My husband and I have dual-factor infertility, each with multiple diagnoses. Our journey through infertility was long, painful, and at times felt never-ending. After 4 medicated cycles, 4 IUIs, 4 egg retrievals, and 4 embryos transferred, we were blessed that our final embryo gave us our beautiful son, our miracle baby. After everything we had been through, we were physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and financially exhausted. We decided our family was complete.
But life had a different plan.
Shortly after our son’s first birthday, we discovered I was pregnant naturallly. It was a complete shock as our fertility clinic had told us we had a 0% chance of conceiving without medical help. We were stunned, in disbelief, and cautiously hopeful. Our clinic kindly agreed to follow our pregnancy, and we began making the 8-hour round-trip every two weeks for ultrasounds.
At our 9-week ultrasound, our hopes were shattered. Our baby had stopped growing. We were heartbroken. The joy of such a miraculous and unexpected pregnancy turned into a deep grief that felt unbearable. Two days later, I underwent a D&C. The emotional pain was compounded by the slow decline of my beta levels, requiring bloodwork every two days. It was a constant reminder of what we had lost.
We chose to have our baby tested, hoping to find answers. The results showed that we had been expecting a little girl. Learning her gender reopened every wound. But it also gave us the chance to know her a little more. Through this testing, we learned she had an unbalanced translocation, which led us to pursue further genetic testing at our fertility clinic. It was then we discovered that I carry a severe balanced translocation, giving any pregnancy an 80% chance of inheriting a condition incompatible with life.
Soon after my D&C, we found out I was pregnant again. This time, the shock was replaced by fear. Navigating pregnancy after loss is incredibly hard. The innocence and excitement was replaced by anxiety, grief, and the heaviness of what we already knew could happen.
The first half of this pregnancy was full of testing: genetic screenings, an amniocentesis, and two anatomy scans, all to determine if our baby was viable. Just before I reached 20 weeks, we were told that everything looked good and that our baby was healthy. That moment brought a wave of relief we hadn’t dared to hope for.
I borrowed the rainbow skirt with the intention of getting photos done at 34 weeks, however shortly before the scheduled shoot I went into preterm labour. Our baby was born 6 weeks early and spent 29 days in the NICU for significant breathing difficulties. Today, I am holding a healthy baby boy, our second miracle, in my arms. We are so incredibly grateful. This baby is our rainbow after the storm.
I wanted to take part in the Finding Your Rainbow project to honour our daughter, who we never got to hold, and to celebrate the life of her little brother, who is growing each day. Sharing this story is part of my healing. It’s a way to give our daughter the place she deserves in our family’s story while holding space for the joy that is to come.
Photos taken by Stesha Bella Photography.
Find out more about Project Finding Your Rainbow.
Make sure to follow Journey For Jasmine on Instagram, Facebook, and Tik-Tok!
Listen to the Finding Hope After Loss Podcast!
My name is Mary-Susan, and this is why I wear the rainbow skirt. When people…
My journey to motherhood started like many others, full of excitement and the assumption that it would just work out. Within three months of trying, we were pregnant. We were overjoyed. But that joy didn’t last long. Around five weeks, I miscarried. We were heartbroken, but we tried to stay hopeful. Then, the very next month, I was pregnant again. It felt like a miracle, like maybe the first loss had just been a terrible fluke. But at six weeks, we lost that pregnancy too. That was the moment I realized this wasn’t random. I went to the doctor looking for answers, but I kept hearing the same thing. Everything looks normal. Sometimes this just happens. Just keep trying. I never accepted that, because deep down it never felt right. Loss changes you. There is no way around it. When you lose a pregnancy, you don’t just lose a moment in time. You lose the dreams you had already started building. You imagine birthdays that will never happen, tiny hands you never got to hold, and a future that suddenly disappears. The grief is hard to explain unless you have lived through it. It is the grief that keeps…
Jennifer Crouse expected to bring home her first baby. Instead, at 39 weeks pregnant, she…
Sara Sharpe shares the story of her daughter, Everly Mae Jones, and the unimaginable grief…
Pregnancy after loss… three words carrying such deep meaning and an endless rollercoaster of emotions. This…
This website uses cookies.