by this loss.
My family doctor was off for a few months so I had a substitute doctor, he told me I had to have 3 losses before I could see anyone to try and figure out why this kept happening. I did not agree with that, no woman should ever have to go through one loss let alone three before being able to have help. I already had a gynaecologist, so I called her and made an appointment. Within a few months we had an answer - I had a uterine polyp that needed to be removed.
Once that was removed and I recovered from surgery we were allowed to try again. In April 2018 I found out I was pregnant again. To say I was terrified was an understatement. I was scared with every little thing that happened in my pregnancy. I had many complications and ended up in preterm labour at 28 weeks. Thankfully, I ended up delivering my daughter Samantha Dec 21, 2018 at 38 weeks and 5 days.
She is my rainbow baby and in our eyes, absolutely perfect." - Li Helper Ambassador Allyse C.
