Aurelia's Story

It’s hard to know where to start. I am so much more than my losses, my pain, my grief. I am young, 26 years old, relatively newly married (4 years), and a stay at home mom. I’m a reader, a writer, a bit of a photographer, and I dabble in crafts like sewing and knitting. But I do have three lost babies and that is how I found my way here.

It started with my mom really. She had two miscarriages and I remember her telling me about them as a child. I always knew in some sense that being pregnant does not equal a baby in the end. A year into our marriage I found myself unexpectedly pregnant (yes, I am one of /those/ people), happy, excited, scared, and nervous. And two weeks later I wasn’t pregnant anymore. Everyone told me to try again, as if the loss of my first baby wasn’t important and there was no reason for me to worry about future babies.

I guess they were right, at first (although I worried anyway). Two months later I conceived my son (he’s 2 ½ now). I worried about losing him a lot in the early weeks, but my pregnancy was fine, no spotting, plenty of morning sickness well into the second trimester to confirm that I was indeed still pregnant. Nine months later I had a healthy baby boy in my arms.

When my baby was transitioning to toddlerhood I found myself pregnant again. I was scared, obsessively checking for spotting, agonizing over my lack of symptoms. I had my first appointment with my midwife at 10 weeks and later that day I started spotting. By the end of the week I was mother to two lost babies, one living. I started to wonder if something was wrong with me, but jumped into trying to conceive again anyway. I got my positive test just two cycles later. Instead of being happy and joyful and dreaming about this little one, pregnancy was full of constant anxiety. Just before I hit the twelve week mark I founds myself mother to three lost babies and one living child.

This time I demanded testing. My doctor told me there was no point because I had one healthy baby there was no reason I couldn’t have another--it was just bad luck. Try again, he said. I demanded the testing anyway. A few weeks later I found out I was compound heterozygous for MTHFR, a genetic blood clotting disorder that is linked to recurrent miscarriage. That’s where I am at now, a genetic mutant waiting to see a specialist and find more answers, hoping that there isn’t any more bad news about my body killing my babies, hoping that my next pregnancy won’t end with a lost baby.