It’s our 9th wedding anniversary today. And while I’m happy and in love with the man I married back in 2008, I can’t help but feel this sadness that will probably always be here on this day. I hate that our anniversary has been tainted by a heartbreaking loss four years ago. Chris was just telling me this week, “If we were going to inevitably lose our baby, why did have to be that day? Why did it have to happen on our anniversary?”
On Monday, July 8th, 2013, I found out I was pregnant after our first IVF cycle. After four years of the fertility doors always slamming shut, month after month, year after year, to see that double pink line… to this day, besides the birth of my daughter, that moment I saw those lines was very likely the most elated I’ve ever felt. And then that week was a rollercoaster of emotions, up and down, not bleeding, and then bleeding, and not again. My beta was 63, and my doctor, the strong, silent type, congratulated me on the phone that Wednesday. I was officially pregnant. Still bleeding, but still pregnant.
I had four days to create an entire lifetime for this child. To surprise my family that they were going to be aunts and grandparents. I got to see the look on Chris’ face when he opened the gift bag with the onesie in it. I had four days to mentally plan a baby shower, a water birth delivery, which room the baby would sleep in. For four days, through the uncertainty, I remained cautiously optimistic. And yes, I celebrated.
And then, Friday, July 12 of 2013, I got the call that is every infertility patient’s worst scenario.
“It’s not good news,” he stated in the voicemail, as I gripped my phone at work. “The beta came back at 53. I’m sorry, but it seems to be a miscarriage.”
I felt the world dissolving.
It was my anniversary. I was supposed to go home after work, go out to eat to celebrate.
Instead, through tears, I called my husband. I made arrangements to leave work early and then I came home and curled in a ball on the couch.
The sheer unfairness of losing your child on what is supposed to be a happy day is such a colossal middle finger.
The next four anniversaries have come with mixed feelings. Every anniversary, I kiss my husband, I thank him for being one of those nice guys and we renew the contract for another year of wedded bliss. But Adam isn’t far from my mind.
He’d be almost three and a half now.
Sometimes, when I least expect it, like the grief that comes out of nowhere, I see him. I see what he would look like if he was here. The blond haired little boy that races past me in the crowded store. The words that makes me whip my head around when a mom calls for her child: “Adam! Come over here!”
Will it always be like this? Will I never be able to hear his name without the air being sucked from my lungs? Will I always have that clench in my stomach when someone announces a March 20th due date? Will this ever get easier?
This weekend, we’re celebrating. We’re going to a new (to us) restaurant, and my parents are taking the baby. Today, I thought about Adam. I explained to Olivia about her older brother in Heaven. Not that she had a clue, but I thought she needed to start hearing about him. Because those four days he was here, is all I have of him. His embryo picture, my necklaces, my teddy bear. It’s all I have of my first baby.
I am so sorry Risa 🙁
Author
Thank you friend. <3
Risa & Chris,
I am so sorry this is such a bittersweet day for your family. Sending hugs (but also congratulations, for your 9th anniversary!).
Love
Sabrina
Author
Thanks so much girl. I appreciate your words.
Hugs to you both. I also remember the ones I lost. The pain never goes away, even though it becomes less sharp. Thinking of you both.
Author
That’s exactly it. It’s less sharp, but still so much there.
I remember sitting in the NICU hospital waiting room with my parents, listening to the doctor explain how my sister’s baby – my niece & their granddaughter – was born with a virus, a super common virus that we all get but is devastating to fetuses (CMV) and how that caused her to be deaf in both ears, but would also likely leave lasting brain damage and that she’d probably never walk, talk, etc. It was their 30th wedding anniversary. I remember thinking when I looked over at them – that that was the kind of marriage I wanted. It’s easy to gloss over the negative parts of vows, the poorer, the sickness, the bad when you’re young and in love. It’s another thing to actually live them out over 9, 20, or 30 years. As a couple, you just never know what life is going to throw your way, or why certain timing seems especially unfair. What you do know is that you have each other through it all. I’m truly sorry that you have to share your anniversary with a painful memory – and I think you deserve extra congratulations. For being an example of what marriage is really about.
Author
I’m crying reading it. I needed to hear this. So very much. So thank you.
Sending thoughts and a hug. It’s hard, so hard on those loss days, especially when they’re linked to another significant date.
Author
Thank you!