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Our Fertility Journey – I Had Three Miscarriages

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Our Ferility Journey : We Had 3 Miscarriages

No you didn’t read that title wrong, and no it wasn’t a typo. Yep. I had three miscarriages…in five months no less. To say 2020 has really kicked us in the butt would probably be the understatement of the year.

When we decided we were ready to be parents, three whole years ago, I never thought this is where I’d be sitting now. Writing a blog post about how I’m still not a mother, and how that has affected so many parts of my life.

Ever since I was 12, I knew I wanted to be a mom. It wasn’t something I decided. It was just my place. I always knew. 

When you ask most kids what they want to be when they grow up, most of them will tell you some career that they admire and dream about like a firefighter or a chef. When they asked me, I always said I wanted to be a mom. It wasn’t something I decided, or grew into. It just lived in me, that desire. Like it’s where I was always going.

I dreamed a lot of things about my journey to motherhood, and I promise you none of it looked like this. It looked like surprise announcements for everyone we love, and tears of joy, and a lot of cute photos. Instead it actually looks like bitterness, and anger, and desperation. And thanks to Covid, it looks like being completely alone when they told me we lost our baby again, and having nobody next to me while I try to catch my breathe between sobs because my husband isn’t allowed inside. 

For me personally (and I think most women would back me up here) miscarriage means coming to terms with the fact that I’ll never really have a normal pregnancy, even if I have a healthy one. I’ll always be waiting for the rug to be ripped out from under me again. I’ll always be afraid to go to the bathroom, and I’ll always be holding my breathe at every appointment and every ultrasound. That’s been one of the hardest things to grieve in all this. The idea of what I thought pregnancy would be for us.

I’ve hesitated to share this part of my life here for a while because I was afraid of what people would say. Would they think I was looking for attention or sympathy? Would people feel like I was being a downer for sharing such hard news? So I kept it to myself. Only confiding in a few close friends.

But then, I was shopping at Target with a friend and we were chatting about my next steps in all this. A woman walked up to us, nearly in tears, and said “I’m so sorry to eavesdrop, but I’ve had two miscarriages and I am desperate for advice. I’m just so lost and I don’t know what to do anymore.” She was clearly hurting, and that’s when it hit me. I shouldn’t be hiding this from anyone. I should be sharing the hard stuff just as much as the good stuff, because people need to hear it. This woman in Target needed to hear that she wasn’t alone. She needed someone to talk to who could understand her heart in this.

In some of my hardest moments, I’ve found comfort in an unexpected social media post or a blog I come across in my research on something. I hope that whoever is reading this, needed it, and finds comfort in not being alone in their pain and confusion.

The truth that nobody talks about when trying to conceive, is that having a baby looks different for everyone. I hope to share all the good, bad, and in between about our journey to parenthood. I hope that someone finds my story, when they are in the midst of theirs and that it brings them a moment of peace.

If you are struggling in your experience, you are not alone.

I’m not here to tell you I can fix it, but I am here to remind you that you are strong, and you can move forward, and you will be fine. 

I don’t have the answers for you. Nobody has them for me either…at least not yet. But I have hope that we will figure it out some way or another and that one day I’ll get to see this handsome husband of mine be the best dad in the world to a sweet little human that calls me mama.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for my next blog post about what testing we’re getting done, and how we’re preparing for our next pregnancy.

You can find more day-to-day fertility info on Instagram.

Our Fertility Journey includes 3 consecutive miscarriages

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September 2, 2020

Motherhood

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A photographer of all things life & love. Dog mama to two tiny pups that have my whole heart, and married to my best friend of 13 years. Together, we share a little house on Lemon St.

I’m Shannan Leigh.

author + designer

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