Unsilencing the Journey to Motherhood: Navigating Infertility, Loss, and Resilience with Rachel Delacrosse

When you imagine the journey to motherhood, do you picture it as a straightforward path? Unfortunately, for many women, the reality is a course riddled with trials and heartache. This soul-stirring episode centers on my personal narrative and that of Rachel Delacrosse. Rachel, a beacon of strength in the face of adversity, shares her deeply emotional journey through infertility and loss. We discuss how these experiences have shaped our lives, and the support systems we've found and created for others who walk this path.

The complexities of fertility treatments are often overlooked. We journey into the intricate world of IVF and the emotional roller coaster that accompanies it. I share my unique experience, touching on the anxiety, hope, and unexpected outcomes that can emerge. We delve into the arduous choices and sacrifices made during the process, underlining the resilience required in the face of disappointment. Like many others, Rachel and I have faced the crushing heartache of pregnancy loss. We discuss the grief spaces provided by the Sherriff Lancaster organization and how vital these outlets are in honoring lost children and supporting grieving parents.

In the end, it's all about understanding and empathy. This episode reaffirms the importance of acknowledging each unique journey through infertility, pregnancy loss, and the profound voyage to motherhood. We emphasize the importance of communal support and how sharing our experiences can help others feel less alone during these trying times. Together, we're breaking the silence on fertility struggles and loss. Tune in, listen, relate, and understand that everyone's journey to motherhood is unique. Let this episode serve as a testament to our resilience, and a reminder that through grief and loss, we are never alone.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Thank you so much for being here with me. We know that we're living through some crazy times and we know the world is changing, so let's create a bridge as we come together one another, removing all of our labels and just being together as one people in one world as we do this. This is why our signature talk today Journey to Motherhood through Infertility and Loss is so, so important. We have a series of talks specific to mothers, and this is a very, very special talk, and I'm so honored and privileged to have my guest speaker, rachel Delacrosse. Hi, rachel, hi, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for being here with me. I know this is a really tough topic for women, so I'm so grateful and filled with gratitude that you can be here and if you could just take a moment and just introduce yourself and share a little bit about who you are, how you got here and let the world know why you're so special to this.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Yes. So I'll start with just meeting my husband. When we met he had told me that he would not most likely not be able to have any kids and at the time most of his relationships would not have gone anywhere after that because most people, that would have been a real hard thing for them to be able to handle. But for me, I was scared to death of the idea of getting pregnant and having a baby. That was probably my biggest fear up until that point, the idea of that whole process. So we were like, wow, we're pretty perfect together. I don't have to worry about getting pregnant, we have this nice journey. So came together. I feel like that way, and as time went on, we knew we wanted to be parents. So our journey just kind of started with what are our options and yeah, so that's kind of how it began, and then all of the details to follow.

Speaker 2: 2:27

And now I'm a stay at home mother.

Speaker 2: 2:29

I've started support groups for women that are going on their journey journey to motherhood because everybody's journey looks different.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Some are unexpected journeys, some are difficult journeys, some just never come together the way that you thought they would. So to give love and support to women going through that has been my focus and that's where I'm at, and by sharing my story, I feel like that gives opportunity to let people know that they're not alone, like there's so many people with so many experiences that you don't have to give up, like it might look different than what you thought, but you don't have to give up on being a parent. You just don't. There's so many options. Even if you're a pet parent, you're still like there's so many options. You just have to change your lens and just determine what you want to do and how you want to get there. So that's my focus now is just how can I love and support women on their journey and through all their experiences and network them with other women that had similar experiences to give them individual support. So that's where my heart's at.

Speaker 1: 3:37

I love all that and I can relate to you in so many ways. I personally have gone through bereavement and loss of a baby and that was one of the things I think was so difficult because in my experience, you know I was pregnant, everything was going okay and then all of a sudden there was this grinding halt and I ended up being in the hospital and literally it was like one minute everything was okay, the next minute it wasn't, and then I had a doctor coming in apologizing for the loss that has occurred. And these are the next steps. And I just remember being in the hospital at two o'clock in the morning and just saying to my ex-husband I need to get out of here, I can't stay here, I need to leave Right Like I just it was trauma in a state of fear, it was a state of you know, I don't understand this.

Speaker 1: 4:41

There were so many things swirling around me. He was able to make it happen that I was able to get out of there and I just felt like I couldn't catch my breath for a period of time because it was just so like unwinding and unnerving. And then you know, to go forward from that. The interesting thing is every single year. Whether I wanted to, deliberately or not, it came back every single year, and that, too, was a journey, and even though, like I have my kids, they're grown, and even though you know all this time has passed, there still isn't a year that goes by that I don't remember that.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Yeah, yeah, it is life after losses, just that it's. It's a new life that you have to figure out how to navigate through and figure out what you need to do to either heal from that or just maybe put more focus on it, maybe put more light on that. You know more honor, more love. I feel like that's either the one you know. We try to just kind of like, oh well, it's not significant, I don't feel like people are going to take it seriously, but but I feel like it's just your process, because that's your life. Then now, your life after loss. And what does that look like? How are you going to mother that child? Because there's still your child? So, yeah, no, I totally get that. It doesn't. It isn't like a okay, it's been two years, we're good, I'm fine. Now Nothing's going to trigger that, it's it's forever. So you just figure out how's my life going to look now, after this loss?

Speaker 1: 6:24

Yeah, and for for you. I mean I'm you haven't said for sure, but I mean I'm assuming that you have a very intimate story as well that has brought you to where you are today.

Speaker 2: 6:37

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah, I'm not even sure where to do. You want me to start from the beginning. If you would like to share, that's fine. Okay, I would love to.

Speaker 2: 6:52

So, like I said, when my husband, sister, we were married for three years, she had her first child. My sister prior to that had given natural childbirth for 52 hours and we were around her at that time and that that really made me feel like you know what. Yeah, I definitely do not want to go through that. I do not want to go through childbirth. But when my sister in law did she, I saw like a different hospital she was in, there was just a lot of things, and I said, you know what? I could see myself being able to do this. Something told me, like this is the hospital, this is the process, this feels safe and right.

Speaker 2: 7:36

So my husband and I went to fertility clinic because we just didn't know. Like he was told, when he was 14, he had Kleinfelter syndrome, which meant that he had an extra X chromosome and that will typically make a male sterile. So we kind of knew it wasn't going to happen, but we knew there were other options. So let's just see what the options are. So now fast forward, 15 years after that. They've come up with a lot of different processes, and one of them is if we were to do IVF along with him having surgery, even if they could find a partial sperm, and they would check everywhere they could possible in the tissue to see if they could find. So this is a pretty intense surgery for him to go into, because any other way they could not find any sperm, so they'd have to go in surgically to see if they could find anything. So that gave us kind of a lot of hope. I think that's probably the hardest part is because we went into it thinking, okay, well, our options are going to be a sperm donor or adoption, or maybe something else that we just haven't even thought of yet. But for them to say, oh no, you guys might be able to have a child, that's biologically both of yours, was like not what we expected.

Speaker 2: 9:08

At the same time, though, the fear of what both of us would have to go through to get that, and it was still just a sheer, at least small amount of hope. I remember us getting in the car after talking to the doctor, and I just completely lost it and bawled my eyes out. I'm thinking what we both are going to have to go through. At that point I was very holistic and I hadn't taken medicine for over 10 years nothing, not an aspirin, nothing. I was like trying to keep my body as clean as possible and now I'm going to pump myself full of all of these drugs and go through all these, all this process. To me like it was going to be a big sacrifice. Right To do that to my body and for him to go through it and then to know we could go through all that and they might not find any sperm. It was just like ugh, we wanted the baby, bad enough that we said we're going to just do this, we're going to go through all this testing, go through the whole process. So that was like in August and by January we were ready to go ahead and go with the IVF cycle. They did find a lot of stuff that I needed additional medications for that they we kind of went into it like well, my husband's the one that's going to be the focus of the infertility. But I had a lot of issues around my own infertility that I had no clue about and that they discovered and I had this very small window of being able to. Even I was in my early 30s and they said you're not going to have a lot of years to do this, so we've got to get moving.

Speaker 2: 10:54

So the beginning of January, the year that we were doing the IVF, part of the process was that if they went in and they did not find any sperm, we had to have a donor ready and the doctors were very much so do you have anyone that is in your family and my husband's side that could have that bloodline that would be willing to do that? And I mean we went through his brother. We like mentally went through what about your brother? What about your uncle? What about your dad? What about? And it just it didn't feel right for us. It just felt too much of to ask somebody to do that and for people who do that, like that is pure love. I just we didn't want them. We didn't feel comfortable asking anyone. So we found a donor that we were happy with. That was very similar to my husband. We felt like it was a very good match in reading all his descriptions. So we had that ready.

Speaker 2: 12:01

So we go through the process the day of he had his surgery and then the next day I went in for my egg retrieval so they took out all my eggs and I'm just coming out of they had me in like Twilight and I'm just coming out and the doctor comes in and they just said we didn't find anything. And oh my gosh, it was like I just taken, like we had done the first layer of this process and for them to say and they were the funny part was they were like we're so optimistic. But the doctor was like you thought that we would find something. And we were like well, yeah, of course. Like we just thought this would all just come together, like we just didn't see it not working. We thought you were going to find, like to find one or partial sperm, like it just in our brains was like of course they're going to find something.

Speaker 2: 12:58

So it was just my mom and I that day and it's kind of like what you said. I was like I got to get out of here. I can't even call my husband and his family and tell him this. Can we just like do a normal thing? My mom's like I don't think that's appropriate right now. Like I think you should go home and be with your husband and talk to him and I said no, right now I just need to pretend like none of this is happening, because in like a day or two I got to go in and complete this IVF and have this embryo transferred. You know, once that process was ready. So we just went somewhere and I just kind of walked around and was just trying to figure out like how, like this, I don't know, we just thought it all happened for the reason in that it was going to work, and now it's going to look totally different. And though we kind of, you know, we already picked a donor, so we already were prepared that that was a possibility, it just, I don't know, it just didn't seem like that was the way it was going to turn out. So we went home and it was.

Speaker 2: 14:01

Yeah, it was a rough couple days before going in for the actual transfer and we did have three embryos that were transferred and they were at different stages. They weren't totally as strong or as developed as they had hoped, which is why they put in all three, cause they just were. At that point the doctor was so devastated just cause the loss of like having to grieve that my husband would never be able to have biological children. And then now he's just like these embryos aren't as promising as we had hoped, so let's just put all three in. And it's very significant. This three has followed me on my journey thus far. Everything is in threes. So these were just at the time I didn't realize that, but there was a lot of significance in those three embryos. That then told a lot to my story.

Speaker 2: 14:57

And so within 10 to 12 days they call you with your blood work, your blood flow. They call you with your blood work to tell you if you're pregnant. And they called and they said your level is very low but it is positive. So you are technically pregnant, but it's very low. And if it doesn't continue to double then this will not be, it will not progress into a pregnancy or viability. So I called my acupuncture. I told her my numbers. She's like oh no, this is a dud, this won't work. Like, move on, this was a failure. She was very blunt about it, where the doctor was like, no, this is, we're still giving you more hope, like, but we got a positive, so anything could happen from here, but nothing progressed. Couple a little bit of our levels in our HCG 1F, but nowhere enough that it was considered like a good pregnancy. So yeah, so that was our first part of the journey.

Speaker 1: 16:07

So, as you're talking through it, you can feel the intensity and the emotion of what you experienced. And you know it's hard, because what people don't understand, I think for people who haven't been through it, is that level of intensity that you're going through because you do put so much weight into a possibility yeah, yes. So to have those disappointments their disappointment isn't even the right word, because the grief that goes along with it is so heavy that disappointment doesn't even feel like the right word to put on it. And I think it's hard too, because it's not just something that you're experiencing as a woman, but your husband also experiences, and what he experiences is a different kind of experience than what women go through. So I know you didn't really get to that yet, but that's something during our time together. If we could talk through that, that would be a great thing to talk about too.

Speaker 2: 17:24

Yeah, I think you're right and I always forget that and I think as women, we tend to focus on our part and then other women's part of that journey. But I mean, he had more evasive surgery and procedures than I had, and he was in recovery and he was dealing with the fact that he had hope and now there's nothing right and like, yeah, you forget, like what, what that was like for him. So I think that's why I couldn't tell him that day, because I felt like I felt very responsible, like maybe if I had just said let's adopt or let's do something else, like it's not worth it. But I definitely pushed him to go through, not that he didn't want to, but I encouraged him, that it felt like it was meant to be, like that they gave us this opportunity because after all those years, he was going to then be able to have a child, right, like it only happened because of that. And then to just say, no, you went through all that and now you have $20,000 of debt and you have nothing. You're left with nothing, like you know it.

Speaker 2: 18:42

Just, yeah, it was very hard, and even those two weeks like people think it's funny, but I mean, we had those embryos, an image of those embryos, framed it in front of our TV so that we looked at them every day for those two weeks and it's yes to other people's two weeks, but for us it was like those were our three babies and the possibility that we could have three children or two or what like. We just felt very like the odds were really in our, in our favor. So it's two blows, like yeah, and it's like what, why like what was? Why? Just don't even why did any of this happen? Just felt like pointless.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Yeah, and where does your faith go?

Speaker 2: 19:27

So at that time it took a long time to like, even until somebody even said do you have faith in this process? And from the beginning all the way towards the end, I had it hadn't even occurred to me. Hope was the only thing that was like a word that I could focus on. But I really didn't have any faith because I don't offer. At that point I just felt like I don't know.

Speaker 2: 19:56

I feel like my story up until that point of growing up I was just trying, I was always writing this like really heart wrenching, really like I don't know it was hard to see the good in, in what had come of my life that far. So I don't think I ever had any faith that my life would look differently or that I would be blessed with like. I always had hope of that, but I never had faith in that. My faith was there was none, I would say zero until somebody told me that that was what was missing and then I had to physically write it in my house, that word, because that's what had been missing. So it's very key that you said that, because that is the word that I didn't even. It was so far from my grasp that it didn't exist.

Speaker 1: 20:51

So did that come in during this period of time where you're going through these experiences?

Speaker 2: 20:58

Because the end of our process is when it finally hit me. I was going to a different acupuncturist at the time and she just was like you need faith, you need faith. You got to like you're that's what's missing, that's what's missing for you. And I just said, yeah, but what is it tied to? I don't. Who am I having faith in? What am I having faith in? Like I don't.

Speaker 2: 21:25

I don't feel like anybody owes me anything and I don't feel like I deserve these good things to have. You know, it just feels like I'm the one of the, I'm the person that has this like dark story. But if you were to meet me, you wouldn't know any of that. I'm very good at displaying that everything's been wonderful. I've never experienced hardships. I don't talk about it. So to me it was like well, that's the story I've been writing my whole life. So why? Why should this be any different? I can hope for something to change, but do I have faith in that? No, like it's just going to continue being this dark story that I just kind of put somewhere else and continue just acting like everything's great.

Speaker 1: 22:13

So it was in that moment that it kind of flipped a switch for you where you started to shift gears. And what did that look like for you when you started to shift?

Speaker 2: 22:28

So I don't think it was still tied to anything my faith, but the idea that I was worthy to have it, if that makes sense. Like for the first time somebody said you're allowed to have faith, you're allowed to believe that you're deserving Like. For me, faith is like believing that good, that some higher being right, so that God feels like you deserve to be handed good in this world, right. So at that time it was the first time I said like I am worthy, but I don't know who that faith, who is responsible, you know, to have my faith in? Where is my faith in? Because I didn't know at the time. But for the first time I said I'm missing this, I need this. And it's taken up until the last year for me to really tie that to anything and for me to feel the full impact of having faith. So yeah, but that would be so after the IVF we're talking three more years until I was even confronted with that idea of faith.

Speaker 1: 23:41

So, and through that journey, I mean at some point, you get pregnant.

Speaker 2: 23:49

Yeah, so we after the IVF, we had ordered two vials from this donor In case something went wrong with the one vial during IVF. You don't want to have that whole cycle be a waste, so they have. You ordered two. So we had one donor vial left. So two months after the IVF failed, I did. I didn't have to do IVF anymore because my husband wasn't involved. Now, now we could just do a simple IUI, which is just some. They still have you on meds and they still track your cycle and everything, but they're not, you know, doing anything outside of you with the embryos. That's just a very simple, easy process. So two months later we try that.

Speaker 2: 24:35

We go through that first cycle and it didn't work. And at that point, like we were like we can't get like one more blow here, like we literally were done, like we can't do this anymore, so exhausted. But I just needed something in my arms and I needed something to love on and just I needed a break. So so we got like the cutest, smallest puppy we could possibly have found and the day we picked him up, she literally bathed him and swaddled him like they literally like they hand you a newborn baby. Even a picture I have I look like a newborn baby with when you have them on your chest in the hospital. I have that image. I feel like my heart just needed something to feel similar to just getting something that I could love on and raise, and like something that my husband, I could, you know, kind of unify us.

Speaker 2: 25:38

So for the next year, that's like all we could do is just put our focus in on something else. We just couldn't continue to do it. And then that same sister-in-law that had the baby that made me kind of start this process has her second baby. Now I'm like Ugh, like I really want this still, like I'm not ready to just be done, like I just let's just try again. And we call to order more of the donor vial and they're completely out of it and I was like, are you kidding me? Like this was our, this was the guy that we spent like months and months finding that was exactly like how are we going to? We have to go through that whole process again and I don't think that people like understand that when unless you have to go through that because there's just all these levels of just feeling like that's the right, especially if you're doing an open donor, but then your child has the opportunity to meet. It's important to pick the right person and it's very difficult. So it takes a lot of research and a lot of learning about them to see who feels right. So that was like a blow for us. But we found another one. We do a cycle Doesn't work.

Speaker 2: 27:04

I think we did one or two with that donor. We keep doing these cycles. We did four more cycles and we are on like now it's been like a whole year of in between these processes because you might have a cycle that doesn't go well, you don't have enough follicle, just all the process through that. So we're like at the end of the year and I'm like I'm done with this doctor, I don't want to walk into this fertility clinic ever again. Like I'm so done with this. I'm so I need new, a new place. I knew somebody else to look. I said this is just we're not getting anywhere and this is just like blow after blow after blow of not working. And now we're on our fourth donor. So, like at this point we like have no care, we're just like whatever, like this really I don't even care anymore who we pick, because we keep going and they run out and we can't afford to buy more than one or two at a time. Like you know, for that much of money and investment we don't want to just buy like 10 from one donor. So we just bought one for each cycle and that was it.

Speaker 2: 28:13

And then by the time we were ready to do the next cycle, they'd be out. So we started with this other doctor and he just was determined like I know exactly what's wrong with you, I know exactly what I need to give you and you'll get pregnant right away. So we did a cycle with them in the January following and we did. We got pregnant that first cycle. It was just like he was like a mad scientist, like he wasn't a fertility clinic per se, like his degrees didn't match up with what all the other you know reputable places, but he just had an idea of what he thought he could do for women that would work, and people had gone to him that had experienced eight miscarriages and he got them pregnant multiple times. So we had a lot of faith in him. And then for that first cycle to work, we were like, okay, all right, this was where we were meant to be, this is the place we were meant to go to. So we went through that process and we found out. It was so beautiful.

Speaker 2: 29:23

We found out on my father-in-law's birthday so we chose not to go out and celebrate with him and the family because I knew I'd be taking a pregnancy test that day and I said, well, either, if it's negative, I don't want to be around. Anybody Like. I know that might not make sense to other people who are like, ah, no big deal, you just try again. But for us it was like we'd have to like mourn that for a while every time we get that negative test. So I just said, well, we're going to stay back today, but we might be calling you with good news and if you don't hear from us, then you know again, this didn't work. So when we got the positive test and were able to call him and tell him his dad over the phone on his birthday that we were finally pregnant, it was, like you know, the best day we could have imagined and anything that kind of tied his family into it more. You know what I mean. Just because it is such a different process for a lot of people it's not something you like talk about to end your family. So his family was so close with us in this process, so tying them into it was just very important to us.

Speaker 2: 30:34

So at like I think we went in for our second ultrasound and the tech said she was looking at the image and she just said you know what I don't feel good about this. There's something I see like in edema or some kind of fluid on the back of the neck of the, on the baby, and I want you guys to go and to maternal fetal medicine. Like I'm going to refer you out early from us just to get this looked at because I have concerns. So my husband was with me for that ultrasound and we just went in the parking lot and we're like, are you kidding me? Like so we've just been through all this and now something's wrong with this baby. Like we just couldn't, we couldn't comprehend that. And the doctor there was like, well, you know, she might be seen something. It might not really be anything, it's early, you're probably fine. But the fact that she saw something that early, I mean we had a feeling something was wrong. So we were just like trying to make sense of it all because they couldn't tell you anything. They don't know anything, they just she just knows what she saw. And she said I see something concerning, and that's all I can really tell you.

Speaker 2: 31:54

So right away we went and got blood work done so that they could see if there were any issues. And we went to maternal fetal medicine. They did a scan and they confirmed yes, we're seeing exactly what that tech was seeing. And then it was like April. So we started that cycle in January. So it was like April 29th at this time and we got a call from the, the doctor who had done the blood work, and they just said well, you're having a girl, and we know this because your baby has Turner syndrome and what that means is that she's missing an X chromosome. And I was like, wait, what? Like? My husband has an extra X chromosome. He can't have kids because of that, and now we're having a baby girl that is missing an X, like this, perfectly like. It just seems so beautiful how they fit together so wonderfully like for already a relationship that might have been difficult one, when she would find out that he was not her biological father but now had a diagnosis that was this like the, the female version of his like. How can you not like those two coming together. It's just I don't know that call though. It was difficult and I had no clue what Turner syndrome was.

Speaker 2: 33:27

As we realized what it was, we were like, wow, she is like literally perfect for us, and the journey up into this point was required to show, to make us show up for this little girl and know that this is not going to be an easy journey. She's probably going to be in and out of hospitals with heart surgeries or all these hormone things. She's going to have a different life and she might not be able to have kids of her own and there's going to be a lot that goes into this. But we felt like, okay, hey, this is all coming together so beautifully. Um, so we just were. It didn't really matter at that point what the odds were. We weren't even looking at that of the survival rate. Um, we just were like, wow, she is Perfect, she is our big girl. Like this is what this whole process was. And then all kind of like that whole everything happens for a reason thing was like she's our reason, like she's the reason that we had to go through all that. So so, yeah, she, and we had already picked out a girl name and a boy name. So our girl name was Audrey, after Audrey Hepburn, and so she was our Audrey and we were already signing cards from her and yeah, we were just kind of we were in denial that anything would go wrong, even though the percentage is like less than five, that she didn't make it through pregnancy. But yeah, she just felt like it just felt too good to just be like what you're going to give us this beautiful, beautiful girl meant for us, and then you're going to take her from us, like what is the point? So, yeah, that's, that's the beginning part. So that was.

Speaker 2: 35:23

We found that out the end of April and then on Mother's Day, it was my first Mother's Day. So I was pregnant. We had several ultrasounds in between then. She kept getting sicker and sicker and more fluid building up around her organs and her body and nothing was looking good and it was going to be any week that she would pass. But for Mother's Day, I got my first Mother's Day. She was alive and I celebrated with all the other moms, but I think it was at the same time. I was like this is going to be me possibly my last Mother's Day. So there are parts about it that were very beautiful. Everybody was very supportive of looking at me like a mother, because that's another hard thing Like most women don't get to celebrate Mother's Day until their babies here in their arms, whether that's a safeguard to protect yourself, or people just don't acknowledge you as a mother until you're have a baby alive in your arms, whatever that is. Everybody really supported the fact that I was a mother and that I got to have that special day. So our wedding anniversary was only like a week after that.

Speaker 2: 36:47

It was May 22nd, and my husband and I planned a dinner to go out to celebrate our anniversary, because things were so difficult and we knew pretty much any day she was going to pass and we're just we're just kind of waiting for her to die. So I was at work and I started bleeding and I was like, come on, it's my anniversary. Like why, today, you know, I just want this day to again pretend like everything's going to be fine and act like nothing bad is going to happen. But that was the day and as I was leaving, my boss was like oh, I forgot to give you um, I have this book what to Expect when You're Inspecting. I forgot to give you the book. Here you go, and I was like I probably don't need it, I think I'm going to get it. So I drove myself home and I called the doctor and they said well, we can't see you till Wednesday to find out. That's the next time we have available for you to come in to get an ultrasound. So you may go into labor before then, which you may not, and your baby might be okay. The bleeding might be just normal, you might be fine, but we'll schedule you for Wednesday.

Speaker 2: 38:00

So I had to like go to work Monday, tuesday, and potentially be carrying this daughter who had passed away inside, and I was 16 weeks then, so I was starting to show, and so people were asking and, yeah, it was just like, okay, I'm going to be in the hospital, I guess I'm still have hope, maybe I don't know. And then we went in Wednesday and they confirmed that there was no heartbeat and they had to do measurements because she was far enough along that it was going to be close to whether or not they would have to induce me and I'd have to give birth to her, or if I could be put on the hospital I would have to give birth to her, or if I could be put under and it's once you're further along, it's called a DNE, so it's a little bit more evasive, and but then we wouldn't get to see her and I wouldn't know what had happened. It would just be I go in and I walk out and she's gone. So within that span of five minutes of being given my options, I have to decide what I wanted to, because if they're going to schedule which one, they've got to schedule it right away, because the longer you wait, your body will naturally just go into labor. And if I didn't want to choose that, I'd have to choose very fast if the next day I'd be ready to do a DNE.

Speaker 2: 39:33

And so I just like, how do you, how do you decide what to do? Like, how do I have this? I don't even know. Like, literally my biggest fear is giving birth, and now I'm going to give birth to a baby that's not even living. Like I don't know, I just couldn't. But at the same time I just said well, can I see her? If I'm being put under? Like, how can I? Like no, like you don't really understand what we're doing. There's no saying her. There is basically no her by the time we get everything out of you and that just like, how do you decide? So I just said, just put me under. I just I want this to be all over with. I want to be done with this because I'm a. I'm very scared that if I give birth to her, then that's it. I'll never want to go. I mean, if I've already got this big fear of giving birth, I'm pretty much that's it. There's no hope of me ever wanting to try again. So that's what I decided.

Speaker 2: 40:35

But it was so devastating to even like say that because it was so much like like I don't want to see her, like I'm telling her, like you're not significant enough for me to go through that to see you and hold you. So just the thought that she would see or feel that way, I just felt like a horrible mother, like choosing myself over her. Yeah, I don't even know it's. I don't know how I feel about it still to this day and what it would look like if we went. But that's where I was at in the five minutes I was given like okay, and I was. I was like I don't know, I don't know how I feel about it. I don't know how I feel about it, but I was like okay, and what it would look like if we went.

Speaker 2: 41:20

But that's where I was at in the five minutes I was given, like okay, and I was honestly I knew I had 12 hours until we'd have to go in to have this. So there were 12 hours and if she had really passed that Friday before there was time, if she was meant to be in my arms then she would come early. So I just kind of left it up to that like I'm going to schedule this and whatever will happen in between this time. But that night I didn't sleep like at all because I'm just waiting for her to get ready to go into labor and once my body had started going to labor that they'd have to call off the DNA. So just waiting for that to happen and then not to have that choice anymore.

Speaker 2: 42:04

So, yeah, we went in and when I was in the room about to go and have the DNA, this group Sheriff Lancaster, where we had lived, they came in and they asked if they could take her remains and include it in a shared burial with all babies from that two month period and we'd have a place to go and visit her and we'd be able to be involved in the organization and be able to honor her and have her name involved in all their ceremonies, and and I for somebody to acknowledge her remains as significant, when I had just kind of kind of let that part, I kind of ignored that part, thinking that I was either going to be able to hold her and then those remains would be significant, but they still felt that, even with the DNA, that her remains were significant enough to be included and that's just was such a blessing that they so so needed and so so impactful to us.

Speaker 1: 43:12

It's so beautiful the the opportunity to be able to have a place to visit and really spend time and just be in a space of healing and grieving and acknowledgement. There's so many things there. For myself, I I didn't have that experience where I was able to give birth because it was an emergency situation, and that's something I know a lot of women go through. But then it's also the struggle of grieving, not having something to say goodbye to. Yeah, and a lot of women I know go through that. I mean just through my journey. I think that's one of the most difficult things, because when you don't have something to say goodbye to, it doesn't. It's not that it doesn't feel real, it's very real, but for the rest of the world it's not so real. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:16

Yeah, I almost feel like I'm not sure if I would have changed the process, but I feel like if I had an image of her and I had her in my arms and people would make her meaningful and make her real. You know, but by not having that, somehow it's just like never happened and it's not allowed to be significant enough because there wasn't ever anything that people could see as proof that she existed, you know so, yeah, you're right, it's so hard and the I think that's where a lot of the, the head stuff comes from of not knowing what to choose is. Will people take this seriously?

Speaker 1: 45:03

Yeah, and whether knowingly or unknowingly, I'm not sure if you even realize this when you said it, but when you talk about your anniversary, it's a time where a marriage, you know, is where two people are fully committing themselves and you know they're probably the closest that they'll ever be in their union. As far as you know, getting married in that special day and celebrating that time, you and your husband were celebrating that closeness right like you, you don't have that same kind of closeness day in and day out throughout the year, but that special day where it's acknowledging the love that you two share Again, I see it absolutely being so beautiful that that is the day because she wanted that connection and that was the day you were so deeply connected as a family. It's absolutely beautiful. There's so much to your story that it is almost like it was manuscript by God, by a higher power. You know, just because there's so much that I mean how else do you describe it? How else do you even put words on it? I mean it feels like the hand has been in it, you know, through this process, but then not only through this process, but just touching you and having to place you in a space where we're going to take you from this intimate place of what mothers go through and we're going to put you in a space where we're going to help you connect with other women who understand this kind of pain. And now you're going to serve as a conduit for healing and support and giving them guidance as far as where they can go to connect, for the support or not, to not to feel like they're on an island by themselves experiencing this, because a lot of women it does feel very lonely. It does feel very lonely and if you don't have someone who's alongside of you, it is hard, it's very hard, and that that person being alongside of you, I mean. There's a lot of women who are in relationships and maybe they're not in supportive relationships, maybe they're not able to have those intimate conversations with their partner, or maybe they're living a thousand miles away from family where they don't have someone to go to, like their mom or their sister or you know somebody like that.

Speaker 1: 48:12

One of the things that you have mentioned that I think it's really important we talk about too, is you had talked about your family and you had talked about. You didn't say it, you could feel it when you were talking about it was this pressure? Because there was another kid coming into the family and you know, and it's like, okay, so the family is getting bigger and you're surrounded almost with this like microscope on you, not by the family per se, but more where it's self-imposed because you're going through all of this. But then it's almost like, well, hey, I want that, but I'm almost like mad that it's so easy for you, right, yeah, can you talk to that piece a little bit? Because right now, somewhere in the world, there's a woman listening to this interview and she's probably thinking I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with these feelings. I don't know how not to feel what I feel or what this is.

Speaker 2: 49:31

I think I stopped seeing it and now I can see this. Heartbreak and loss is a hardship, right, and that's what life is. We just go from hardship to hardship to hardship right Just because someone's hardship isn't around their infertility or their loss. It might be a loss of their parent, it might be they just can't. Their partner is not loving and supportive, and I think what you have to focus on is you're not. I think it's so hard is that we assume that we're all meant to be able to have children and it's supposed to be easy, that it's just how it is right.

Speaker 2: 50:19

But it's just your area and your personal hardship. You can't write everybody's hardships to be the same. Everybody's journey is unique to them. So where they've struggled monetarily, with relationships, with feeling alone, maybe you didn't have those hardships right and you took them for granted. You've had a loving and supportive partner and you took that for granted because somebody else has five kids, but they're in a really, really hard relationship and a really dark place in that part of their life.

Speaker 2: 50:56

So don't you're not being punished in any way. It's just that's the hardship you've been dealt. It's just kind of like the card that you're dealt that is going to get you to a different journey and it's going to be a different path, but that's where that's what's going to take you. That's like your high mountain that you have to climb. You know some of your life it was kind of easy, you know you coasted through a bunch of stuff and you took it for granted.

Speaker 2: 51:21

This is your high mountain but it has the best view and it's worth just keep climbing because when you do reach that there's there's a different gratitude you have when you do actually have that child, whatever that journey ends up looking like. But when you have that child, you're going to look at that baby a whole lot different and not to say that it's a different love, you just are going to look at it with a different appreciation than maybe another mother who that part was just kind of handed to her very easily. You know, having kids never experienced a loss, but for you you really you climbed that mountain and you just never gave up. And when you look at that child, it's just it's worth every single hardship to get you to that. But it's yeah, don't think of it like why am I being punished in this thing that everybody else can do so easily. It's just that's your particular hardship.

Speaker 1: 52:23

I love. What you said, too in the very beginning is that you can create your family whatever way you'd like, as far as what it looks like. So for some women they may not be able to have a baby, but they could adopt, and if it becomes you know too much, maybe it's just pseudo adopting someone else's child for a period of time, or adopting a pet or whatever it looks like. Whatever you can handle, and I think that's really important.

Speaker 1: 52:59

And I am reminded of a situation that a couple of weeks ago I was in a store and I was looking for a greeting card and on the other side of the aisle I hear two women talking, and one of the women is talking about somebody at work had lost a baby and she wanted to get a card. And the other woman said well, why would you do that? Why would you do that? Why would you send this woman a card? And she said because if I had lost a baby, I would want a card. And I thought that was really beautiful, that this person was taking the time to acknowledge this woman in this way. And I just wonder for you, rachel, what do you suggest for people if they know somebody who's lost a baby. What do you tell people that is helpful for them to help someone through it?

Speaker 2: 54:07

Just any time you have the opportunity, as long as they're willing, just let them know that you're thinking about them and you're thinking about that baby specifically and acknowledging the significance of that baby whether that baby passed at four weeks, five weeks, like there's no, there's no gauge on when that baby was significant, because it was significant and, I think, just acknowledging the loss. And then there's so many specific days within the year that you can honor people who have gone through a loss. Just by October 15th, at 7pm, across the world everyone lights a candle in memories of all the babies that have been lost and that means that across the world, for an entire day, there's light for all those babies. If it's that simple in saying, hey, I lit a candle for your baby, I'm thinking of you today, or I saw this bird and it just give light to it and just talk about it and just say, hey, I think about you and I think about your baby.

Speaker 2: 55:11

Because that's what is so hard is that you feel like either one it's not allowed to be significant, or that that child's going to be forgotten, or that you're going to make people feel uncomfortable if you talk about it.

Speaker 2: 55:25

But as a mother, that's like so much joy and people just to you know, I still my grandma bought me an Audrey Hepburn painting and she said I didn't know if you would like it. You know, I didn't know like how it would make you feel, what it make you upset, what it make you mind you have Audrey. And I said, no, absolutely like that, just the fact that you looked at that and you thought of me and you thought of my baby girl, like just whatever you can do to say, hey, I'm thinking of you, I love you, I love you know, whatever I can do to support you, it's just really important. And just remembering those dates maybe the day that they lost the baby, or that due date that was going to be that baby's potential birthday, those dates, it's very significant. We hold a lot. You never forget those days.

Speaker 1: 56:12

Because, yeah, so true, and I could talk to you on and on and on, and I know we're getting you know short on time, but I thank you so much for sharing your story and I mean it's a powerful story and you're just doing so so much to put light into the world for these families and these women and you are such a blessing and it's just beautiful what you're doing. I do have one last question. If I ask all my, all my guest speakers, if I were to find your earth angel feather on the ground and I picked it up, what would your message to the world be?

Speaker 2: 56:57

I feel like around loss is just to show love. Just to show love to those, to everyone, not just the people that are physically here, but to show love for those have passed, whether it be a baby or a mother or a grandparent or an animal, anything, just all that we do with love, and and I can't begin to tell you how much love will flood your life and how overwhelmed you will be in feeling that love back, if that's your focus. It's this beautiful cycle. So, just before you do anything, just do it with love.

Speaker 1: 57:41

And that is so beautiful. Rachel, have a very happy Mother's Day. Yes, thank you, you too, thank you, and that's all we have time for today. This is Catherine Daniels, with Retreat to Peace, reminding you to live your authentic life with peace. And, as always, retreat to Peace, we will see you next time.