Part 1: Pregnancy loss after loss after loss after loss

I’d been waiting for life to settle down to start writing in the blog again again but, well, that doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. But this post has been on my heart for awhile and is long overdue, which is why I’ll be aiming to post the story in many parts over the coming week(s).

When Brian and I were going through premarital counseling many moons ago, we were in agreement — we wanted 3-4 kids. Funny enough, because we were getting married so young, one of my fears was that we’d accidentally end up with far more than 4 kiddos. Yet, within 6 months of our wedding date, we had a long discussion, took a deep breath, and decided it was time to leave babies up to fate. We assumed it’d only be a matter of months until we’d be posting our creative pregnancy announcement on social media.

Instead, though, we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After a year of no babies, neither of us were worried — in church when people asked if we wanted kids and we told them we’d been hoping, usually they’d end up telling us a story about a friend or an aunt or a cousin or a sister’s brother-in-law’s best friend’s teacher’s niece who’d tried to have kids for years and then BOOM, one day they were miraculously pregnant.

We heard the same story so many times that we were confident it would be our story, too.

So we kept waiting for life to drop this miracle into our lap.

Finally, though, we were 31 and we’d been in Estonia for a few years already. By then, we’d still never had even had a single positive pregnancy test. And, in a hard season of our life, Brian and I realized that if we truly wanted kids, then it was time to ask for professional help — no more waiting for a miracle. So we dove headfirst into the Estonian fertility system.

As usual, we were optimistic. We figured doctors would run a few tests, figure out the root issue, give one of us a few drugs and then voila! — pregnant.

Instead, medical professionals were stumped — they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. So, for a year, we tried treatment after treatment after treatment until, finally, something worked — we got pregnant on our first IVF transfer!

From there it was a whirlwind of excitement and planning and telling family. We were finally going to be parents! But on January 1, 2018 — at 13 weeks — we lost our first baby. I remember as I was bleeding and it was clear everything was over, the nurse in the ER told me, “when pregnancies end this early it’s usually a genetic abnormality.” And I remember thinking, “Then this is better. I wouldn’t want our baby to have a life full of suffering.”

After I came home from the hospital, Brian and I set aside time to grieve together. We decided she was a girl and named her Ava — a name that meant life. In memorium, I painted an image that Brian and I imagined up. Brian got a tattoo version of it on his arm.

And then we started the IVF process all over again, assuming we’d get pregnant just as easily the next time.

We were wrong.

IVF transfer after IVF transfer resulted in nothing — not even a single positive pregnancy test.

We were a bit dumbfounded. Would we ever have a baby?

Throughout the process, many friends and acquaintances told us those same stories we’d heard for years — people they knew who’d had miraculous spontaneous natural pregnancies before, during, after, or with no fertility treatments. But, by then, we’d noticed a pattern — the surprise parents in the stories had no part in making those kids happen — God or the universe had intervened. We needed something more — something we could do.

Then, a cousin told me it took them six IUIs for their daughter and seven IVF transfers for their son. And a friend told me about an Estonian couple for whom it took eleven IVF transfers. These stories had morals that gave us hope, “Don’t give up, keep going! One of these days something will work if you just keep trying.” We had a path forward.

After 6 more IVF transfers after our first, still nothing was working. But we had to keep going. So I took a year off to try acupuncture.

And, well, IVF transfer number 8 after all that acupuncture — much to our surprise — was actually a success. At age 35 I was finally pregnant again, but with twins! One was measuring small from the start and had a slightly thicker nuchal fold at the anatomy scan, but the NIPT (non invasive prenatal testing) blood results came back clear. All would be okay.

We breathed a sigh of relief at the good news and finally allowed ourselves to get excited about these babies we’d be having.

Alas, though, tragedy struck.

The night before our 20 week scan, I had a nightmare — in the dream, I’d woken up to a lot of blood, just like when we lost Ava. I attributed it to those pregnancy nightmares I’d read about in forums and brushed it off. But when I arrived at the ultrasound, I learned quickly that our boy — the larger, seemingly healthier twin — no longer had a heartbeat. Next, the doctor noticed our little girl was measuring small, less than the 10th percentile. She’d need extra monitoring to make sure she was okay.

I left the appointment in a daze and called Brian — who was no longer allowed to attend due to COVID protocols — and gave him the news.

Our world had fallen apart again.

As we’d learned how to do last time, we set aside time to grieve and cry together. We came up with a name, Leonid, Leon for short — a name that means lion-hearted. We chose an image for me to paint. Brian got it tattooed on his other arm.

And then we began the long wait for our baby girl. At each of my biweekly scans with the best ultrasound doctor in Estonia, she fell further and further behind in size. I wasn’t worried, though. I was also small at birth. I thought that’s all it was.

The week before she was born, Brian was standing in our kitchen, leaning against the counter. After a moment’s pause, he blurted out “I really hope she’s okay.”

“Of course she is.” I responded automatically. I couldn’t imagine anything actually being wrong. She was just tiny, like me.

After a week of induction in January 2021, itty bitty Eloise entered the world the day before I turned 36.

And, well, if you’ve been following us, you might know some of her story. The non-fairytale beginning of an emergency c-section and a stay in the NICU. How we started a facebook page immediately to keep friends and family informed. The diagnosis that was a complete surprise to us. And many many many months of exhaustion and tears and overwhelm and grief.

But what you may have missed is that, a few months after I’d stopped pumping for Eloise — on our 15th wedding anniversary the summer of 2022 — we found out we were pregnant. Naturally.

It was a miracle! Something was finally going right for us in the kids department. We were going to have a baby — on our own!

Instead, a few days after I saw his little heartbeat, our tiny miracle baby left us.

We cried and grieved and named him, the rhythm that has worked for us over the years. But we were left with an optimistic thought, “If it worked once, maybe it will work twice.”

So, during next cycle I got pregnant again. This time, the ultrasound showed two sacks, but only one heartbeat. A week later, though, even that heartbeat had stopped.

Our three little miracles had ended almost as soon as they’d begun.

Loss after loss after loss after loss. By fall 2022 I’d had 4 pregnancies and lost 5 babies — our plans to expand our family were looking very bleak.

I wanted answers.

With a very fortunate turn of events of being in the right place at the right time with connections to the right people, we were able to get genetic testing on the last baby we lost. Soon, the results were back, she’d had trisomy 13.

Weirdly, I felt relief to find out she didn’t have Eloise’s same genetic condition because it meant we weren’t producing embryos with the same genetic issues over and over again. And it meant my body knew what to do if our poor baby wasn’t going to thrive in life.

When I pressed for more info, the leading miscarriage doctor in Estonia said that — taking Eloise and our many losses and failed transfers into consideration — likely Brian and I had what she called “fragile DNA.” Meaning her best guess was that, somehow, when our eggs and sperm would join, they’d collide too hard and accidentally add or remove DNA in the wrong places, making embryos more prone to genetic abnormalities. The doctor said, with enough attempts, she thought we could likely conceive and produce a “normal” kid. Eventually. It just might take quite a few more embryo transfers.

So, that Fall, as Brian and I talked about our options, we came up with a new gameplan for our family expansion.

That’s in our next post. Part 2: New family expansion plan

All our love,

Mallory, Eloise, and Brian

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