My Rainbow Baby

Most don't know that Mykenzi is in fact our Rainbow Baby.  If you are unfamiliar, a Rainbow Baby is a baby that is born following a miscarriage or stillbirth.  Since today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, I thought I would share a little bit about our story.  Fair warning, a generous dose of TMI is coming your way.

My husband and I got married in May of 2011 on our 8 year Anniversary.  At the tail end of that following November, I noticed I was feeling off.  I wasn't sick and I didn't feel bad, but something just felt different.  I realized that I was also late, so I rushed out to get a pregnancy test.  I took the test and it came back negative, so I figured what I was feeling was Aunt Flo making her grand entrance sometime soon.  A few weeks went by and the symptoms persisted and my cycle still failed at showing up.  Convinced I was pregnant, I took another pregnancy test and it came back negative.  I was so confused.  I knew I was feeling different, but I couldn't find an answer as to why.  I was so sure it was pregnancy, but I really didn't know how you were supposed to feel when  you were pregnant because I had never been pregnant before.  I figured I was extremely early and if I just continued to wait eventually I'd get a positive test.

Christmas morning I woke up to cramps unlike anything I've ever felt before.  The pain was paralyzing.  Heating pads and Ibuprofen weren't even phasing the pain I was feeling.  I thought I was getting a double dose of Aunt Flo since she failed to show that late November.  I managed to get myself off the couch and into the bathroom and I will never forget what I discovered. Clots upon clots, they just kept coming and the pain was horrific.  I called my Best Friend at the time and explained what was going on, that's when the bomb dropped.  She told me she was fairly certain I was having a miscarriage.  At this point, there was nothing I could do.  I knew what the clots meant.  I knew there was nothing left.  I just had to ride the storm out.  I finally got some relief towards the evening and the pain was gone by morning and just a light flow was left.  I called my Doctor and got in immediately.  An ultrasound showed everything was gone.  I remember leaving feeling "empty."

I wasn't sure how to process this information.  I didn't even get a confirmed positive test, it was so early on in the pregnancy, so it was hard to really understand that there was a life inside me. I was all over the place with my thoughts. We were nowhere near ready for children, and we weren't even trying.  While it was a complete surprise, were married, so ultimately we would've welcomed that baby with open arms.  The following days were filled with lots of whys, what ifs, and tears.  It eventually got easier and the way we dealt with it was we just didn't talk about it.  It was too scary to re-live in conversation.

I often wonder about that baby.  Who he or she would've been.  What our life would've been like if we had a baby that early in our marriage.  We were so terrified of that experience that we swore off kids.  We were going to be that couple that didn't have any kids.  I wasn't sure I could handle going through something like that ever again and I'm not sure my husband could either.  The easiest way to prevent that was not to have any kids. ever.

The years went on and the conversation eventually started to change.  Would we regret never having kids?  We both always pictured having kids until that Christmas.  We had dreams of family chats around the dinner table, t-ball games, and dance recitals.  Were we really willing to let those go over one bad experience?  Prepping for the worst, we began to try.  We didn't tell anyone because we weren't really sure what we were in for ... and then it happened.  Three years to the day, things were different.  I finally broke and tested on December 2nd.  I was prepared for a negative.  It was the only kind of test I had ever seen, so there would be no surprise.  And then, an extremely faint pink line showed up next to the control line.  It was positive! I was sure of it! I called my husband screaming.  The line was so faint, it didn't show up in pictures I was texting him.  So not only does he see a negative test, he also thought I was crazy for saying it was positive.  When he got home I showed him the faint line.  Still burned by the last pregnancy, he was reserved and calm, he said we should test again in the morning to be sure.  He didn't believe it.  Was I celebrating too soon?  Was I setting myself up for another heartache?  What if the faint line meant it wasn't a strong pregnancy.  Was I going to be able to handle that?  We tested again first thing the next morning.  The line instantaneously turned the darkest pink I had ever seen!  We were pregnant!

We found out extremely early.  Our doctor was surprised, but my HCG levels were really high so he felt that was a promising sign, but hardly meant we were in the clear.  Just after Christmas, I was 8 weeks pregnant, and I noticed some light bleeding when I went to the bathroom.  My heart sank and my stomach fell to my feet.  This was it, it was happening all over again.  We rushed to the ER and the nurses tried to remain optimistic, but as soon as the words, "8 weeks pregnant" hit their ears you could tell by their face that they knew the outcome could potentially be bad.  To our surprise, an ultrasound showed a lively, wiggly baby.  We were so incredibly happy.  The next few weeks were stressful as we awaited crossing that 13 week finish line to lower the chance of miscarriage.

A full 39 weeks of an extremely healthy pregnancy, we got to welcome our beautiful Rainbow Baby, Mykenzi.  She is the sweetest, most precious baby I could've ever asked for and our life has never been sweeter.  God knew what he was doing when he sent her to me.  I'm so thankful for her, and I'm not sure she will ever know exactly how much she means to our family.

Since Mykenzi was born via C-Section our chances of future miscarriages increase.  It's hard risk to take, but we would love to expand our family one day.  It still won't be an easy process to go through if we endure another miscarriage, but I'd like to think our Angel Baby will be holding our hand every step of the way.

Today, take a moment to remember all the babies.  The ones lost before they were known, the ones born peacefully sleeping, and the ones born but could not stay.