June 2016 had just begun and I suddenly found myself extremely emotional. Like, cry because the wind breezes past my face. It dawned on me I may be pregnant. So after my first aid course finished for the day I raced to a pharmacy and grabbed a pregnancy test. A half hour later I was at home patiently waiting to see the stick tell me if I was pregnant.
At the time I was 29 years young. I had spent nearly two decades caring for children and I knew that my greatest joy in life would be becoming a mom.
Those two minutes had past. I looked down to see a solid blue line and the faintest second line. But I already knew in my heart. I was pregnant!
I shared with my husband the exciting revelation. He was shocked but we were both excited. Several months prior we decided to stop preventing pregnancy but weren’t actively trying to get pregnant.
Everything was going smooth. I was having cravings. Feeling a little nauseous. We even told family around the 8 weeks mark. Everyone was thrilled for this new addition!
On Saturday July 23rd I was doing some gardening when suddenly I needed to use the toilet. Then the unimaginable appeared. My heart sank and the tears flowed. My husband, being optimistic, try to reassure me that everything could still be okay. But just like I knew I was pregnant, I knew I was loosing my baby.
That evening we went to the hospital. The staff wasn’t much help. I was told bleeding in pregnancy can be normal but there was a possibility I could be miscarrying. Being that it was the weekend an ultrasound was unable to be performed until Monday. The bleeding had subsided by time my ultrasound appointment arrive so I felt a little hopeful.
We waited for two hours the get the results of the ultrasound. I was asked how far along I was “10 weeks” was my response. “Well, there is definitely something on the scan but it is not measuring 10 weeks. More like 6 and no heartbeat was detected.” I felt numb. I knew for certain I couldn’t have been 4 weeks wrong on my dates. We were informed to go home and expect to miscarry.
On July 27th, 2016 I birthed my sweet Angel, alone, at 3 a.m. in my bathroom. By 8 a.m. I couldn’t handle the pain any longer and head to the hospital. It was during this visit I learned I had experienced a Blighted Ovum pregnancy. Had I been given this information during the consultation after my ultrasound I would have known the fetus could go for testing to learn what the cause may have been and I could have learned the gender of my baby.
This was the hardest thing I had ever gone through in my entire life. I couldn’t wait to start my family so in September 2016 we began actively trying to have a baby. My cycles were always 24 days long and cycle after cycle I had negative tests. In the grand scheme of things I know we didn’t wait long, but for the 7 cycles it took to finally conceive my rainbow, it felt like an eternity! But finally, in January 2017 I saw those two pink lines once again!
My dating scan happened the day after my Angel baby’s due date. I was roughly 8 weeks along and absolutely terrified since this pregnancy so far had felt the exact same. Much to my delight there was a little bouncing bean growing inside me! I had a fairly easy pregnancy. No morning sickness, just some mild nausea.
My rainbow was born on October 13th, 2017 at 41 weeks and 2 days. He weighed a healthy 8 lbs 11 oz and was the most perfect creation I had ever seen. I had planned to breastfeed and was disheartened when I had to give a bottle at 36 hours old.
We managed to figuring out the breastfeeding life and for 11 weeks we excelled. Then I went back to work. My supply tanked. I did everything to bring it back up and finally after two months of struggling I started a prescription to make more milk. This is when I decided I wanted a piece of jewelry to memorialize this time in our life.
I searched and searched and could not find anything I liked. So I decided I’d make it myself. I quickly learned that making breastmilk jewelry was a very secretive art! I spent months researching. Then months more testing recipes. I finally got a preservation process figured out at started my own little Memorial Keepsake Jewelry business.
At the time of writing this (end of March 2021) it has been 50 weeks since my rainbow weaned, and I now have made myself this perfect rainbow pendant with a lock of his first hair cut.
My rainbow has taught me so much about what being a parent is. He made me a Momma and I’ll never be able to show him just how much he is loved, though I’ll try every day of my life.
To see more of Carolyn’s beautiful keepsake jewelry creations, visit her website: Thymeless Wire. Her store is also on Facebook and Instagram.
Photos taken by See The Trees Photography.
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