Photo Credit to Annie Chen Photography
You barely noticed anything, if you noticed anything at all.
But a few months ago, I went through the most painful time of my entire life. Something I never imagined could ever happen to me. The loss of a child. The loss of my baby, my little baby girl, born at 26 weeks in August 2022. No, I didn’t announce my pregnancy to the world. I didn’t have the time. I’ve been on a roller coaster of all sorts of emotions since the day I started my second IVF for baby #2, at the beginning of the year 2022. It’s been hard, mentally and physically draining. Going through all the treatments again for weeks and months, with shots every day, several times a day. I was sick, very very sick, for weeks and weeks. But I got pregnant, or should I say I got pregnant again, for the second time, with another miracle baby, so it was worth all the pain.
Soon, the first trimester was behind me. Everything was fine. Or so I thought. I was still very sick (like very, very sick), but on top of that I started to notice that something was wrong, and we had to go to the emergency room several times, spending hours waiting in worry every single time. But things got worse, I spent my entire summer going back and forth from the maternal fetal medicine clinic with my husband David, fearing we would lose the baby at every moment. Going from moments of hope and moments of despair. All the time. All. The. Time. I can’t even tell you how hard it was emotionally. But we kept going, guided by our 2 year old ray of sunshine, Lucie, who made every day a little bit more bearable. A little sweeter. Despite all the uncertainty of what we were going through.
We feared we would lose our little baby so many times. But no, she was still there, warm and cozy in my womb. I could feel every little kick. Everyday. My baby was very very small, too tiny, and she didn’t manage to develop as she was supposed to. When we found out she had a congenital heart defect, we were devastated but willing to do anything we could do to save our baby, knowing we were navigating in a world of the unknown every day.
Unfortunately there was more going on, and we had to go through an amniocentesis to find out, waiting for weeks of several panels of results, always with a little ray of hope within us. And suddenly our world stopped. Our baby had an extremely rare and very serious genetic condition, affecting her entire neurological and physical development. And there was nothing that could be done to save her. She was too fragile. As we learned the devastating news, our precious little baby was still kicking inside my womb. She was strong, her own way of being strong, and she fought as hard as she could. She was my strong baby girl. She will forever be my strong baby girl.
Photo Credit to Annie Chen Photography
One day I was pregnant, the following one I was not anymore. Our sweet Linnea was born, stillborn, on August 24th 2022. She was a beautiful, perfect baby girl who will always live on in our hearts.
We love you,
Lucie, mom and dad.
Photo Credit to Annie Chen Photography
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