*TRIGGER WARNING & DISCLAIMER**
This article contains emotional and disturbing events that happened during one of my pregnancies. I am not an expert and all things discussed in this article are specific to my personal experience with my miscarriage and pregnancy loss. I speak only to my experiences and this is based on my opinions alone. There are many twists and turns in this story and it has multiple layers from the beginning to the end. Ultimately the happy ending is that we have our second son who is our Rainbow Baby! A Rainbow Baby by definition is a child born after a family has experienced a pregnancy loss, such as a miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. The term is meant to symbolize beauty after a dark time, and the baby is sometimes called a "miracle" baby because of its positive impact on the parents' healing process. I understand the gravity of this topic and will speak to my experience and my experience alone. If you would like to read further ..here is my story...
Pregnancy loss isn’t something easy to talk about, but when it is spoken about... a new community of understanding, support, and love is formed. After my miscarriage in 2013, I realized that most people don’t talk about their miscarriage or pregnancy loss because it’s tough to talk about things that make other people feel sad for you. My story of miscarriage is something I wanted to share 11 years later because I feel like it still impacts my daily life as a parent, teacher, and friend. My miscarriage is not only a piece of my history that shapes who I am today, but this experience also helped me develop a new level of empathy and compassion for others. I’ve been open and talking about this for years (especially on my Instagram) when I refer to my second son as my rainbow baby - the term used for a baby born after a pregnancy loss. They are the rainbow after the storm, truly. I wanted to delve a little deeper into the emotions surrounding pregnancy loss and miscarriage. I can only speak specifically based on my experience, but if I could help others to feel seen and understood that’s all that matters. For other Moms who have experienced this please know that I see you and I am here for you.
My pregnancy after my first son came as a pleasant surprise- not completely unplanned, but it made me realize how blessed I am to get pregnant so easily. This pregnancy was completely different than my pregnancy with my older son. I didn’t feel good from the beginning and I had some minor spotting- which were very different symptoms than my other pregnancy. However, the main difference was that this time around by some rare miracle, the OB agreed to see me earlier than the usual 8-9 week mark. Our doctor's office allowed me to schedule my first prenatal appointment at six weeks! I was over the moon that I was offered an appointment to come hear the baby’s heartbeat and see an ultrasound so early! My husband and I set off with our two-year-old in tow on this exciting adventure to "see" his new sibling. Not only did we get to see the heart beating of our next tiny miracle via ultrasound, but the OB who saw me was the same OB that delivered me over 30 years before. This Doctor was so excited to meet me and chat about my Mom as he said that he "remembered her pregnancy with me like it was yesterday". Such a cool full-circle moment came out of this appointment and we were feeling on top of the world. Our son was our pride and joy and now we would be blessed with another beautiful baby.
A few weeks later, after announcing our pregnancy to our family members I noticed some spotting. The spotting intensified like a period instead of just implantation bleeding (as I had experienced before) so it became very concerning. I tried to conceal my worry and anxiety every time I went to the bathroom. I prayed there would be no blood, but each time there was more. I felt like I knew it was happening and I couldn’t stop it. I felt so helpless in that moment. At that time, my parents had a cozy place by the beach that they went to for weekend getaways to relax. Knowing my situation, they invited us to stay there to relax and ease some of the stress we were experiencing.
I’ll never forget how concerned my parents were after hearing about the symptoms I was showing and we were all terrified of what the outcome would be. They tried to make me as comfortable as possible to relax. Every movement I made- if I wasn't sitting my parents became agitated. When I got up to get a glass of water, my dad got choked up and was yelling at me to just sit down! “Don’t do anything. I don’t want anything to happen.” He yelled at me through tears. My Mom argued with him that I was just getting a glass of water and my Dad insisted through his tears “Please don’t do anything Stephanie, I don’t want anything to happen to the baby!”
At that point, the bleeding wasn’t stopping and my husband and I knew we had to seek medical attention. It was Labor Day weekend so not an ideal time to go to the urgent care /emergency room- but is there ever a good time to go there?!
Being in the emergency room, I have to say two things became abundantly clear to me. One: I married the right person. This is the millionth reason to remember that Jeremy truly is the ultimate partner to me because to pass the time we were just chatting and laughing until we were crying. This truly helped us divert our attention from all the sad possibilities ahead. Two: I realized after an experience of this nature, that having a doctor with a pleasant/compassionate bedside manner is a true treasure. I understand that being a medical professional is an extremely stressful, emotional job and that not everybody can keep it together in these kinds of situations. But if during these tough medical situations, their bedside manner isn’t the best .. it deeply affects the patient in the situation. After hours of ultrasounds, poking and prodding, asking questions to the nurses, and getting no answers. I found myself asking the ultrasound tech if she saw anything as she just stared blankly at the screen and didn’t answer any of my questions. I cried, begging her for some sign of hope. Hours after all of this, finally the on-call doctor walked in. We didn’t know how or what to feel after such an emotionally exhausting day, but we knew this Doctor brought answers. Jeremy grabbed my hand and gave it a little squeeze.
Our doctor comes in, sits down, and the first thing out of his mouth is -“Who is Jeanette? “My husband and I are puzzled by this abrupt random question. We look at each other in bewilderment and I answer the Doctor tentatively, “That is my Mom, why? “ “Oh I was just wondering why her name was written on this chart,” the doctor says flagrantly. I soon realized that since my initial appointment was with my mom‘s OB. He probably wrote my mom‘s name on the chart to remember who I was -leading this doctor to question who was written on the chart.
After solving that random mystery, the doctor stared blankly at us and said.. “oh and it’s not a viable pregnancy! “ Then he slammed my medical chart closed and walked out of the room.
My husband and I felt like we were punched in the stomach and were gasping for air… how could this happen? And how could a doctor be so callous in such a sensitive situation?! I want to be clear that I respect all medical professionals and continue to be understanding that they are under a huge amount of stress, pressure, and lack of sleep -so this isn’t to slam how they do their job. But… this particular individual did not have a good bedside manner and made our situation even more excruciating by demonstrating such a lack of empathy it was unbelievable.
After that horrifically hard interaction with the doctor, then it was time to break the news to our family and prepare to go home with medication for the next step of the miscarriage. I think the thing is everybody’s experience is different and when somebody tells you they’ve had a miscarriage or pregnancy loss you have no idea what that means until you go through it yourself. You don’t realize that the mother needs to go through a process to get the unborn baby out of her body and navigate all the feelings that come with that. For us, an emotionally tough part was that we saw the heartbeat so early on and to know that I was walking around for three weeks and the baby’s heart wasn’t beating anymore was devastating for us. We felt lucky in comparison to other couples because we had a healthy child to go home to. Some of our friends who had tried and miscarried -that was their first experience with being pregnant which is also difficult on so many levels. Those friends eventually went on to have their rainbow babies, but the pain and fear of the unknown as their first time was devastating on a different level. We began to recognize all aspects of the pain of this situation for anyone who has ever experienced it.
This experience gave us so much perspective and compassion towards families dealing with pregnancy loss and infertility. The next couple of months were rough because I went right back to work at the preschool where I taught. I missed a few days of the staff training and all the teachers were very kind and comforting, however, it was still hard to act as if I wasn’t pregnant three days ago and now I’m not. As part of my back-to-work procedures, I had to get a TB test which I had always done and somehow it showed up positive. Due to those random results, I had to go get a chest x-ray to verify that I did not have TB and could work with children. When I went to get the x-ray, the medical professionals asked me when I had my last period. When I told them the date of my last period they realized how long it had been and they offered me a pregnancy test. I mentioned that I had recently had a miscarriage- hence the long-time discrepancy. They were apologetic and sent me to an X-ray machine in the other room. As I was holding my breath for this chest x-ray, the technicians were talking in the other room about me. They didn’t realize that I could hear them as they were saying things like, "That was so awkward!" or "I guess we need to ask pregnancy and miscarriage questions now?" They went on and on about how embarrassed they felt to hear my answer but didn’t realize how excruciating it was to hear them saying these things about me. I’m sure you can imagine how emotional I felt hearing them talk about my situation and their feelings about it. I know that they were just doing their job and they were surprised by my response, but their lack of tact and professionalism was unacceptable. Having these experiences with medical technicians and doctors made me that much more grateful when I have a Doctor with phenomenal bedside manner and professional care.
That being said, a few months later I found out I was pregnant again! This was very, very exciting for us -however, due to the pain we just endured we were cautiously optimistic. During all of my pregnancies, I had endured severe neck pain and did not take medication for it, but when it got really bad I would go to a skilled masseuse who specializes in pregnancy massage. The person that was recommended to me as a healer was also a psychic medium. As those who know me know, I am a very spiritual person. I believe in all the hocus-pocus ghost /spirits, voodoo witchcraft BS... so I was elated to have this woman working on me. I was honored to be in the healing hands of somebody who was in touch with the spirit guides on the other side. This healer/medium proceeded to tell me that the soul of the baby that I lost was not ready to come to the world yet but is now coming in this baby. She said that this baby “will be very in touch with their spiritual side, their ancestors, nature, “and she even told me some amazing plans involving all my children surrounding me after I wrote a book! I was blown away by all of this because I never disclosed to her that I was an aspiring author with manuscripts that I hadn’t published yet. Months later and 3 weeks early, our sweet Benji Myles arrived as perfect as ever.. a true rainbow after the storm for our family.
Our Benji was born with an unusual red mark on one of his eyelids. When I took him to his first doctor's appointment our Doctor said it's what's known as an "angel kiss/stork bite" and that the angel that kissed him had a lot of lipstick on. When I researched it, I discovered the meaning: An angel kiss birthmark is a red or pink splotch that typically appears on a newborn's forehead, eyelids, nose, or upper lip. Angel kiss birthmarks are believed to be kisses from an angel. They can mean your baby is blessed, connected to a past life, or spiritually protected. Given everything the healer told me this was the first sign of proof of what she said! Little did I know that the signs and his connection to the spirit world didn't stop there.
Fast forward to my two-year-old rainbow baby stopping me on a walk to tell me to smell the flowers. It brought tears to my eyes, and I instantly remembered what I was told about his soul /spirit being very connected to nature.
After a few years, my then four-year-old began saying that he missed my late Grandfather Hugo who had died years before he was born. He had maybe seen a few pictures of him, but I rarely spoke of my Grandfather. My husband thought it was random for him to mention my Papa Hugo, but I remembered what the Medium had told me and knew there would be more signs to come.
Now, almost 6 years after Benji had first mentioned missing my Papa Hugo I fully embraced his "superpowers" and connection to the other side. When he kept mentioning my Papa I showed him pictures and told him stories about my incredible Papa. Then I started asking him deeper questions about these connections he had like “Does my Papa visit you in your dreams?” To my surprise, Benji answered, "Yes he does!"
Curious to know more, I asked "Did he talk to you in your dream?" Benji said "yes he did, but I didn’t understand what he was saying. He was speaking a different language." My mouth dropped and I burst into tears. My grandfather was from Romania and English was not his first language. My Papa always spoke with a very heavy accent and mostly spoke German to my Mom and Grandma. I never told Benji this about my grandfather; for him to say this, I knew these powers were truly real. After my Mom, sister, and I had a good cry about that discussion, we quickly recognized how real his connection is to Papa Hugo. I waited a few weeks and asked again. This time the answer was truly undeniable. I asked Benji again if Papa had visited him in his dreams and he said yes he had. I quickly said, "Oh, but you couldn’t understand what he was saying right?" Then Benji said something that made me drop to my knees sobbing...he said "No, I could understand him. Your Papa said, "Tell my Stephie I miss her." Benji felt so bad seeing me so upset. He said, "I’m sorry, Mommy what’s wrong?" I told him that my Papa Hugo was the only person who ever called me Stephie and only our family knew that. I never told Benji this obscure detail so I know he's telling the truth. I told Benji that this is one of his amazing gifts/superpowers and that he's so lucky to get to know my Papa this way. I'm still navigating how to foster Benji's spiritual connection to his ancestors, but I love that he's able to receive all the spirit messages coming his way.
So at the end of the day, pregnancy loss is a very heartbreaking, devastating experience. Our rainbow babies will never replace the babies we lost, but they do offer some comfort after the storm and are a true reminder of some light during a dark time. We are forever grateful for our Rainbow Baby Benji and send love to all the families with Rainbow babies of their own.
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