Sara C's Story

My husband and I met on a blind date in 2010 and have been married for 7 years now. We originally began our journey to become parents in January 2020. As COVID hit and the world shut down, we had a conversation in May 2020 about taking a break. Little did we know we were already pregnant. We were shocked, but excited, as my husband’s older sister was also expecting. We were so elated that we began telling our immediate family. Unfortunately, in early July, I had some spotting that led to an emergency room trip. Due to COVID restrictions, my husband had to stay in the car as I was informed that our pregnancy was a nonviable blighted ovum and that I would most likely miscarry at home in the next few days. The doctor told me not to worry, because this “wasn’t a real pregnancy” and we “could always try again”. I miscarried that following Friday and continued to deal with excruciating pain and bleeding for 2 week before seeing a doctor again, who determined I was experiencing an incomplete miscarriage. We decided to take some time to heal and I jumped head first into work.

Fast forward to January 2021 where I sought out a fertility clinic to make sure I was healthy before trying to get pregnant again. I had a full blood work panel done that showed low Vitamin D levels, so I was put on a high dose vitamin and told to eat a Mediterranean diet. I ended up pregnant again in May 2021. We had 2 scans at 6.5 and 7.5 weeks with the fertility clinic and then we were “graduated” to my OB.

I scheduled my first OB appointment at 10 weeks hoping to see how much the baby had grown. During the appointment, I had a pap smear and was told we didn’t need a scan as the pregnancy was already confirmed viable at 7.5 weeks. We were scheduled for a 15 week appointment. At that appointment, we again were told we didn’t need a scan, but got to hear the heartbeat from the doppler. I asked for an NIPT test, explaining my concerns from the previous loss, but was told I was “young” and “healthy” and “in the safe zone” at 15 weeks.

We decided to schedule our own scan with a gender reveal clinic and found out we were having a girl. We did a small gender reveal for our family and finally had some cute ultrasound photos to display on the fridge. Our next appointment was scheduled for 20 weeks. I hadn’t gained any weight and wasn’t feeling movement, but was told that this is normal this early in pregnancy. During the anatomy scan at our 20 week appointment, the ultrasound tech quickly went from bubbly to silent as my lifeless daughter appeared on the screen. She took some photos, quietly mumbled, “I will be right back” and left the room. We waited what felt like an eternity for the OB to enter and tell us there was no heartbeat. My whole world split apart. We were admitted to the hospital 2 days later to induce labor. It took 26 hours, but I finally started feeling contractions and gave birth to Rayla Luna Cook on October 8th, 2021. We opted for an autopsy and chromosomal testing before she was cremated. My beautiful daughter now sits in an urn on a shelf in my house. She should have turned 2 this year.

The autopsy and chromosomal tests, along with bloodwork done at the hospital, all came back with no answers as to what went wrong. I was sent for a sonohysterogram as well as a recurrent miscarriage blood panel. The sonohysterogram showed a perfectly healthy uterus, but my blood work came back with a Factor 2 gene mutation. This mutation puts me at a slightly higher risk for clotting, so doctors started to assume there was a clot somewhere that might have killed my daughter. Our new protocol was blood thinners throughout the next pregnancy.

We started trying again in March 2022 and became pregnant again in April. We started blood thinners and asked to start progesterone. Unfortunately, at our 7.5 week scan, we discovered that we were experiencing a missed miscarriage as the baby only measured 6.5 weeks and had no heartbeat. A scan the next week confirmed there was still no growth. We discontinued the blood thinners and opted to medically induce the miscarriage to avoid any further damage to my uterus.

After our third loss, we decided to make a huge change and moved from Arizona to be with my family in Western New York. It was the best decision we could make for our mental health and healing. We took a year off of TTC and started our journey again in May 2023. In October, we were referred to a new fertility specialist and began IUI treatments. After 4 failed IUI treatments, we are now considering IVF with genetic testing due to our history of loss. We are crossing all our fingers and toes that baby number 4 will get to make it earthside.