From a very young age I knew I wanted to be a mom and have a family. After marrying my husband in 2017 we both wanted to start trying right away. With my husband being older and me having health issues I didn’t know if it would affect our fertility or not. After being given the green light that everything looked fine we began our journey.
It took 2 years to get pregnant and we had him during covid so not the ideal 1st time pregnancy plus having HG it was difficult. But we were blessed with our beautiful little boy Kaden who is now 5 years old. After having a less than ideal pregnancy I didn’t know If I wanted more kids but decided we wanted to try for a second.
In 2022 we were excited to see that positive pregnancy test again. That excitement faded quickly when we had a miscarriage at 7 weeks. I couldn’t understand how after a perfectly healthy baby I could have a miscarriage. So I took that as a sign and we stopped actively trying but were not using any preventative measures.
In 2024 I got that positive pregnancy test once again and was so scared. I was assured by the doctors everything was great. I became so severely sick with HG that I ended up admitted to the hospital for weeks. I was sent home on a picc line and had TPN for all my nutrition as I could not eat or drink anything. My body was deteriorating but I was reassured that my baby girl was fine. So I suffered through thinking that it was all worth it in the end to have my baby even if I needed to suffer for 9 months.
At 21 weeks we went to our anatomy scan and were so excited to see our little girl. The appointment went longer than expected and after we were taken into a room where a Dr. was on a speaker phone to talk about the scan. I had a gut feeling something was not right. The Dr. on the other line started talking about all the things that looked good and then dropped a bomb on us saying something looked off with her brain. Asked when we could come to the bigger office for a re scan. Being it was a Friday I assumed they wanted to see us on Monday, so I said sure on Monday?. The Dr. responded with no we want you to come now. So we dropped everything and made the drive to the bigger office crying the whole way. We got there and the office was basically empty as it was 3pm on a friday. The tech took us back and re scanned without saying a word. A Dr. came in and also did some scans. We were told to clean up and meet her in her office.
We walked back feeling like I was in slow motion or in some kind of dream. I sat down in front of this Dr. with my stomach in my throat. We were informed that our baby girl’s organs were measured for a 17 week baby and her brain did not develop. She threw out some medical names and a diagnosis that I could not even comprehend. She said that the brain specialist is going to see us on Monday to confirm this. We waited all weekend keeping ourselves from googling anything. We met this Dr. who felt very cold with not the best bedside manner who confirmed our worst fear. Our baby girl had no brain along with other abnormalities that would prevent her from being viable outside of me.
We were given the decision to continue the pregnancy and see what happened and if she survived at all after birth it would be short lived, or we could TFMR. We made the difficult decision for our baby that we could not put her through any more and to go forward with the TFMR. We lost our baby Girl Layla on Sept 19th 2024 at 22 weeks gestation. While others were planning baby showers and picking out nursery furniture I was looking at funeral homes and picking out an urn.
We were told for the safety of me and other babies to wait a minimum of 3 cycles before trying again. We waited and then again did not actively try but did not prevent. When one day my son was rubbing my belly and talking to it I asked him what he was doing and he said he was talking to the babies. I assumed he was still thinking about Layla but decided to take a test anyway. To my utter shock I saw two lines almost immediately. I went from shock to excitement to fear in a matter of seconds. We have been considered high risk and have had so many tests and scans done. We are currently 27 weeks with our rainbow baby and staying cautiously optimistic.
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