My name is Elizabeth and here is my story.
Growing up I knew I always wanted to be a mom. Becoming a mother was a dream of mine.
I’ll never forget the first time I got pregnant. I was 21 years old and in a long-distance relationship, I had just moved to a new state hoping to begin a new life. Finding out I was pregnant was not a bad thing, it just motivated me to want to hurry up and get on my feet sooner. However, that journey ended at 8 weeks. I got to love my little bean for a whole 4 weeks, having a miscarriage was probably the most traumatic thing I could have ever gone through. I was not expecting it to cause so much pain physically and emotionally. That is what started my fear of pregnancy and took some hope of becoming a mom away.
Two years later I was pregnant again and went to my first OB appointment to be told my little love had stopped growing and was sent home to miscarry on my own. Yet another heartbreak and no answers. That is how my first two pregnancies went.
Now I’m 29 years old and with my now husband and we have decided we are ready to expand our family, still with that fear of what can happen or if I can even have a baby anymore. After a year of trying, we got pregnant, and it was the happiest day of our lives. Sadly, we lost our little baby, and it killed me so much I was devasted and heartbroken yet again. We did not give up and got pregnant 6 months later.
I was so scared to share our baby with anyone, I was terrified of getting angry or stressed, I did everything by the “book”, and we were slowly moving along our baby had the strongest heartbeat and we were finally starting to feel excited. Here we are finally in the second trimester, I felt like it was time to share our sweet baby and had a gender reveal and found out we were having a baby boy. Our hearts were overjoyed and filled with excitement. It was time to start picking his name and planning his nursery and buying everything we could for him.
Here we are at 20 weeks pregnant and headed in for our anatomy scan, this would be the first time my husband has seen our boy and I was so excited for him to seeing him bouncing up and down like he always did. As we are driving to our appointment, we are talking about the bad things we could hear today, such as maybe his heart isn’t developing or his lungs, but then we tell ourselves no this baby is perfectly healthy, and he’s made it this far and his journey is not over nothing can happen.
They took us back and we had the biggest smiles on our faces ready to see him. I was laying there, and the ultrasound tech was not saying anything to me and kept moving the wand all over and I knew something was wrong. She looks me straight in my eyes and says I can’t find a heartbeat let me go get the doctor. I didn’t believe her, and I needed them to check again. It was true my baby boys’ journey did end and I was not prepared for that day at all. They tell me go home and wait for a call you will have to deliver your baby this weekend. Waiting around for the hospital to call me was the worst feeling. I knew he couldn’t stay but once they called I knew it was going to end the bond him and I have in that moment.
I was induced on October 16, 2022, at midnight, after 14 hours of labor at 2:32PM Brayden Luis Cerda made his way silently into our world. Weighing 5.8 oz measuring 8 in long. He was perfect to me. Sadly, our baby had gotten all tangled up in his umbilical cord. I was offered a cuddle cot to keep him around, however I felt that an hour was enough time and was ready to let him go. The next day we walk off the maternity floor with a box of memories and a void in our hearts. I was able to get one answer from this loss that may have been causing all my miscarriages in the past I was diagnosed with a clotting disorder however still didn’t give me any peace, and We continue the best we can, all we wanted was to try again immediately.
So, two months later we are once again Pregnant! Our little baby grew and grew and was perfect in every way. We heard the little heartbeat at 14 weeks and found out we were having another baby boy. I absolutely loved being pregnant with him. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and was truly the only complication we had. I was given all the right doctors this time around and got to see my sweet baby every two weeks. The anxiety I had at every appointment made the enjoyment of the ultrasound hard. I was always worried they’d tell me his heart had stopped. Our baby was such a wiggler I felt him move all day long and a lot through the night. This pregnancy was truly a dream come true. We loved eating Watermelon and enjoying a coke zero from time to time.
My pregnancy was perfect, and everything seemed to be going our way. However, one night I felt his movements less, however his heartbeat was ok, so I didn’t pay any attention to it. To this day I regret going to sleep that night instead of going to the emergency room. The next morning, I did not feel him move and could not find his heartbeat, so I asked my husband to take me to the hospital just to have them check on him, we were certain he was being stubborn, and everything was ok. I truly had the worst experience at the ER, I went to my closest one because I was worried, this one does not have a maternity floor, so the nurses already made me feel terrible for coming to them because they had no idea how to treat me, they struggled with the monitor and using the doppler.
I was given an ultrasound and when we asked the tech anything all she said was the doctor will come talk to you. We sat in that room for an hour before a paramedic came in to transport me to the maternity hospital. No doctor came to talk to us, no nurse came back and checked in, we had no answers on what was going on. I was given a notification on my online chart and read that my baby’s heart had stopped. I was not supposed to read that a doctor should come in and talk to me, it was truly the worst experience I could have had at that moment. I was transported and my husband had to meet me there.
I was 28 weeks; I had just made it to the third trimester. I was shocked that this was all even happening again! Once I got to the hospital and spoke with the doctor, I was given two options; they could induce me, and we try to get him out or because of how he was positioned I can go in for a c-section. I chose the c-section and to go fully under because I was not mentally capable to handle the whole situation. My husband waited for me in the waiting room for 2 hours. When I woke up all I wanted was to hold my sweet baby and see my wonderful husband.
On July 6, 2023, at 21:23, Bryson Kai Cerda made his presence into this world silently. He weighed 2lbs 6oz and was 14.5in long. He had his daddy’s face and mommy’s nose. His hair was curly as can be just beautiful. My baby boy was everything and anything I could have ever asked for. I was told that he also got stuck in his cord and hearing that just killed me, I was told repeatedly this is very unlikely to happen. Well, we spent two whole days with him. I held him every chance I got, I watched him as he lay there, I was just so in love with this baby I was not ready to say goodbye. However, it was time for me to get discharged and letting him go was the hardest thing for me.
Going home empty handed and yet another box was not how I pictured this ending for us. Now we’re home and not sure what is next for us, my babies are on a shelf in urns and not in my arms.
Will I ever become the mother I have always dreamed of, or does it end here?
Photos taken by Deanna with Dreaming Dee Photography.
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