Miscarriage and Loss

My journey to (biological) motherhood was anything but text book easy. It took about eight months to get pregnant. Once pregnant, I carried eight pounds of EXTRA amniotic fluid. I had back labor. The epidural didn't touch my labor pains. And after hours of pushing, I was rushed off for an urgent C-section. I spent the night in the ICU because I wasn't breathing properly. My firstborn came out blue, and spent his first night in the NICU, and I had to wait until I was released from ICU to truly meet him for a proper introduction a day later. I had to leave the hospital and leave my baby behind. Welcome to motherhood, it's not easy. My son spent 28...

After the birth of my first child, my husband and I knew we wanted to wait a while before trying to get pregnant again. At my six-week post-natal checkup, I was ready to have the birth control discussion with my doctor. As a nursing mom, I didn't realize my choice for birth control would be so limited. I discussed all the options with my doctor and settled on having an IUD (intrauterine device) placed. An IUD is a small (about the size of a large paperclip) T-shaped device that is implanted in the uterus and releases a low dose of hormones AND causes disruption of fertilization to prevent pregnancy.  For the device and placement, my insurance would cover all but...

I am fifteen weeks pregnant, confidently in my second trimester, and I am finally beginning to breathe a sigh of relief.  A little over a year ago, in November of 2013, we experienced a miscarriage when I was around ten weeks pregnant.  Having had two completely perfect and uneventful pregnancies in the past, this of course came as a huge shock to us. When we found out in October of 2014 that we were pregnant again, we were very cautious in telling our family, especially our two sons.  For those of you who have experienced miscarriage, you understand that pregnancy loss does not only affect you and your husband.  Many, many people shared our grief.  Miscarriage is devastating to children, to grandparents,...

In March of 2006, we planned an impromptu trip to Disney to meet up with the in-laws who were already vacationing there. Before leaving for the trip, I decided to take a pregnancy test just in case because I was a few days late and didn’t want to chance getting on any rides should I be pregnant. Sure enough, I was! This was our very first pregnancy, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that I’d now have to tell my husband. I was excited to tell him, but so nervous at the same time over how he’d react. Should I tell him before we left? Or wait till we got going on the trip? I was...