I had planned on writing about today being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day but Jenna beat me to it! But as each adoption story is different, each loss story is too. It’s been an emotional day today for many different reasons related and unrelated to pregnancy loss and as I type all I am about to type I feel freed.

My pregnancies with Charlie and Noah were both unplanned. When my hubby and I began talking about having a baby, I was so excited and looking forward to being pregnant being a good thing. I wanted people to say “congratulations,” not “uh-oh.” I wanted to be able to celebrate being pregnant, pick out a name, shop for a nursery… all the things I didn’t get to do before. When I became pregnant, I was elated! But not too long after hearing the good news, the baby started to have problems. At around twenty weeks gestation, her heart stopped beating.

We were lucky that we had a really awesome doctor. He urged us to have some sort of ceremony or doing something to honor her and to name her. When I started having problems, I nicknamed her “drama queen,” so we chose a name that had the same intitals as drama queen, Darcy Quinn. We had a beautiful balloon release ceremony with family and friends for her. We even made something similar to a birth announcement, that I called a memorial card for people at the memorial. It may all sound a little weird to someone who hasn’t been through this sort of thing before, but it’s what I needed to do to honor her. She was so real to me and still is very real to me. I have never grieved anything like I grieved that loss.

More quickly than I expected after Darcy’s death, I became pregnant again. I lost that baby at five to six weeks. I wasn’t even ready emotionally to be pregnant again. I was still grieving Darcy. I went through the motions of grieving that baby, whom we call Alex, but it was nothing comparable to Darcy.

Now here’s the part you didn’t know –
On September 30th, I had my third miscarriage. I have gotten to the point where every time I see those two lines on the pregnancy test screaming “pregnant” I don’t know if I should be happy or sad. I decided not to tell anyone I was pregnant, but then I miscarried I wished I had told people so I would have the support of my close friends and family. I think I’ve been in shock dealing with this third loss.

I wasn’t sure if it was going to talk about this loss with anyone or not. But then today, it hit me. I shouldn’t be ashamed of these losses or hide them. Even if my babies were only with me physically for a short time, they will forever live in my heart and soul.

Next week, I will walk with other parents in the Walk to Remember honoring our babies in heaven and in December I will have three ornaments on the Angel Tree at the Festival of Trees in Atlanta.

And some day when I finally do hold a newborn earth angel in my arms, I will think of my heavenly babies and know they are watching over us.

Photo note: Those are balloons from Darcy's memorial service.