*TRIGGER Warning - Miscarriage*
This post is the most RAW I have ever been on social media and to all the "haters" - sorry, not doing it for attention, but I'm happy to disappoint you ;-)
Hubby and I always knew that even before we thought about having kids, that we always wanted to have a larger family because we have SO much love to give, how could we not? We always hesitated because when we first starting having kids, having more than one seemed impossible because of our financial situation. To put it lightly, we were flat broke working more than one to three jobs each. So we worked and worked and worked harder. We worked our asses off to make having a second child not seem so scary. As years went on, finances were no longer a problem because of the hard work we did, we were able to have another baby and feel secure that we could handle it and provide exactly what our kids needed, or more.
Then we started talking about having just one more baby. Baby #3. We knew in our hearts that even though we would love to have 4 kids to raise, we also wanted to enjoy the time we have with them and not be worried about spending the money on three kids to let them play soccer, or do dance class or whatever the heck they wanted without worrying about being able to comfortably live or pay our bills on time. We know our limit, and having 3 kids is our limit to stay happy and enjoy the moments.
Before we could have that last kiddo, we needed a house to fit our growing family. Our girls are growing like weeds and my parents needed to not share their space with us, even though they were beyond happy to do so as long as we needed to find our footing. We got the house, we got settled, then talk of baby three started up again.
On January 1st, we found out we were FINALLY getting to add that last little perfect piece to our entire puzzle. We couldn't freakin believe it! It was such a bittersweet moment for us because this was the last time we would get to take a pregnancy test, or tell our families we were pregnant for the last time, and all those things that would be the last time, this was it. As sad as I was to start seeing this phase of my life end where I was going to be done having babies, I was also looking forward to the chapters that involved raising all these kids and the adventures would have together as a complete family.
Well, at least we thought we were going to be done with the "having babies" phase. On January 14th, we lost the baby. Our first miscarriage. I will NEVER be able to describe to you what that kind of PAIN was like, emotionally and physically. To go through all the physical stuff - to put it lightly, your body basically goes through labor - and not have a baby at the end of it, is so beyond devastating, they need a new word for it. To go through all the emotions and the questions - "WHY?", "why did my body fail?", "why was this baby taken from us?", "why is God torturing us?", "why do we have to go from completely happy to explaining to our 5 year old that she's not getting another sibling at the moment because it died?". Then I was so angry at myself because I was SO ANGRY at God. I hated that I was angry at him, but I was. I couldn't understand what his plan was for us at that time and I still don't understand, but I know there is one.
The emotional and physical stuff took months to get better. One thing Hubby and I never lost sight of was just being there for one another and allowing us to grieve whenever the grief came, even if it was during some of the most random and inconvenient times. I still grieve. I always will for the rest of my life. That was a baby we wanted and didn't get to meet. That SUCKS. I also have to say that I never would have gotten through that whole experience as well as I did without our tribe. We had so much incredible support that it was phenomenal!
There was one thing that bothered me about the whole experience the most - as it was all happening, I had come to learn that miscarriage is SO common. Ridiculously common. 1 in 4 women have miscarriages! That number is mind numbing to me. At least 25% OR MORE of pregnancies end in a loss. How awful! But why did I not know about this before it happened to me? Why isn't this talked about more? For the record, I do understand why it's not talked about more, this was one of the personal and devastating things to happen to us, who would want to run around sharing that?! There are some out there that don't mind sharing when another person is experiencing the same pain they went through. For those women that shared with me - you will never understand or have ANY idea at all how grateful I am to you! You all know who you are! That kind of support and knowledge was healing and empowering for me. It also helped that I already have two perfect pregnancies that gave us two perfect children, but it didn't hurt less when it happened because of the kids we had.
But back to the part where miscarriages happen so often. After learning how crazy common they were, I couldn't help but share about my miscarriage on Instagram a month or so after it happened. I kept it off Facebook, not sure why, maybe I feel that IG is a more focused platform?? I honestly can't say. I have this huge urge to share my story because I want to be there for others and let them know that IT HAPPENS, you are NOT broken OR alone! I don't like that I had to wait to experience a miscarriage to learn this info but on the other hand, why would I just go randomly looking for that type of information? But still, knowing all that really helped ease my worry and my nervousness about my body and my emotions. I hope more women can feel comfortable sharing their miscarriage experience because I can't say enough how much it helped knowing I wasn't the only one and that I had SUPPORT out there. All that support gave me hope that one day we would get our Rainbow Baby!
What is a Rainbow Baby?
A “rainbow baby” is a baby that is born following a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss. In the real world, a beautiful and bright rainbow follows a storm and gives hope of things getting better. The rainbow is more appreciated having just experienced the storm in comparison.
A little side story (I promise this will all tie in together). When I started getting into baby wearing with Miss K, I was BLOWN AWAY by all the options there are out there for carriers to pick from! Just INSANE! My first carrier ever was a black Moby wrap I borrowed from a dear friend. When we had Miss E, I really had a lot more knowledge about carriers and one day I came across Pfau. Pfau is a wrap exclusively made by a company called Didymos - it's located in Europe. For those of you that know me best, I have a secret thing for peacocks. I've always found them so fascinating and STUNNING! I just admire their beauty. Here is Pfau, Pfau is Didymos's peacock wrap, it comes in many colors but pictured below is their Pfau in violet....
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I always told myself that I would own any kind of Pfau at one point or another during our child bearing years. Didn't care what color I got, I just thought they were so great, I had to have one.
Going back to my miscarriage, shortly after it happened, one morning I woke up and saw that Didymos posted these photos on their Facebook page and I couldn't believe my eyes, they were doing weft sampling for RAINBOW wraps! Look at the bottom right!!! THERE IS PFAU!!!!!
Flash forward to about a week later when I'm really having a tough emotional day about the miscarriage and in my newsfeed - a picture of a woman that is pregnant wearing her toddler in a Rainbow Pfau! I was so shocked. I started to panic thinking I had missed the announcement somewhere that Rainbow Pfau was released and that's when I scrolled down to find that woman's story. During Didy's weft sampling, this gal had messaged them telling them her story about how she owns every Pfau and that she is currently pregnant with her Rainbow Baby and how amazing it would be to have that wrap to complete her collections of Pfau's. Didymos GIFTED that Rainbow Pfau to her and she was posting her gratitude on their page.
I was so upset. That was the ONLY Pfau in the ENTIRE country. My first thought was "well I could have messaged them to tell them my story too but I didn't". Then I really hit a low point, I was upset at myself for being mad at a woman that just went through the same awful thing I did and now she's getting her happy ending. How dare I feel that way about her!? So, of course, I'm so happy for her, what a great story for her to have for the rest of her life and to be able to pass that wrap on to her child. Don't get me wrong, I was still bummed out, but it was cool!
Flash forward to about the week of May 20th, I was sitting down with my coffee doing my morning Facebook session while the kids ate breakfast and about choked on my coffee....there it was....a post from Didymos with very little to no warning...a FULL BLOWN release of Rainbow Pfau! HOLY. SHIT. I immediately called Hubby and told him, he knew how much that wrap meant to me, we had the money, so how could I not go for this?!?! I never heard from him until he was off work (he was slammed, I don't blame him) and when he got home we talked about it again and he told me he was so sorry but he just couldn't see us buying it at that moment (after all it wasn't cheap) when we weren't pregnant and we really did need to hold onto the money for things we knew were coming up. I couldn't be mad at him and I wasn't unreasonable. He made a very valid point, but I was still way upset. By the end of that night, it was sold out. I cried hard.
Usually when a wrap company does its own release, they will usually leave some aside to give to retailers to sell. I started stalking one of the retailers I knew would get the chance to have Rainbow Pfau. Sure enough, a few days later one of the retailers announced that they had confirmed with Didy that they were getting Rainbow Pfau and that they were taking preorders. This was it, I couldn't handle it, I asked Hubby again just hoping he had had a change of heart, but his response was the same, I had begged him so hard and then cried. I don't ever get this passionate about something often and when I'm stuck on something, I have a hard time letting go of it. I'm a simple person that is super content, so it's very rare I ask for something....so you all understand how badly I wanted this! lol!
Went to bed that night and woke up the next morning. I just couldn't let it go. I asked Hubby ONE last time, but this time his response was "if you can sell the other wraps you have to fund it, then I would totally be okay with that", which made me upset because that wasn't happening. The wrap and ringsling I currently have are for our two girls that I'm passing onto them when they have children. I went to go look one last time at the site where the preorders were and I was once again crushed to see that the preorders sold out. I definitely wasn't going to be able to own one now and I just got so mad. I wasn't trying to, but I did. I couldn't help it. I had to leave the room and go upstairs to cool off. As long as I'm left alone to cool off, I will be fine. I'm up there for a few minutes and my Hubby comes in asking me if I was truly that mad about it and why I was so mad about it. I asked him to let me cool down before I said things I didn't want to, I just needed time. He left and came back about a minute later poking at me with the same questions. I was getting more and more upset by the minute and asked him to leave because I was about to my breaking point. He left again, I FINALLY was able to calm myself down and very shortly after Hubby walks back in. He asked if I was okay, I told him yes, and in 10 seconds he says "okay cool, can I show you something about the Mariners?". That killed me. Not only did I feel like my feelings were dismissed in 10 seconds, but I could have cared less about the Mariners in that moment! I was ticked off all over again :( I asked him to leave, he kept pushing his phone in my face, finally I grabbed his stupid phone to get him to leave me alone and there it was....an email for order confirmation of Rainbow Pfau from the first day I talked to him about it when it hit the retail store for preorder. I SOBBED. I sobbed so uncontrollably that it was beyond ugly! He says with his ever so cute mischievous grin "Happy Birthday, I love you!" (my birthday was May 31st and it was my 30th birthday). I could have killed him and hugged him forever in the same moment. Then I felt awful. I felt awful for acting like such a jerk and felt awful or making him feel like he needed to spoil the surprise but I thanked him SO hard for doing it early because there was no way I would have liked to have cried like that in front of my friends and family at my party a week later! LOL! Other than him asking me to marry him, that was one of the most incredible gestures of my life. I did get after him about how much of a butthead he was for getting me all feisty like that! He says that it is his favorite thing to do because it makes the surprises that much better - STINKER! haha!
I couldn't believe it though....it was MINE. Didy's Rainbow Pfau was coming to live with me! After going through that miscarriage, it was just the perfect thing to have with me to give me hope and remind me that we will still be getting to have our baby at some point. I just knew it. The only crappy part was that I had to wait over two weeks to get it and it shipped May 23rd.
Flash forward to June 2nd. As I was getting ready to head to a weekend away for a bachelorette party, I thought I should probably take a test just to be safe (I would have placed bets on me not being pregnant at all because the month before 3/4 of our family was sick for about 100% of the month of April). I took the test and about fainted....there it was, "PREGNANT 1-2 WEEKS". You've gotta be kidding me - WE ARE PREGNANT! AHHHHHH!!!! Just when we least expected it, it happened! We were SO SO SO happy! We are getting our Rainbow Baby!
Flash forward to this week. It was a really chill day. I thought it would be fun to take the girls out shopping and spend the day with them after I had gotten back from my weekend away. We went out to lunch and I took them to the toy store afterwards and let them pick out some cute stuff. We get home and BOOM - something felt wrong - I couldn't have ran faster to the bathroom if I tried - my worst fear was confirmed. Just like that, we were losing another one. How in the hell could I be losing another baby. Everything felt fine. I felt great. We bought stuff this time because things felt like they were progressing so well. I told my husband. We are broken. As I sit here typing this, I'm still miscarrying. It truly sucks. It sucks so much that it doesn't all get over with faster. It sucks that I have to have a daily reminder until it's over. It has sucked that over the last few days, the stuff we bought has been showing up at our door as another reminder that we are losing another baby. All the same pain, all the same emotions. Just why? Why us again? Why couldn't we have this baby either?
Yesterday was different. The mailman arrived. It was a package that I wasn't expecting, a package from Didymos - I BAWLED. Even though we are currently experiencing another storm, my rainbow wrap showed up. It was here. I needed that. It was comforting. Sounds silly but it's the truth. Hubby asked me to wait until he got home to open it. I wanted to kill him a little bit but it's the least I could do. It was such a simple request for the biggest gesture he made towards me. It was the longest day of my life! LOL!
Hubby gets home....I wasted no time...I ripped into that package so fast, it was funny! Here is the rest of this part of the story in photos. This first photo, this is the most raw I've ever been and this photo captures so much I'm going through in one single moment. I'm smiling and laughing so hard as I'm SOBBING uncontrollably, just check that shiny stream down my cheek BAHAHA! It was here. It was mine. I get to keep it forever and then pass it on. I still can't believe it.
VERY few will truly understand the full magnitude of what this wrap truly means to me or even understand how it feels to go through a miscarriage. I'm not sharing any of this for attention. I'm sharing this, again, hoping that it will comfort someone during their darkest time. I'm hoping that this will help someone heal. I'm hoping that this will help create more awareness regarding pregnancy and infant loss to help make it less taboo of a subject. That's why I did this. That's why I'm posting this super personal story about myself and our journey to baby #3.
For those of you that have suffered through miscarriages or infant loss....from the bottom of my heart - I am SO SO SO sorry! You are never alone! Don't ever feel like you can't grieve or ever feel like your baby didn't mean something just because it was never born. You are a mother. That was YOUR baby. Their little lives mattered and existed. Period.
Going back to my miscarriage, shortly after it happened, one morning I woke up and saw that Didymos posted these photos on their Facebook page and I couldn't believe my eyes, they were doing weft sampling for RAINBOW wraps! Look at the bottom right!!! THERE IS PFAU!!!!!
Didy's post was BLOWING UP with comments from people asking which ones were going to be released and when. Didy basically took an "unofficial poll" of what wefts would be released and I prayed so hard that Pfau was going to make the cut. Sadly, Pfau didn't make the cut for the release. I was SHATTERED. How freakin perfect would that wrap have been for us to have? I always wanted a Pfau but then to have it be a rainbow one to get to wear our Rainbow Baby in?!?!?! I cried. It sucked.
Flash forward to about a week later when I'm really having a tough emotional day about the miscarriage and in my newsfeed - a picture of a woman that is pregnant wearing her toddler in a Rainbow Pfau! I was so shocked. I started to panic thinking I had missed the announcement somewhere that Rainbow Pfau was released and that's when I scrolled down to find that woman's story. During Didy's weft sampling, this gal had messaged them telling them her story about how she owns every Pfau and that she is currently pregnant with her Rainbow Baby and how amazing it would be to have that wrap to complete her collections of Pfau's. Didymos GIFTED that Rainbow Pfau to her and she was posting her gratitude on their page.
I was so upset. That was the ONLY Pfau in the ENTIRE country. My first thought was "well I could have messaged them to tell them my story too but I didn't". Then I really hit a low point, I was upset at myself for being mad at a woman that just went through the same awful thing I did and now she's getting her happy ending. How dare I feel that way about her!? So, of course, I'm so happy for her, what a great story for her to have for the rest of her life and to be able to pass that wrap on to her child. Don't get me wrong, I was still bummed out, but it was cool!
Flash forward to about the week of May 20th, I was sitting down with my coffee doing my morning Facebook session while the kids ate breakfast and about choked on my coffee....there it was....a post from Didymos with very little to no warning...a FULL BLOWN release of Rainbow Pfau! HOLY. SHIT. I immediately called Hubby and told him, he knew how much that wrap meant to me, we had the money, so how could I not go for this?!?! I never heard from him until he was off work (he was slammed, I don't blame him) and when he got home we talked about it again and he told me he was so sorry but he just couldn't see us buying it at that moment (after all it wasn't cheap) when we weren't pregnant and we really did need to hold onto the money for things we knew were coming up. I couldn't be mad at him and I wasn't unreasonable. He made a very valid point, but I was still way upset. By the end of that night, it was sold out. I cried hard.
Usually when a wrap company does its own release, they will usually leave some aside to give to retailers to sell. I started stalking one of the retailers I knew would get the chance to have Rainbow Pfau. Sure enough, a few days later one of the retailers announced that they had confirmed with Didy that they were getting Rainbow Pfau and that they were taking preorders. This was it, I couldn't handle it, I asked Hubby again just hoping he had had a change of heart, but his response was the same, I had begged him so hard and then cried. I don't ever get this passionate about something often and when I'm stuck on something, I have a hard time letting go of it. I'm a simple person that is super content, so it's very rare I ask for something....so you all understand how badly I wanted this! lol!
Went to bed that night and woke up the next morning. I just couldn't let it go. I asked Hubby ONE last time, but this time his response was "if you can sell the other wraps you have to fund it, then I would totally be okay with that", which made me upset because that wasn't happening. The wrap and ringsling I currently have are for our two girls that I'm passing onto them when they have children. I went to go look one last time at the site where the preorders were and I was once again crushed to see that the preorders sold out. I definitely wasn't going to be able to own one now and I just got so mad. I wasn't trying to, but I did. I couldn't help it. I had to leave the room and go upstairs to cool off. As long as I'm left alone to cool off, I will be fine. I'm up there for a few minutes and my Hubby comes in asking me if I was truly that mad about it and why I was so mad about it. I asked him to let me cool down before I said things I didn't want to, I just needed time. He left and came back about a minute later poking at me with the same questions. I was getting more and more upset by the minute and asked him to leave because I was about to my breaking point. He left again, I FINALLY was able to calm myself down and very shortly after Hubby walks back in. He asked if I was okay, I told him yes, and in 10 seconds he says "okay cool, can I show you something about the Mariners?". That killed me. Not only did I feel like my feelings were dismissed in 10 seconds, but I could have cared less about the Mariners in that moment! I was ticked off all over again :( I asked him to leave, he kept pushing his phone in my face, finally I grabbed his stupid phone to get him to leave me alone and there it was....an email for order confirmation of Rainbow Pfau from the first day I talked to him about it when it hit the retail store for preorder. I SOBBED. I sobbed so uncontrollably that it was beyond ugly! He says with his ever so cute mischievous grin "Happy Birthday, I love you!" (my birthday was May 31st and it was my 30th birthday). I could have killed him and hugged him forever in the same moment. Then I felt awful. I felt awful for acting like such a jerk and felt awful or making him feel like he needed to spoil the surprise but I thanked him SO hard for doing it early because there was no way I would have liked to have cried like that in front of my friends and family at my party a week later! LOL! Other than him asking me to marry him, that was one of the most incredible gestures of my life. I did get after him about how much of a butthead he was for getting me all feisty like that! He says that it is his favorite thing to do because it makes the surprises that much better - STINKER! haha!
I couldn't believe it though....it was MINE. Didy's Rainbow Pfau was coming to live with me! After going through that miscarriage, it was just the perfect thing to have with me to give me hope and remind me that we will still be getting to have our baby at some point. I just knew it. The only crappy part was that I had to wait over two weeks to get it and it shipped May 23rd.
Flash forward to June 2nd. As I was getting ready to head to a weekend away for a bachelorette party, I thought I should probably take a test just to be safe (I would have placed bets on me not being pregnant at all because the month before 3/4 of our family was sick for about 100% of the month of April). I took the test and about fainted....there it was, "PREGNANT 1-2 WEEKS". You've gotta be kidding me - WE ARE PREGNANT! AHHHHHH!!!! Just when we least expected it, it happened! We were SO SO SO happy! We are getting our Rainbow Baby!
Flash forward to this week. It was a really chill day. I thought it would be fun to take the girls out shopping and spend the day with them after I had gotten back from my weekend away. We went out to lunch and I took them to the toy store afterwards and let them pick out some cute stuff. We get home and BOOM - something felt wrong - I couldn't have ran faster to the bathroom if I tried - my worst fear was confirmed. Just like that, we were losing another one. How in the hell could I be losing another baby. Everything felt fine. I felt great. We bought stuff this time because things felt like they were progressing so well. I told my husband. We are broken. As I sit here typing this, I'm still miscarrying. It truly sucks. It sucks so much that it doesn't all get over with faster. It sucks that I have to have a daily reminder until it's over. It has sucked that over the last few days, the stuff we bought has been showing up at our door as another reminder that we are losing another baby. All the same pain, all the same emotions. Just why? Why us again? Why couldn't we have this baby either?
Yesterday was different. The mailman arrived. It was a package that I wasn't expecting, a package from Didymos - I BAWLED. Even though we are currently experiencing another storm, my rainbow wrap showed up. It was here. I needed that. It was comforting. Sounds silly but it's the truth. Hubby asked me to wait until he got home to open it. I wanted to kill him a little bit but it's the least I could do. It was such a simple request for the biggest gesture he made towards me. It was the longest day of my life! LOL!
Hubby gets home....I wasted no time...I ripped into that package so fast, it was funny! Here is the rest of this part of the story in photos. This first photo, this is the most raw I've ever been and this photo captures so much I'm going through in one single moment. I'm smiling and laughing so hard as I'm SOBBING uncontrollably, just check that shiny stream down my cheek BAHAHA! It was here. It was mine. I get to keep it forever and then pass it on. I still can't believe it.
VERY few will truly understand the full magnitude of what this wrap truly means to me or even understand how it feels to go through a miscarriage. I'm not sharing any of this for attention. I'm sharing this, again, hoping that it will comfort someone during their darkest time. I'm hoping that this will help someone heal. I'm hoping that this will help create more awareness regarding pregnancy and infant loss to help make it less taboo of a subject. That's why I did this. That's why I'm posting this super personal story about myself and our journey to baby #3.
For those of you that have suffered through miscarriages or infant loss....from the bottom of my heart - I am SO SO SO sorry! You are never alone! Don't ever feel like you can't grieve or ever feel like your baby didn't mean something just because it was never born. You are a mother. That was YOUR baby. Their little lives mattered and existed. Period.
You all have no idea how much it means to me for you to sit through and read this. I do this for myself, but hearing how much you all enjoy it makes me happy too!
