Joy and Grief

Trigger warning: miscarriage

I have not written an update in a very long time, and the reason being I couldn’t get the motivation after a life changing event in our lives. We are approaching a year since our transfer of 2 beautiful embryos, we are also approaching a year since I miscarried one of those sweet babies. Today we are going to talk about that a little more.

I understand this topic is very sensitive for some people, and I have chosen not to discuss it for the healing in my own life and to not disturb others who may experience the same. In other ways, I find a lot of joy talking about all of our children, and want to recognize the love we have for those babies.

Back in February of 2022, we transferred 2 of our 3 adopted children who were frozen at 5 days gestation. We had a smooth transfer and beautifully bright and solid pregnancy tests just 4 days after the transfer. My husband and I discussed how fortunate we were to be carrying twins, and what our lives would look like with 2 babies. In any first trimester there is fear, so we were hesitant and waiting for beta blood tests to give us some hope along the way.

A beta blood test measures the HCG hormone in a woman’s body to detect how far along and how healthy the baby is growing. To detect possible implantation or growth issues, doctors want your beta numbers above a certain threshold. For us they wanted it over 200… and two weeks after transfer we had a number of 380! This was such a relief! We were excited that the likelihood of our twins surviving was high. A week later I took another blood test, wanting numbers above 1,200… ours was 4843! With that first month we had so much hope and excitement for our growing family. I was starting to have pregnancy symptoms and was waiting eagerly for our first ultrasound.

Then on March 6, I started bleeding. I had read a lot about implantation bleeding and was hoping that was the case, but throughout the day, that night, and the next day my bleeding only got heavier. I knew something wasn’t right, my husband and I knew in our hearts we had lost a baby if not both of our children. For days we discussed the joy we had for the time we had them, my pregnancy tests still looked positive, and my husband was being so optimistic about it being a fluke. We called our clinic in which they said bleeding is normal, and to just wait for our ultrasound coming up. We waited.. but in my heart I knew we had lost atleast one of the twins.

The morning of the ultrasound I told Austin there was only one baby. We were hopeful that I was wrong, unfortunately I wasn’t. We got into our ultrasound to see one beautiful baby, and hear one beautiful heartbeat, but just one. It was a time of such mixed emotions, such joy for this little baby and so much grief for the one we lost. We went home and cried both tears of joy and grief. We told our families and dear friends, and they cried with us. We still cry tears of joy and grief.

It’s taken me close to a year to reflect on those first few months, and although I was incredibly blessed with a healthy baby, I wanted to hold both of my children. I still do. I struggled through sadness of never getting to hold my baby on this earth, and anger that so many women get pregnant without fail and I wasn’t allowed to keep mine.

Although we are still grieving the loss of our little one, our transfer was not a failure by any means. Our child felt the love of human touch for the first time ever, and even for just a few short weeks they were warm. I would go through that heart wrenching day over and over again, if it gave a child a chance to have a family. Even for just a moment. They are mourned, loved, and cherished. We wonder what they would have looked like, and even their gender. But we will never wonder if they were loved. Our God has blessed us, and gave us 3 beautiful adopted children, even if I didn’t get to live my life with them here on earth. Shiloh is the baby I will never get to hold while I’m still living, but I have my other children that help me think of our little one often, and I pray the Lord of gracious enough to let me hold them one day.

We love you Shiloh Dressler.