Lauryn's Story

My sweet Alyria,

You are our miracle love. Here is the story of how we got to you.

In October of 2022, I told dad that I was having really bad baby fever. Dad told me no. I know you find that surprising. Then in November, I told him again. I want to try to have a baby with you. This Time, he realized I was not flying by the seat of my pants and that I was serious. So, he said if you still want to try in January we will start to try. This gave us both time to collect our thoughts and feelings and be sure that we were prepared for what was to come.

In January, I stopped taking birth control, started taking a prenatal and made an appointment with my doctor. His first available appointment was in March. I went into my appointment with dad by my side knowing that you were a long shot. By this point, I had never gotten pregnant without medical help and had already had 2 miscarriages when I was way younger than I was. I have a (way too common, if you ask me) disease called PCOS. I found out when I was 15 and I was told that having children would be difficult. I was 15 I didn’t care. I didn’t even want kids! Emmi was getting big and Caitlyn was pregnant so I had all I would ever need. However, when I went back in April there was 2 pink lines. I told Dad there was no way that we were going to be pregnant the first month of trying. And yet, there we were. I was texting dad from the doctor’s office “Babe. This is not a drill!” with a picture of a positive test. I was dumbfounded and amazed. The first month that we were trying we did it! 1 month of medicine and tracking all of the things and here we were, it was going to happen.

Then, in late June, I started bleeding. I went to the doctor and had an ultrasound done and I had a tear between my uterus and my placenta, but the baby in there had a heartbeat and measured at 6 weeks and 1 day, so that was all that mattered! I got put on light duty and had some restrictions for lifting and work, but we had a baby coming. For all of June and into July, we waited for our first appointment and got started planning. Then, in July, I started bleeding again. I went back to the doctor, but this time there was no heartbeat. It was 2 days before we were supposed to have our initial OB appointment and there was no need for at anymore. On July 16th, 2023 our baby had no heartbeat and was only measuring at 6 weeks and 3 days. I went to my initial OB appointment and we had another ultrasound just to make sure that something wasn’t missed and that everything was in fact not okay. Then I talked to the doctor and we made a plan. Because I was still carrying, it was considered an incomplete miscarriage. We had options, I could take medicine that would purge my system and if that didn’t work we would schedule a d&c, or we just do the d&c. I chose to do a D&C so that we could have genetic testing done on the baby to see if we could find out what went wrong.

On July 25th, dad set an alarm and woke me up in the middle of the night to eat my last snack.

On July 26th, dad took me to the hospital for my surgery. He waited with me while we talked to a really nice lady about what was going to happen. She told us there was this place where all of the babies that don’t make it to 20 weeks can be buried and memorialized, if we wanted. We did. She said they would send us a notification of when the baby was interred and where we could go to see the headstone. Then, I got taken back and had the procedure done and Dad was right there waiting for me when I woke up. The test showed that the baby had trisomy 13, and that it was a girl. We had lost our daughter.

Dad and I grieved our baby. I was an absolute mess and dad was my rock. He is always the rock in our family. And then we healed and we started trying again.

We got bloodwork done to see if we were just not going to be able to have a child. Dad had his own tests done to see if he had any part in why the medicine wasn’t working. The medicine gave me horrible mood swings and hot flashes and just kept not working. We switched to another medicine and finally I was actually ovulating! We tracked EVERYTHING. Dad printed me out a calendar every month and I would fill it out so that he could track with me. Cycle start to negatively test. Over and over again looked like this: days 5-9 take ovulation medicine (we did clomid first then switched to letrozole), days 8-18 ovulation tests in the morning and in the evening, also days 8-18 take mucinex but not mucinex dm, end of period to first day of next period, take your temperature first thing don’t even get out of bed or it isn’t accurate and you have to get a special thermometer for it as well. Somehow though, there was never a second line. The test was always negative. Every time dad hugged me and held me tight and supported me and kept us strong. We did this for 2 years.

In July 2025, I walked out of the job I had worked at for almost 7 years. I no longer had health insurance and trying was put on pause. I got a new job and started exactly 1 month after I had quit my last job. I wouldn’t have insurance again until the end of October though so we couldn’t really try. I decided to take that time off of all of the tests and temperature taking and just give my heart a little reset so that we could start trying again strong in November.

You, little monster, had different plans.

On October 11th, 2025, (14 days before I got insurance at my new job) dad convinced me that I was complaining more than usual about my PMS symptoms and I should just take a test. We went and got a test and I took it. I didn’t want to look at a negative test again so I made dad look first (he didn’t know I hadn’t looked) and his jaw dropped. I was just staring at him dumbfounded and he realized I didn’t know so he showed me. There on the digital test was one word: Pregnant.

We had managed to get pregnant with you without medicine or tracking or making concerted efforts. You just decided that you were going to be and you were.

We have had so many scares, but every one of them was just mom being terrified of losing you. Everything you were there growing strong. I have cried and celebrated every milestone. I have talked to you everyday and read to you and played you music even before you could hear. You are everything I could have asked for and more than I deserve. We have just over 11 weeks until we get to meet you and dad gets to hold you too and we can’t wait.

I already told you that you are our miracle love, but you are more than that. You are a fighter. You are made of every single piece of love and laughter that your dad and I have shared. You are going to be whatever you want to be and you are going to be the best at it. Dad and I love you a zillion firefly kisses, sweet little monster. There is nothing in this world that you can’t conquer.

Love,

Mom