Three babies. One year. Now what?

This month, August 2022, will be FOUR years that we’ve been trying to have a baby. Never in a million years did I think I’d still be talking about being childless. Never in a million years did I think I wouldn’t have a baby by the time I was 31. Never in a million years did I think I’d lose three babies in less than a year. What is happening, God?

June 24, 2022. Transfer #3. It went perfectly. Again, I drank the pomegranate juice, ate the pineapple, wore my pineapple socks, did all the superstitious, good luck things. We went for our first bloodwork appointment and HCG (hormone produced in pregnancy) was positive and a great level! Went back two days later and it more than doubled – great sign! I started making lists of people to invite to baby showers. I opened my baby registry back up and even bought a couple of items. We started clearing items out of the room that will be the nursery. I actually felt this was going to be it for us. We would finally be parents, I felt it in my bones. But this just wasn’t the case this time.

A week later, I started bleeding. My clinic got me in quickly, did bloodwork, and my levels were still good, thankfully, but she put me on bed rest. Two weeks later, we went for our first ultrasound. We saw that little heartbeat but something just didn’t look right. She measured the heartbeat: 91. That is low, I said, and it looks small. She measured and baby was 6w4d and should’ve measured over 7. I knew it didn’t look good but after speaking with Dr. H, she gave us a little hope. She said with the low heart rate and baby measuring behind, there is about a 20-30% chance of miscarriage but try to remember the bigger chance of baby catching up.

A week later, August 1, we went back in for another sonogram. And yet again, we heard the words, “I’m so sorry but your baby has no heartbeat.” No heartbeat. Gut wrenching. And although after leaving our last appointment, we felt it wasn’t a matter of IF we would lose this baby but WHEN, it still hurt like hell to actually hear and see that there wasn’t a heartbeat.

Have you ever thought to yourself, where are you God? I’ll answer it for you, you have. I’m sure we all have. And even though I know He is there, I wonder why in the world ANYBODY has to go through a miscarriage, much less multiple. I’m mad. I’m so mad. And frustrated. And sad. I’m feeling ALL negative emotions but I am telling myself I just can’t sit in this forever. I can’t allow my heart to harden. I don’t want to not feel emotions. I don’t want to feel completely numb to it all. And I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to feel joy and excitement seeing a positive pregnancy test again. And that’s really sad.

So what’s next for us? Well, we don’t really know. My body is clearly not doing something right so we are going to have to change something. We’ve proven we can get pregnant (although it requires lots of work and lots of money) but now we need to know how to keep the pregnancy. Which might be hard to figure out.

We’ve opened our eyes a little to other options. Do we try another transfer – would this be insanity though? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? I’ve started researching surrogacy (did you know this can cost at minimum $100-150k and not guarantee a baby?) I’ve looked at adoption but we are trying to hold off on this one. We have perfectly healthy embryos that are both my and Jason’s DNA so we’d really love to have our baby if we can. The options we have aren’t cheap or easy.

I’m so tired of praying for something that isn’t happening. I’m so annoyed at asking for people to pray for us and it not working. I know God is good. I do. I just wish I knew why He was putting us through this or how long this season would last.

To baby Thigpen, I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you strong, healthy, growing, and alive. I’m sorry you won’t get to meet the best grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends that are family here on earth. Tell AT, G, and your older sisters to take good care of you. We will never forget you, I promise. And I hope we are better parents to our babies here one day because of our babies in Heaven.