We had eight earlier losses. We use the names Hope and Faith to represent those early losses. We lost Gracen at 21.5 weeks due to a stroke in utero. There were 17 clots in his umbilical cord. A D&E didn’t feel right because of our faith, so I birthed his tiny, perfect body. It was more painful than a live birth, and it caused my uterus to perforate.
I got to hold him very quickly before I started to hemorrhage, which required emergent surgery. I remember thinking I would die and at that point I was so heartbroken, I didn’t care. I made it through surgery, and when I woke up the next day, our baby was gone. I felt completely robbed of being a mom.
As a result of the perforation, when we later lost Eli at 19 weeks, it wasn’t an option to birth him vaginally. That hurt me emotionally. We had no choice but a D&E. It was traumatic to think about, I felt ashamed that he was not intact when he was born. I did not get to see him.
Waiting on Sunrise 