Hi mamas. I wish you all health, happiness, and baby dust. My sweet rainbow baby, Amelia, is 5.5 months old now, and we are nearing the due date of her angel sibling in heaven, which would mark his/her first birthday. I just wanted to share our story.

My husband and I have been married since 2016. We welcomed our oldest child, Evelyn, in 2018.

February 6, 2021: I found out I was pregnant with baby number 2! I was so excited! Due Date was October 15, 2021. I had my first blood draw at 6 weeks. They said " Congrats! Please come back Monday for a repeat draw."

Monday rolls around. At about noon, I start having some brown spotting/discharge. Call and leave a message with my OB office. I'm spotting like this the remainder of the day, and go in after work for my repeat draw.

Around 5:15pm, my doctor office finally calls back. The nurse explains that this is normal and nothing to worry about. Then she pulls my hcg levels from that day. And she spoke the dreaded words, "Oh. You're numbers have dropped. Sweetie, you are have a miscarriage." I was devastated and broken. I hardly slept. I took the next day off of work and spent it sleeping/crying. I decided to name my angel Phoenix. I felt that my baby needed a name and Phoenix felt right. I decided to call my OB office again and request an ultrasound to confirm that I was miscarrying. They got us in at 8pm that day.

I'm holding my husband's hand while she does the ultrasound with the TV off, so we can't see anything. After 10 minutes, she turns the screen on. She zooms in. "That's your baby." I'm just silent and crying. She zooms in more. "And that's your baby's heartbeat!" I watch as Phoenix's heart beats on the screen and now I'm full on sobbing. My baby is alive!

An ultrasound is scheduled for 2 weeks to check progress and a follow-up blood draw is nedleded 2 days later. They call back with my results. My numbers are still dropping. But they are hopeful, since we saw baby's heartbeat. They say no more blood draws and that we will go off the ultrasound results. We are told we are in a "wait and see" situation, or a "threatened miscarriage". We are hopeful.

I have been spotting this whole time. On the evening of March 2, I get a sinking feeling. And on the evening of March 3, my spotting goes from light brown, to bright red. I'm trying to stay hopeful, but deep down in my heart, I knew. At this point, the follow-up ultrasound was less than a week away, so I am told to wait it out.

March 6, 2021: One month since finding out I was pregnant. I'm 8 weeks pregnant. Around noon, I start having cramping. I rock my daughter for her nap around 1. The cramps keep coming and going. Contactions.

A little after 2, I use the restroom. Bright red blood. I feel a strange sensation, then hear a plop. I look down, and sure enough, I see the sac. I rinse my angel off and place him in a baggie, in case the Dr needs to see. I call the on-call Dr (it's a Saturday) and she says I don't need to go to the ER unless my bleeding gets worse. I'm numb.

Fast forward to Tuesday and my ultrasound. My bleeding has nearly stopped. I knew my baby was gone. I'm holding my husband's hand again. And they confirm whaylt I already knew. My baby is gone. My uterus is empty. Silver lining: I passed all the tissue and don't need a D&C.

My husband and I go to a park and sit by the river, holding each other and crying. We both felt strongly that our angel was a boy. We once again agree on the name "Phoenix" and decide that we will refer to our angel baby with he/him pronouns.

Fast forward to early August 2021. A positive pregnancy test. I feel all the emotions.. happy.. excited..nervous..scared. mostly scared. I have blood draws done every 2 days to monitor my hcg. We are told that once my numbers are greater than 6000, we can have an ultrasound. My first draw is 47. But my numbers double each time. We get to see our baby for the first time at the end of August. Our rainbow was measuring ahead and had a strong heartbeat!! Due Date April 23, 2022.

I spend the first trimester terrified. We have some spotting, but all is well. Second trimester comes. I start feeling movement around 14 weeks. In December, we found our our rainbow baby is a girl!! A few scares in the 2nd trimester and then we hut the third trimester. After all those blood draws in August, I couldn't believe I was already in the 3rd trimester!

At my 20 week scan, we learned baby girl is way ahead on weight. She had already weighed 1 pound at 20 weeks! I have growth ultrasounds to monitor her weight for this reason, and the fact that Evelyn was 9.5 pounds at birth, just 4 days past her due date. We agree to induce at 39 weeks (Easter Monday). At 36 weeks, I'm already dilated to 2/3 and baby is an estimated 7.8 pounds.

April 10, 2022: I have some early morning contractions and convince my husband to stay home. Around 8am, I roll over in bed and feel a pop. In the bathroom, I pull down my pants to see what's going on and blood and blood clots hit the floor. We head to labor and delivery. I'm admitted. The doctor and I have several plans in place. But thankfully all is well. At 3:35pm, my rainbow baby is born! We name her Amelia.

Amelia is almost 6 months and is just the best baby. Not a day goes by we dont think about Phoenix, though. But he sent us Amelia and we will always be thankful. Our girls will know who Phoenix is. We have a ch=istmas stocking for him. An trasound of him, when his heart was still beating, sits on our mantel. I have a tattoo of a phoenix with angel wings to honor him.

If you read this far, thank you. May your story have a happy ending. Love and baby dust to you. ❤