A Story of Hope after Loss

A Story of Hope after Loss

This is our story of hope after miscarriage and loss. Our journey to become parents was not linear or easy but there is hope after loss.

Hope after Miscarriages

We are having our first BABY!!! We are overjoyed to be expanding our family and how we got here was a bit of surprise! If you been following Eat More Cake for some time now, you most likely already know a piece of our story to becoming parents. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I shared the most raw and vulnerable experience of my life. If you missed it- we had a traumatic pregnancy loss at 11 weeks pregnant in January 2018 with our first baby.

Full story about my miscarriage- A letter to our Baby

*Disclosure- this story is very raw about the physical and emotional toll of miscarriage and can be triggering for some.

I decided to open up about our pregnancy loss because it was a really devastating experience that seemed very isolating and lonely. After opening up- I heard so many other women (many in my very own network), that had also experienced a loss. I would have never known! Not implying that everyone should shout it from the rooftops, but I quickly realized how isolating it felt because I really had no awareness of how many other women went through this too. Building community, knowing you’re not alone was the biggest source of hope for me. Hopefully sharing my experience will help shed light on the emotional and physical aftermath of an all too common devastation.

ADVOCATING FOR MY OWN HEALTH

Back to the happy news! But before I get to it…I want to highlight my experience with several doctors through out this process because I think its an important reminder to advocate for your own health and listen to what your gut is telling you. 

I wasn’t happy with the experience I had with my OB during the miscarriage. Not only did I lose the baby while waiting in the E.R……my husband couldn’t even find the hospital staff to to help me when it happened. Following that, my doctor seemed very insensitive to what happened and I couldn’t even get into see her for another week!! Yup- I was at home, in pain, and clueless for a week. I pressed her to do hormone testing or anything that would shed some light and I was told that most miscarriages happen because of chromosome abnormality. But what if mine wasn’t? She didn’t do testing and or even an ultrasound to ensure that I didn’t need a D&C procedure. I ended up back into the doctors office 3 weeks later due to excessive blood loss and almost fainting at work. Again, offered no explanation, I decided I need clarity. ​

UNEXPECTED WAY WE FOUND OUT WE WERE PREGNANT

Here is where the fun surprise hits us! We have a consultation at the doctor, I’m feeling really optimist and we jet off to vacation in Santa Barbara, CA waiting for our lab results to come back. As we landed, I listened to an unexpected voicemail. It was the nurse….and my heart dropped because I was expecting the worst of worse news. ​

Candice, you are currently PREGNANT! Wait…..excuse me!? I look at my husband with the biggest grin on my face right as were about to deplane and I whisper the news in his ears. Were completely shocked. We were even more shocked to find out that we were originally expecting twins…TWINS! Unfortunately, we did lose one of the babies somewhere between 7-8 weeks, which you can imagine caused extreme fear of losing the other. 

We were even more taken back when we were told our rainbow baby’s due date. JAN. 19 2019….exactly one year later (to the day!) that I went to the hospital and lost our first sweet baby. This is the truest definition of rainbow baby and we feel over the moon excited and in awe of this blessing. 

Here we are….14 weeks pregnant with a sweet baby BOOOOOYYYYY and all were doing is looking up from here and smiling. ​Thank you to everyone for the love and support!!

Sweetly,

​Candice