I fear I will always feel as if our family is not quite complete...

I already shared an essay I wrote after my first 2 losses but wanted to share my whole story quickly here as well. Thank you for making this movie. I hope you reach your goal! Beth's Story My husband and I started trying for a baby right after we got married. I was 33 and felt like I better get started ASAP. It took several months but we got our positive and were so thrilled we told all of our family and close friends right away. It wasn’t a week later that I started bleeding and soon discovered I was having a miscarriage. My friends and family were sympathetic. . .my mom and sister mailed me a thoughtful care package, I got a few cards from close girlfriends but soon I was alone in my grief as I returned almost immediately to work (where no one knew) and kept breaking into tears, unable to explain my pain. That pain continued, and with each month getting my cycle instead of a positive pregnancy test weighed on my soul and on my marriage. A long year after that first pregnancy I was surprised the day a got another positive. I even had a fertility appointment scheduled for the following week! Nervous but excited, we told close family again but kept it secret for those first couple of months. But then I was 10 weeks and it was Christmastime, so we announced to my husband’s extended family.

Then my beloved Grandmother passed away, so in an effort to comfort ourselves and my relatives, we announced it to my side of the family as well. Following the funeral, at 11 weeks, a couple of days before that magic 12 week appointment, I began to bleed, and through a very difficult series of events. . .the Ultrasound that confirmed a missed miscarriage, The awful labor-like expelling of what was supposed to me my child, and the subsequent D&C because the bleeding wouldn’t stop--that surgery was on my 35th birthday--I lost my second child. I was consumed by grief, doubting myself, feeling, as I had to tell people we were no longer expecting, that I was a failure...that I had done something wrong, that there was something wrong with me. After testing it was determined that there was something wrong with me, but that news was actually welcome.

We now had a way to fix things. . .and so we tried again and luckily got pregnant right way. We kept the news mostly to ourselves until way past the 12 weeks and with much joy were able to welcome an amazing, living, breathing baby boy a year after my last loss. Less than two years later after another healthy pregnancy a second baby! We had found the “cure” to our miscarriage woahs and now had two beautiful boys to show for our struggles. Recently, while deciding whether we wanted one more child we got another positive test that would make the decision for us. . .baby number 3 was on the way! I was nervous, but knew we had fixed our problems so expected a healthy baby to arrive just at my 40th birthday. Instead, the first ultrasound showed another missed miscarriage and I transformed into a roar of screaming tears, unable to comprehend how we could lose another baby. . .I thought we had found our solution, our reason and fixed it, but that is the thing about pregnancy loss. .. there are so many reasons...and yet no reason. And because of my past experiences, of feeling like a failure when I had to explain my losses, I hadn’t yet told anyone but our parents. So, I am alone in my grief. I look at my boys for comfort. . .at least I have them, that’s what people love to say. .. and yet, there was supposed to be one more beautiful amazing little child of mine, so I look at my children and instead of seeing two, I see an incomplete set of three. With tough pregnancies, not being able to bear another loss and closing in on 40, we have decided to close the door on adding to our little family. It was a difficult choice but one we made with much thought and consideration.

But even with this rational, thought-out decision, I can’t help but feel a void now. I fear I will always feel as if our family is not quite complete and will always be followed by the dark shadow of “what if...”