I’m writing this to give the hopeless hope. I have had many trials on my way to motherhood and I’m abbreviating and telling my long story in hopes that it can prove that beautiful blessings are born through darkness, heartache, and what seemed like endless obstacles. My story has a happy ending but at so many points it was and could have been devastating. I’ve had so many trials that I will blaze through all the details.

In my twenties I had drastically irregular periods and eventually after seeking answers I found out I had a pituitary tumor. The growth hormone secreting tumor was removed in 2016 at 21mm in width and I had a 50/50 chance of being cured. After surgery, I immediately started having regular periods which was new to a girl that had 3 a year throughout her twenties. In 2017, two months before my husband was due to deploy, we had a happy accident and got pregnant. It was my first pregnancy. I was terrified to be having a baby with my husband deployed but I was so thankful for the surprise blessing. At 16 weeks I went in for my routine appt and found the baby had no heartbeat. I’ve never been more devastated about a loss in all my life. I called my husband who was over 8000 miles away to tell him we’d lost our baby. I was admitted that night and induced. I had the baby in less than 12 hours and found out the gender after he was born. A precious baby boy. A love that left a hole in my heart and my existence when I lost him. With a deployed husband and the loss of my first pregnancy in the 2nd trimester, I was just going through the motions everyday. And I resented my husband who just couldn’t help me process our loss for many reasons that I now understand and have been able to let go. Once he returned home, we had to decide on trying to conceive again or if we just wanted to enjoy our world and not risk the pain again. We decided to try. One morning 6 days before my period was due, I woke up with brown spotting. I took a pregnancy test and there it was. The faintest of lines. I went for labs that day and my hCG was only 13! It shouldn’t have even showed up on the stick but it did! I continued to have heavy brown/black spotting for weeks. I was terrified to lose this baby. I barely had any symptoms at all. All US and labs showed normal progression. My progesterone was only at 21 and subsequently dipped down to 19,17, then 15 when I begged to be out on progesterone. Got the meds. Progesterone never went above 20 while on meds. Still spotted. One day in week 6, I had bright red blood and I was terrified and convinced that I was losing the baby. I went to the doc and I was told things were looking good. Still spotting brown/black/pink. I continued to spot brown/black and at week 9 I had a large black brown spotting episode and went to the doc the next day and was diagnosed with a subchorionic hematoma what was 3.2 cm but didn’t take up half of the placenta that had developed so I was okay. The doc said I could spot bright red and pink and not to be alarmed. I did. I went to the restroom on a lazy Sunday and filled the toilet with blood at 12 weeks. I was absolutely terrified that I had lost the baby. I called the doc the following day, had an US and baby was perfect and my hematoma has shrank drastically. I went back at my 16 week appt and had another US and the second set of genetic lab work. The second baby is a boy! The labs came back abnormal. He had a 1/13 chance of have downs which is significant in comparison to the normals. I opted for the NIPT test in week 20 because I wanted to know if he was OK. We also had the anatomy scan in this week and he was growing perfectly and had all his parts where they needed to be. The labs finally came back that my sweet boy didn’t have downs. I also had a specialist review his 3D US and he had normal femur measurements and a nasal bone present so I was at ease that he certainly didn’t have downs. Whew! I could breathe.....right? I made it through the first 20 weeks and while my pregnancy had plenty of hurdles my angel was healthy and still mine. Week 32. I get t-boned driving to lunch and immediately thrown into contractions within seconds of impact. I stayed in the car until the ambulance could take me to the ER for and evaluation. I was hooked up to the Toko and was having regular contractions at 4-5 minutes up to 60-70 and dilated to 1. I was admitted for a 24 hour observation and given lots of fluids. My contractions increased to every 2-3 minutes and I stayed at 1. My US showed he was head down so if I needed to give birth, he was in the right spot. The docs advised me on preterm labor and dosed me with procardia. I had 2 doses and my contractions were still increasing in length and intensity. I had a total of 5 dose and my contractions finally stopped. Baby was stable, no bleeding, no contractions. And I was discharged home after 26 hrs. I continued my normal appts and everything was normal. I definitely had all my bags packed by 32 weeks but they went in my car once I was home from the hospital. I got a terrible chat infection following the accident that I think was from airbag dust and inhaling particles and smoke. The next weeks passed and I had a cervical sweep at my 39 weeks appt. I lost some of my mucus plug the next day and at 39w4d I was induced and had my sweet, perfectly healthy boy on Thanksgiving Day. I honestly can’t believe the experiences I had leading up to such perfection. I never held on to negativity or sadness and held tight to my blessings. I found happiness anywhere I could find it. No matter what your experiences are, please remember that blessings are real and trying times make the blessings full blown miracles. Here’s my miracle who blesses me daily.