pregnancy after loss | No Fear, Just Hope

Faith Over Fear.

June 19, 2019

The last few weeks, I have pushed myself to finalize most of the things to do regarding work and now am finally on maternity leave.

It’s getting real as now, my agenda is all about me and getting ready to meet this little princess and offcourse the usual turning my house upside down and scrubbing the walls .

I just realized, because I have been all over the place, my emotions have not had the chance to settle and now that am home, I am beginning to realise how emotional and what a milestone this time is for me.

With I-J, I had just graduated and immediately started my master degree 5days after she was born and with Olivia, I was mourning and not really on maternity leave. So, having four weeks to prepare before baby’s arrival and another 12 weeks to care for the baby is a blessing I cannot begin to grasp.

Last Tuesday, I went for my routine check up. The lead gynaecologist who did both of my cerclages and has been with me since that emergency last year, came out to call out my name from the waiting room.

Immediately she saw my face, you could see that, no matter how she tried with all the faces staring at the waiting room, she couldn’t hide her joy, I had not been scheduled with her for several weeks now because of her tight schedule.

I hurried to her, she embraced me and exclaimed, “ooh 35 weeks!!!” And I responded “yes!! We made it!”.

I love having appointments with her because I don’t have to come in and explain my story each time. She knows my story too well as well as the technical aspects of my body. Each time I talk with her, I can see how my story has impacted her as well.

Being a doctor, they ought to stand behind or be guided by facts, statistics and research. So in the middle of the storm last year, when they couldn’t rely on research telling me ” sorry, we have to go back to the national association of doctors to discuss your case as it’s unique and read more research”, I was on the other side of research, I was relying on my faith and standing on hope as the only sure promise I had from my heavenly father.

So, each time they walked in to give me bad news, I assured them that my baby’s name is Hope and my father isn’t surprised with what’s going on.

This doctor has seen me crying in fear on the operation table that night when I had arrived with bulging membranes and she held my hand tightly and said ” I am going to do my best to save your baby and keep her in”. She’s the same one who took out that same emergent cerclage after Olivia tried to burst through it.

On that day, we were both numb, she was called in, she looked right at me and shook her head almost to say ” how did we get here”. This is after I had seen her in my ward room an hour earlier and all looked good and we were hopeful that we would reach 24 weeks.

She’s the same one that was scheduled to see us at our last postpartum check and told us to wait for at least 3 months before trying again and said ” when you get pregnant, we will do a preventive cerclage at 12 weeks, then we have more room to work with”.

So at 8 weeks pregnant, I booked at appointment to see her and you could see the expression in her face. We talked about the cerclage and other restrictions since I was a high risk now. We talked about how this pregnancy was different but we will not forget the past experience.

At 12.5 weeks, she held my hand again as I cried again on the operation table, this time with the hope that my baby had a chance of not only passing 24 weeks but reaching full term. Those next 12 weeks leading up to 24 weeks were the hardest emotionally for me.

So, when she reaches out to embrace me instead of the standard doctor-patient handshake, I understand where we have come from. The last appointment I had with her was at 24 weeks which was such a huge milestone.

So, last week at that appointment, she set the date for removing the cerclage ~ next week Tuesday at 37 weeks. She said, bring your bags as this baby might just follow the cerclage and be born since the cerclage is the only thing holding your cervix right now..

So yes, we might meet this baby next week or she might be strong willed like her big sister IJ and come past due date .
To be honest, I have actually been praying that she comes at 38weeks which is still considered full-term and some have found this shocking.

I remember, a few weeks ago, a friend was in her 32nd week of pregnancy and I said ” now the count has begun for you” and she became so defensive saying..” Noooo, no, still 8weeks to go”! Then I learned that we all have different stories and journeys. For her, a full term baby is born at 40weeks.

For me, I am coming from giving my everything and wishing there was something more I could do for Olivia to reach just 24 weeks so she could be given a chance, even if it meant NICU time. So any gestation after 24 weeks is bonus for me.

We cannot judge people because of the experience they have or not gone through. It’s like me telling Kipchoge the Kenyan marathon record holder “ooh, that was wonderful, finishing at 2 hours, 2 secs”. Off course he will not be happy since his aim was to make it under 2 hours. The same for the racer Lewis Hamilton, every second counts. So it is with mamas who have never had preemies, all they know is full-term babies.

This journey keeps moulding and teaching me to be considerate of other people’s journeys and to continue sharing my story as my story might just become someone else’s survival guide.

I told my husband that am not sure whether my emotions are ready for birthing and how this time round it will be very different. I rely on faith over fear this time as my baby is called Love. What a constant reminder of what a friend wrote to me “that my heart is ready to love again” (~ “..1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear...”.
More on that next week. For now, gotta pack that bag and iron the last bit of clothes I rewashed .

Thank you all for walking this journey with me.

Lots of love from,
Mama Faith, Hope and Love.

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Emotions Faith over Fear

Mixed Feelings: Doing It Again In Complete Faith & Hope.

April 1, 2019

The last 4 weeks leading up to this week have been emotionally hard on me. One being, I just passed a huge milestone for the baby am carrying ~24 weeks.

Olivia was born last August at 23.2 weeks and didn’t make it. All what the doctors kept on saying more than 100 times was ” if you can only get to 24 weeks, we will then consider the baby” or ” we just need to get you to 24 weeks”.

So many mixed emotions as in my mind, I should be nursing Olivia right now yet am carrying her sister. This is because, the unexpected feelings of grief always surprise you when you least expect them.

I am beyond grateful for this baby but to be honest, it’s just now that I am beginning to realise that I am actually pregnant and hopefully I can start enjoying it. It’s not like I have been living in fear, but am still a high risk mother and alot has happened since that +ve test. I will share more later.

Losing Olivia has made become more aware of the reality of motherhood grief. This has made me, take this pregnancy in more faith and not just going blindly that everything will be okay. I don’t walk on cloud nine, that it’s all roses but take this new journey.

Second thing that has been hard on me is that, a dear friend whom we’ve been supporting each other in prayer isn’t sure if she’s going through a threatened miscarriage and has to wait for a while before a confirmation test is done. For me, this is the longest time in waiting where as a mother, you don’t know what to think.

Do you trust your maternal instincts and pray believing that the flatters in your belly is that of your baby. Or, do you brace yourself and prepare your heart for whatever comes.
My heart goes out to all women going through uncertainty and not sure what their bodies are going through. I pray for peace during this time.

The third emotional thing is that, another friend has just given birth to a healthy baby boy after 8 years of fertility treatments and now this baby was conceived naturally. She’s writing her story to encourage other women, which I will share on her behalf with you in due time.

Today is April fools right? I remember about 4 years ago, I posted a picture of me with a fake bump on April 1st. I didn’t say I was pregnant but the whole caption wasn’t clear unless you clicked on the picture. However, most of us never really notice photo captions and that’s what happened with me, friends assumed I was pregnant.

4 years today after posting that picture and with everything that I have gone through with Olivia last year, I now realize how most women feel when they see ” pregnancy announcement pranks”. When most of them have to gather the courage to say ” congratulations” in the midst of their grief only for them to hear ” no, sorry, it’s April fools prank” . I strongly believe that, lying about being pregnant should not be taken lightly or as a joke especially when 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriages.

I just wanted to share with you what has been cooking the last 24.5 weeks as you have been a source of encouragement for me. I know that in sharing my pregnancy with you, that you will receive this as your testimony as well. I am only just starting to consciously be aware and be present in this pregnancy.

All till now, I have been keeping up with hospital appointments, surgery and following several restrictions until your mind is only occupied with those activities and you forget to be and live in the moment and not live in fear of what ifs’. With all this, I also just told my mom the other day, so don’t feel left out if I you are just finding out .

With the fear and mixed emotions try to cripple back in unannounced, we are taking the leap of faith into that path again. Just like the name of this page, fear might come, but I will not let it engulf, cripple me or cloud my journey of hope and faith.

I will try and dip myself into this pregnancy and embrace this child in my womb. I want to appreciate each kick, movement and flatters and not let the constant trips to the toilet to check and confirm that the pain is just from the stomach bug and not uterus cramps.

I want to fully indulge myself in faith and hope but also not disputing the fact that, this is a miracle which can and never will be taken for granted.

I am constantly telling myself, ” this pregnancy is different” ” this is a new journey” ” this baby isn’t and will never replace my gorgeous Olivia” and as much as am grateful and joyous, am still right in the middle of that ugly grief. It never really goes away.

I am a different person since I had Olivia and I have no more assumptions of pregnancy. However, there’s always a glimmer of hope. I have decided to put fear where it belongs ~ right at the feet of my father and right at the centre of the nails he took for me and said ” it is finished”!. This doesn’t get rid of fear but it just good to know and walk in the confidence that it can never define me or this pregnancy.

Going forward, I am appreciating this life and choosing Faith (Imani), Hope (Amali) and Love (Surprise 😉 to guide me as they are all actually my children names.

Lot’s of love.
Nelly.

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Infertility Marriage

Breaking off the chains of fear | Going down a scary road

March 10, 2019

My conversation with KC; I decided to step out of my own grief bubble and listen to the hearts of other grieving or waiting mamas who have reached out to me and I to them. I invite you all to be encouraged through the encouragement KC shared as she responds to Mama AB’s call above and thereafter, a conversation between KC and I.

Mama AB : ” After losing my twins, I am struggling through this terrible heartbreak and loss. I hoped that I could hold my baby in my arms one day. My husband has told me that he doesn’t want to have one and is over the stress and the wasted years of trying. I don’t know how to live on this earth without trying again- without having a baby. I am at such a loss, I don’t know what to do“.

HOW WOULD DO YOU RESPOND TO THIS?

KC to Mama AB “My husband said the same thing to me after our twins passed. One lived 5 days and the other lived 16 months. He said he didn’t want to go through disappointment of trying and failing or succeeding and losing them again. He also said more than that, he didn’t know if he could watch me go through that again.

I was devastated and felt betrayed, by him, my body, God, and I could not give up the desire to be a mother. And I knew in my heart he wanted to be a father just as badly. He felt helpless. He watched me go into premature labor, he saw my face when my water broke, he tried to console me during the c section because I was in shock and was shaking uncontrollably.

He left me and went with our boys an hour away to the nearest NICU, he wiped my tears when he came in my room with pictures of them for three days until I was released, and he said I’m sorry a million times when our first child passed less than 24 hours after I first touched him.

He worked to support us for almost two years while we were in and out of hospitals and was 1300 miles away working when the hospice nurse called him to come home because our son wouldn’t live through the night and he came home and held our son while he passed that night. That was 10 yrs ago, and his heart changed with time.

We had a really hard time communicating at first, but the more we communicated, began depending on each other emotionally and accepted the fact that a mother and a father grieve differently, we stopped expecting the other to feel the same way we did.

We began to accept each emotion and reaction as what it was and tried to be understanding and patient with each other. It was terribly hard and it took a lot of work. We have depended on each other through the deaths of two children, 9 miscarriages and I am currently 28+5 weeks pregnant.

I’m telling you these things, because everyone needs time to heal and you and your husband will feel completely different from the other. You are a mother, who was “robbed” of a pregnancy and now you can’t think of anything but succeeding in a task that you feel you failed in.

And he wants to protect you from the pain and guilt while also protecting himself. Like I said it is hard on you individually but it is even harder for the two of you as a couple. I hope this helps, and I hope I’m not totally off base, I’m just telling you what I’ve learned the past ten yrs being in a similar situation “.

Breaking off the chains – Image by Nelly

My conversation with KC.

Nelly :I am so sorry you had to go through all that. There are so many young couples going through what you and your husband went through. What would be your encouragement to them?

KC: “Our first loss came just 8 weeks after the twins were born and it terrified me to see that positive test. We had just buried one of our sons the other had already had one heart surgery and fought everyday for every breathe he took. My husband was 1400 miles away working to provide for us and I was trying to recover from a c section, the loss of a child and watching my surviving child fight for his life.

It was 1 yr after Laine passed away, that we had the conversation I spoke of in the my comment. He never wanted to want anything that would cause me the pain that the past 2 1/2 years had brought us both. Those words devastated me. I wanted the opportunity to prove to him and to myself that I could have a healthy pregnancy and provide us with a child. I felt like a failure. I fought the guilt and shame with every breathe I took.

I knew God had chosen me to be their mother. I knew that no one could’ve been a better mother to my sons. But, there was always that question in the very back of my mind, why did my water break? What could I have done differently? If I had paid closer attention to the signs of early labor… Maybe if I hadn’t gone shopping the day before…

I had so many questions. It was at that point that I knew we had to stop living as individuals who lost the same things and come together through raw communication. I had to show him that I needed him, and that it was okay for him to need me.

We needed to heal together. Up to this point we were clinging to each other but neither of us were healing. I was obsessed with becoming pregnant and he was terrified and neither of us knew how the other felt. We didn’t talk about it. We pushed our pain and devastation aside and we were existing, surviving, needing each other but never saying it.

Each miscarriage brought forth different emotions for me, it wasn’t until the last 3 that my husbands faith was truly tested. He didn’t refuse to try to conceive, and he expressed a sincere desire to be a father again, but he was heart broken and shaken.

After 10 yrs of trying to conceive, announcing pregnancies, praying for good reports from the doctors and being disappointed and heart broken time after time, he was physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted. It was in that short period of time when he was at his lowest point that I realized my faith had to pull both of us through that difficult time.

I leaned on the promise that God will fulfill our hearts most sincere desires. I prayed that God’s perfect will be done in our lives. We saw numerous endocrinologists, had every test run and several surgeries only to be told we should be able to become pregnant but there was no explanation for the early losses we were experiencing.

They offered solutions such as IVF and IUI procedures, which came with a very expensive price tag. I was sure that it was not God’s will that we accumulate debt to force something that God could do in the blink of an eye. I prayed that God’s will be done in our lives. I put all my hurt and disappointment in his hands and determined that I would not be discouraged by anything in this world, even a miscarriage.

I had done all to stand, and I would stand. I would not be moved. If it was God’s will, it would be perfect and there would be no fear or worry. Each time I had a positive pregnancy test that soon ended in miscarriage I would say, well we know it’s possible to get pregnant without intervention, there are millions of couples who can’t do that.

I knew that one day Gods perfect will for our lives would be that we have another child. My current due date is 5-6-2019, the twins due date was 5-6-2009. The scheduled date for my c section 04-08-2019 is the same day twin A (Laine) came home from NICU exactly 10 years ago.

Unaware of these dates until I was going through clothes and memories of Laine’s for Levi, I opened a notebook I kept with a detailed day to day record of Laine’s meds, intake and output. In that notebook I found the dates that brought me to tears. It was as if my first pregnancy I had mourned for 10 yrs had been restored to me.

Nelly : Wow KC, what a journey. I love the part you mentioned that you had to show him that you needed him and him as well. I am really learning that part still. I am learning to be vulnerable around my husband. I believe God was blessing me with an inner peace to survive the storm and to reveal his peaceful nature.

Nelly: I can’t begin to imagine what you have gone through but can only thank God that He gave you this journey and enabled you to live it no matter how painful it has been.

What a testimony your story is.

Thank you for your faith. I pray for joy in abundance and that couples will bee encouraged through your insights. Thank you for inviting us into your grief and journey. God bless you.“

I hope this encouraged someone today. Let’s learn to lean on our partners or families, so we can heal together.

Lot’s of love.

Nelly.

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