A nurse sat by me and told me that she was sorry. I grabbed her crying asking her what happened. She just stared at me. 

Even though I begged for a C-section, they told me I had to deliver her naturally and would begin the process of inducing me. I just kept telling my husband how scared I was.

Would I hold her?

Would I be strong enough to see her face? And, would she look normal?

A few hours later my OB came in. She held my hand and cried and said, I too lost a baby. Please hold her and spend time with her.

Two days later, it was time to deliver my daughter, who we had already named.

Violet Ann

When she was delivered, there was only the sound of my loud cries. My father told me that the doctor had been crying too. I asked the nurse if she looked normal so I could prepare myself. They wheeled her out wrapped in a handmade knitted hat and blanket. She had a small bear next to her. My family and I took turns holding her. She was warm, with the most beautiful and peaceful face. I could only bear to hold her for a few minutes, and when I asked if she could bring her back they told me that it wouldn’t be a good idea. 

The feelings following, were something beyond description

Being wheeled out of that hospital, in a wheelchair with no baby to a house where the only screams and cries are your own. When you wake up and feel like your heart is being ripped out of your chest and you just beg that this is all a dream. That first Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, all the firsts. One was more gut wrenching then the other.

I was pregnant again, 4 months after burying my first born

I hated that everyone just thought I would be happy again or when a stranger would ask if this was my first. How could I pretend she didn’t exist?

No, this is not my first. My first is in heaven.

The looks of pity and discomfort from my response. I cried at every single sonogram appointment with my subsequent pregnancies. Until I saw that heartbeat on the screen, I felt like I was going to be sick. When my son Logan was born, I thought things would be different. But, at night when I would nurse him to sleep in the dark, I would sometimes get confused or pretend it was her. I would look in to his eyes and wonder if that is how she would look at me.

Two years later, I was blessed with a daughter

She looks exactly like Violet. For three years, I was unable to look at girly dresses or go down an aisle in a store with pink blankets and bows. But, after my daughter Teagan was born, something healed inside of me. It is almost as if Violet sent her down to me. You see, my husband and I were told we could never have children on our own, yet here she was, our blessing. 

 

When I was pregnant with Violet, I was so excited to teach her everything about the world but, it was her who has taught me

She has taught me how to be grateful, compassionate, and to love and appreciate every moment of this life, good or bad. Every step I take, is for the ones that she never could. Even though parenting after loss is complicated; a balance of a world filled with joy, followed by just as much sadness. If I had to do it all over again, I would still choose her. As long as I live, I will speak her name proudly.

For she is part of me, and I am part of her.

I will tell my story, and I will not be silent. Through it all, I will help the women that are new to this club that no one wants to be a part of. 

SaveSave

Samantha Sykula

Born and raised in NY, I studied speech and language pathology at NYU. I am a stay at home mom to two beautiful children, Richard and Charlotte and wife to my wonderful husband, Rich. I have always had a deep love for learning, which has grown further since becoming a mother, I am always looking for new ways to enrich our lives. Becoming a mother changed my life, I learned compassion, caring and most importantly, true love. I hope to share the experiences of my breastfeeding, cloth diapering, babywearing, crocheting, full of love, life.

The post Violet Ann – Break The Silence, Nicole Heinze’s Story appeared first on Breastfeeding World.

A Note from the Editor: Last October 2016, Breastfeeding World supported families who experienced miscarriage, still birth, and Infant Loss.

Our goal- to “Break the Silence” and stigma surrounding their grief during

We are honored to feature mothers willing to commemorate their babies, gone too soon, by giving them a platform to share their experiences. So with that, we are so thankful to the Little Lionheart project for sharing their story of loss, determination, and coping with our Breastfeeding World Community. Please do not grieve alone.

My Journey Through Loss- The Little Lionheart Project

When my husband and I got engaged, only 3 months after we met – we knew we wanted to start a family as soon as possible. We could never have imagined how difficult, devastating and heartbreaking having children could be. We never knew there was a ‘club no one wants join’.

Our first, second and third pregnancies ended in an ectopic and two early miscarriages. Whilst devastating at the time, we knew that we had to keep trying.

We fell pregnant with fraternal twins in September 2012. When we made it past the 12 week ‘safe’ period, the milestone excited us beyond compare. Finally, it was our turn. And to have two babies – amazing! We planned, we painted, we shopped as any expecting parents would.

On the 20^th November, whilst at work, my water broke early (a condition known as Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes or PPROM). We lost our first little boy, Junior.

I went straight into hospital and was placed on rest. I waited for a cervical suture to keep our second baby baking away. However, as wait on the operating table 9 days later, my second water broke. Our second twin Alex was born too early.

Diagnosed with an ‘Incompetent Cervix’, I underwent surgery 3 months later to put in a permanent stitch around my cervix. The goal of this is to keep it closed during pregnancy. The stitch is generally considered 95% successful, so when we fell pregnant again in August 2013, we knew our ‘miracle stitch’ was finally going to bring us a baby home.

Still, I felt something ‘wasn’t right’, but dismissed the feeling, thinking I just had some nerves. We went to our morphology scan on the 5^th of December, I was 19 weeks pregnant. There, we realized that my cervix once again open, and my waters were ‘bulging’ through.

 Our nightmare was beginning again.

Again, I went straight from scan to hospital on strict bed rest, but that very night, I PPROM’d again. The contractions came, but then stopped. Doctors said to expect that I would be delivering our baby boy, Ashley, within 48 hours. But our little man had other ideas.

Even though Ashley’s leg became caught through the stitch into my cervix, combined with having zero amniotic fluid, our little man survived for 4 more weeks. We nicknamed him our ‘little lionheart’. He became our lion heart for his sheer determination to stay with his parents. Parents who loved him beyond measure, parents desperate for him to live.

However our little boy arrived after only 23 weeks and 1 day- too early. He lived for 23 minutes.

Despair does not even cover the feelings we had. We had lost 6 babies in 5 pregnancies. Our miracle stitch had not worked – we had lost our little lionheart. How could this have happened again?

After Ashley’s birth, we used a CuddleCot to spend time with him. Unfortunately the hospital had only one of these vital machines to share between the four families who lost babies the same day. We decided that we would fundraise to purchase a second one for our hospital. It provided the only time we had to parent Ashley – to take photos, hand and foot casts and make memories.

We gave ourselves six months to raise the $4000 needed; but through the love and support of our family and friends, we raised it in 3 weeks. Donating the CuddleCot in Ashley’s name was therapeutic in a way, and gave us a way to channel our grief.

We then established “Little LionHeart”

Little Lionheart is a charity project to support the pregnancy and infant loss community. We fundraise to purchase more Cuddle Cots for hospitals, and we supply ‘memory boxes’ to four hospitals to give bereaved parents so they don’t leave hospital with ‘empty arms’.

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So far we have fundraised $15,000 to purchase three Cuddle Cots, and about to fundraise for our 4^th; and provided well over 200 memory boxes to families. We are also passionate on ‘breaking the silence’ of pregnancy and infant loss. Losing our babies should not be a taboo subject, nor is it something to hide. I will not move on from or get over the loss of our babies. Their deaths makes my family achingly incomplete. We feel their absences every day.

We hope that through projects like ours, and many other similar ones in Australia, we can continue to provide support and understanding to our very special community.

Read more about grieving, coping, and surviving the death of your baby from Dr. Deborah Davis:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/laugh-cry-live/201610/9-compassionate-tips-surviving-the-death-your-baby

Sources of bereaved parent support:

http://nationalshare.org/

https://pailnetwork.ca/

http://sands.org.nz/

http://www.sands.org.au/

https://www.uk-sands.org/

Experience the healing that comes from telling your story—or reading the stories of others:

http://carlymarieprojectheal.com/capture-your-grief-2016

https://grievingdads.com/tell-your-story/

Learn more about this series, a letter from the Breastfeeding World Team

Join us in Breaking The Silence

[col1]Robyn’s Story[/col1]

[col2]Becca’s Story[/col2]

[col3]Megan’s Story[/col3]

[col1]Anika’s Story[/col1]

[col2]Janice’s Story[/col2]

[col3]Randi’s Story[/col3]

[col1]Olivia’s Story[/col1]

[col2]Tasha’s Story[/col2]

[col3]Maegan’s Story[/col3]

[col1]Liz’s Story[/col1]

[col2]Mandi’s Story[/col2]

[col3]Jacinta’s Story[/col3]

Be sure to join us in our social media accounts to be up to date with the progress of our project!

And… Don’t forget to share your brelfies using our HT #BreastfeedingWorld 

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admin

A photography project founded in late 2014 by Alexia Garcia, photographer a Alegares Photography. Breastfeeding World aims to promote breastfeeding and encourage new moms to nurse their babies through the art of photography and story telling.

The post My Journey Through Loss- Little LionHeart appeared first on Breastfeeding World.

Everything fell into place so quickly and so perfectly.

I took the test one December morning-the 29th to be exact. I went to the bathroom and knew it was positive before Matt even left for work. It was so difficult not to tell him, to try and hide my smile and excitement. But, I didn’t want him to have to leave right after finding out, plus, I wanted to do something cute to break the news. I did some brainstorming with my best friend and eventually landed on the idea of making cupcakes. (Even though hubby isn’t much of a sweets guy… Pinterest, where were you then?)

I went to the store, and with my mad baking skills (I am a much better baker now), bought some box cake mix, some frosting, and some pink icing in a tube. I drew a plus sign and a happy face on one of the cupcakes. When Matt got home from work, I gave him the cupcake. He immediately asked me why I would draw an “X” with a happy face. After I explained that it was a plus sign, it didn’t take long for him to figure it out and wrap me in a hug. I don’t think he even ate any of the cupcakes.

That night, we celebrated.

We couldn’t stop talking about all things baby, we even went to a book store to get me a pregnancy journal.

The very next day, the nausea and sore breasts set in. I remember feeling so hungry but only being able to eat pretzels. It didn’t even feel surreal. This was happening, and being so close to New Years, we kept saying “2011 is going to be our best year yet!”

We couldn’t wait to start telling people. I knew there was some sort of secrecy around the beginning of pregnancy and you were “supposed” to keep it hush-hush for a while, but I never really thought about why. Of course, I knew it was because of the risk of miscarriage but I didn’t think it happened that often. I was also pretty sure that my mother had never had a miscarriage and I ignorantly assumed that genetics were in my favor. And, it would never happen to me.

So, we told a few close friends here and there. I even went shopping with a great friend of mine and got a couple gender neutral sleepers from a consignment shop. I can’t remember exactly why, but we didn’t want to tell our parents just yet. Probably because we were still living at Matt’s father’s house while we were saving for our first home.

After a few more days, my symptoms started to fade.

Hell yes-I’m so lucky the soreness and nausea barely lasted a week! The next day, January 5th, which was exactly a week after I took the test,  I woke up to get ready for work. I went to the bathroom and noticed I was spotting. It was not a lot of blood at all, but I knew that it was not normal. Frantically, I started texting with my husband and my best friend, trying to understand what was happening. I was really freaking out.

I needed to call my mom.

For some reason, I had to be sure that she never had a miscarriage before. Again, I don’t know why I had this perception that miscarriages had to do with genetics. On the phone, I was crying. I hate that I had to tell her about my pregnancy through tears over the phone. After talking to her for a few minutes, I calmed down and justified it to myself that baby and I were fine. I figured, I wasn’t bleeding much. I needed to relax. Continuing to get ready for work, I went about my day. Throughout the day, the bleeding only got heavier. At this point, I knew it wasn’t normal and Matt and I decided to go to the ER when we got home.

We arrived there early in the evening, it was already incredibly busy. I had only been to the ER one other time before in my life. The first time I was called back, it was just to answer some questions, and get a history. When was my LMP, age, etc. There were so many questions that I don’t even remember, but I remember feeling that they were questioning my pregnancy.

I kept feeling like I had to justify it, and validate the tests I took.

“I took more than one test, I took a standard and a digital, and I’ve always kept track of my periods and they’ve always been regular”, I kept telling the nurses. There was no doubt, I knew I was pregnant and I couldn’t understand why they were making me feel like I wasn’t, even though that may not have been their intention.

They took my blood, gave me a few cups of water and told me my bladder had to be full so they could do an ultrasound.

Then we waited for two hours. Two hours.

For two hours I had a full bladder. I was bleeding very heavily at this point. But, I couldn’t even risk going pee because they would make us wait longer if my bladder wasn’t full. The uncertainty of what was happening, on top of my physical discomfort, was very taxing.

Finally, they called us back. Thankfully, the tech that performed the ultrasound was incredibly polite and comforting. She explained to us that she saw a sack, but no baby. It was possible it was too tiny to see because I was still so early. I was exactly 5 weeks along that day. She was done, and I could pee, at last. Then back to the waiting room we went.

I don’t remember how long we waited after that. I want to say it was at least another hour. The doctor finally came by, and in my heart I already knew what he was going to say. My hCG levels were a little low and I was in fact miscarrying. The moments between then and getting my discharge papers, are somehow a blur and clear as day at the same time. I just cried and cried. Matt hugged me while I broke down in that waiting room. I remember feeling people staring at me, but it didn’t feel like judgment. There was a woman there, and while she never said anything to me, I could tell she knew what was going on and I could feel her sympathy.

I called my mom after we left and told her we lost the baby.

She found out that I was pregnant with my first baby, and that I miscarried in the very same day.

The following morning, I called out of work. Matt went to work at first, but came home after a couple of hours. He told his foreman what happened the night before and he sent him home to be with me. I think, after he got home, his mom called to check up on me. I believe we talked to a couple of other people on the phone.

We sat in silence for a minute and his head fell into my lap and he started sobbing. That is a moment I remember most vividly. He held it together for me, up until that moment. No, he didn’t go through the physical loss, but he lost his first baby too. The image of my husband breaking down, just that one time, is burned into my memory and will forever hurt my heart.

I went to work the next day. I could barely pull myself together and I remember a coworker asking me what I was doing there, after losing our baby just two days before. Her support meant a lot to me.

By far the hardest part about it, other than the loss itself, was telling everyone that I wasn’t pregnant anymore.

I was mad.

I had Matt throw away my pregnancy journal because I didn’t want it in the house. Thankfully he took a picture of the one page I filled out, so I still have that memory.

Something I learned and would like to bring attention to with pregnancy loss, is what the father is going through. I will always remember how that loss brought us closer together and I’m glad that he felt like he could express his emotions too. I’m thankful that we had so much support, but he was my rock during that time. It was important for me to surround myself with friends and family. Even if I didn’t feel like talking about it, just knowing they were there to talk if I needed to, was enough to get me through. I don’t know if I would have made it, especially if not for my husband and my best friend.

Five years later, we have two healthy children.

Jakob Landon was born in April 2012, my rainbow baby. And he now has a sister, Marissa Willow, born in August 2015. Eventually we figured out that all the men in my husband’s family seemed to have girls first. Knowing that, and comparing how I felt when I was pregnant with our boy, then our girl, we know in our hearts that baby was a little girl, even though I was only pregnant for a week. Had she been born, she would have been named Ava. So that’s what we call her when we talk about her. Her due date was September 5, 2011.

All in all, it’s true that you learn some of life’s most valuable lessons during traumatic events. If you are a woman that has gone through pregnancy or infant loss, you are still a mother. You are not at fault, and you are not alone. You are nowhere near as alone as you feel like you are. If you are a father, you are entitled to your feelings too.

Don’t be afraid to grieve your loss.

Mandi Cohen

 Learn more about this series, a letter from the Breastfeeding World Team

Join us in Breaking The Silence

[col1]Robyn’s Story[/col1]

[col2]Becca’s Story[/col2]

[col3]Megan’s Story[/col3]

[col1]Anika’s Story[/col1]

[col2]Janice’s Story[/col2]

[col3]Randi’s Story[/col3]

[col1]Olivia’s Story[/col1]

[col2]Tasha’s Story[/col2]

[col3]Maegan’s Story[/col3]

[col1]Liz’s Story[/col1]

[col2][/col2]

[col3][/col3]

Be sure to join us in our social media accounts to be up to date with the progress of our project!

And… Don’t forget to share your brelfies using our HT #BreastfeedingWorld 

–

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Samantha Sykula

Born and raised in NY, I studied speech and language pathology at NYU. I am a stay at home mom to two beautiful children, Richard and Charlotte and wife to my wonderful husband, Rich. I have always had a deep love for learning, which has grown further since becoming a mother, I am always looking for new ways to enrich our lives. Becoming a mother changed my life, I learned compassion, caring and most importantly, true love. I hope to share the experiences of my breastfeeding, cloth diapering, babywearing, crocheting, full of love, life.

The post How Fast It All Went – Mandi’s Story appeared first on Breastfeeding World.