Trigger warning for those dealing with infertility and/or child loss.
When our sweet daughter and son passed away before birth, Dal found out both times over the phone (I knew he wanted to know ASAP), I was alone for the news both times, and receiving it was eerily similar both times. While we feel peace and absolutely know that was God’s plan for our sweet babies and us, we still have some PTSD surrounding the shock of finding out. After that, we both decided that from now on, Dal would come to every appointment with me.
In addition to this, we knew before getting pregnant we needed to be at a place emotionally where we could be okay with either outcome. Obviously we hope all of our children are born safely here, however we know our family doesn’t just exist on this earth. We know it’s eternal and we’ll be a family forever. We know any child from the moment I am pregnant is a permanent part of our family. We also know God has a plan for each of us and from the beginning, the plan for our two who passed away was to be here briefly and then do wonderful work on the other side. These are not things we just hope or believe, they’re things through special experiences that we know and could never deny. We also feel so strongly that part of their mission on earth was to let people know children who’ve passed away before birth are not a punishment or a test. It’s a blessing to have such pure, innocent souls be a part of our eternal family. Our little one who is here, growing and thriving is also our angel, just earth side 😉 LO is also just so pure and sweet (like all kids!) we feel so blessed to have two angels in heaven and now 2 here!
Back to what I was saying before… we needed to get to a place emotionally where we could accept either outcome, though having another baby pass away would be excruciating, we’ve learned pain and peace can coexist. Last November or so we started feeling like we were in that place and it was time and started trying. We’ve always gotten pregnant immediately and come February couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was at this point I was researching more about Hashimotos. A couple years ago I had thought some of the symptoms sounded so familiar when I read Laurel Galluci’s story from Sweet Laurel cookbook, so I asked my dr to test for it, but my blood work was negative however, sometime around this past February I learned that it doesn’t always show up in blood work, so I did alternate testing and found out I did for sure have it. This actually made me feel better because I was experiencing a million crazy symptoms (another post), and it was comforting to put a name to it instead of feeling like my body was just being destroyed in a million ways haha.
Anyway, around this time Coronavirus also took over the world. Dal and I realized had I gotten pregnant when I wanted, i would’ve been due this month and he likely wouldn’t have been able to go to appointments with me and LO may have not been able to visit us in the hospital- not to mention the stress of risking exposure through someone babysitting LO. Even if everything went perfectly, the anxiety surrounding it all would’ve been SO hard. In addition to this, I had not realized until this point I for sure had Hashimotos and my symptoms were progressing more than they had been back in November. There are so many people who did get pregnant/have babies during this time and that was ABSOLUTELY the right thing for them, however between my physical health at the time, PTSD, and the restrictions from the pandemic, we feel like for us, personally, this was the right thing.
We decided during this time to stop trying, work on our health, and wait for Coronavirus to slow down. This was heartbreaking, but we knew it was best for our family. I worked on my health from every angle. I have a lot of emotional pain from people (not Dal!) I trusted who caused a great deal of emotional pain. I have been learning that trauma and pain like that can alter our DNA, affect our digestive systems, lead to autoimmune diseases and heart issues, and even be passed down to our children in their DNA causing digestive issues, anxiety, etc. in them. (Source, source). While I honestly feel confidence in my parenting and know I’m a great mom and am happy I use gentle parenting with LO, I felt so full of pain inside and realized it was actually affecting my physical health. This isn’t as simple as just forgive. A brain that has been through trauma, changes to adapt and keep you emotionally safe. You have to heal the brain, retrain it. I’ve been in therapy for a while now and it’s amazing. I still feel the pain, but am getting so much better at not internalizing it (though that’s a work in progress).
As I’m writing this, I’m feeling like I may be over- sharing, however, I feel it’s important to share, because learning that emotional scars demand to be dealt with and if we don’t, they will manifest themselves in physical ways until we’re forced to address them was key to realizing the importance of addressing them and that it’s not as simple as “just forgive”. We all have been wronged, we all have likely been betrayed, and have all experienced trauma. I honestly don’t think there’s anyone who wouldn’t benefit from therapy. Yoga and meditation, in addition to worshipping in my religion (which I’ve always done) have done a great deal in helping me better deal with stress as well.
As far as physical health, I did a million things as well and what was right for me, may not be right for you. It’s so individual. I’m not a believer in taking vitamins just because they’re good for you. It’s very possible to overload the system and throw things off balance from supplements, so I only believe in taking things you know you are lacking. For example, so often drs tell everyone to take vitamin d because everyone is low, but you can absolutely have too much- it’s more important to check if you are actually low instead of assuming and if you are, to look at the root cause for why you don’t have enough. Are you not absorbing it? Why? Heal that. Are you not spending enough time outside? Work on that. So I’m not going to go into specifics because I don’t feel it would be ethical to say here’s every little thing I took when in reality I think it was a combo of emotional healing, the supplements I took, the dietary changes, plus God’s timing, so I don’t want to “prescribe” my way to anyone else. So, not everything I did, but here are just a few general things I did.
Once I found out I had Hashimotos, I knew removing grains and dairy would be incredibly beneficial. Almost as soon as I was strict with that, my cycles normalized and became less painful. I also think Organ Supplement was incredibly helpful. In addition to all this, I learned LED lights emit blue light and can mess with hormones, so I replaced all the lights I could with incandescent. Again, I think it was a combo of a million things I did, but I think going grain and dairy free combined with therapy and stress management plus God’s timing were key.
I’ve worked hard and my Hashimotos isn’t completely healed, but it’s a million times more manageable and I have hope one day it can be fully healed, but I’m to a place where I feel much more healthy, so we started trying again and got pregnant right away! We are SO excited!! I’m only 5 weeks along, but we share as soon as we know because we believe every baby deserves to be celebrated every second of their life and if this precious baby did pass away, I would want to talk abt it and I wouldn’t want my pregnancy announcement and the baby’s passing to be the same announcement. This is what is right for our family, but I don’t think there’s a right when to announce. It’s very personal and no one should judge.
We are SO thrilled abt this baby and LO is over the moon and has been “practicing” with a doll 😍 For all those who are trying for, hoping for children,mourning children, waiting for an adoption, etc. I am thinking of you. I always hesitate sharing stuff like this because of how painful it could be to others, but I know it can help some people, so I put the trigger warning and share and hope those who see the warning won’t read if they know it will cause pain. I’m a big believer in sharing the difficult (when appropriate) and the happy of life on social media. If we only share the happy, we can give a skewed message and make people feel like we have it all figured out or things are all good for us. It can make others feel bad about themselves and their lives, so especially on a topic as sensitive as pregnancy, I wanted to share the hard and great parts. I am comfortable sharing this, but I also don’t think it means everyone needs to share everything. Like everything, it’s personal and what you’re comfortable with 🙂
Thanks for reading our story of the struggles and joys of getting baby #4 here!
Chicken Katsu