'Valiant Ones' thread for those who've lost their dream gender

aprilmama:

I finally can have peace and closure knowing that there was nothing more we could possibly have done for our beloved Jacob.  

You are such a strong woman....it's okay to break down....it was your little one.  I consider myself a strong person, but a death of your child is one of the most difficult things that someone can go through.  I go over time and again that if I would have just gone with my gut and gone somewhere else, but I didn't....and I can't go back.  You made such a hard decision I couldn't even imagine being put in that position.  My eyes are welling up with tears just thinking about it.  Even though it's 12 years ago for me...I still want her back...I still want to hold her and take care of her.  Life just doesn't make sense sometimes and it can be cruel.  I know the long road you have ahead of you...and you will never forget your little fighter.  My little girl was a fighter too...when the autopsy was done they said that she shouldn't have lived that long.  She fought, but lost her battle with sickness.  I wish I could have fought for her because I have so much more strength to give.  LIfe will never be the same...and I don't want it to ever be....I don't want to forget.

I'll keep you in my prayers...especially during this time when it's still fresh.  You'll make it through even though it may seem unbearable.  You will learn to cope and move forward...not move on....because he'll never leave you in spirit.

((((HUGS))))  I'm glad you got some answers that give you peace.

~Alissa

This is going to be brief as I am already crying and the screen is blurry. lol I am so sorry for your loss. I woould never wish this on anyone and I know the pain all to well. I have two wonderfully healthy little boys at home and my heart has always ached for a daughter. I have lost my dream gender, not once, not twice, but three times.

The first and second were is 2004. I was pregnant with twins and they were both girls. I was sooooo happy that I could barely contain myself. My girls had a genetic X related chromosome abnormality called Turners Syndrome, but it is very much possible to survive and lead a happy life with this condition. My water broke premature with Angela (baby A) and I went into preterm labor. They could not stop it at that point and after 27 hours of labor, I delivered my daughters. They were alive and fighting until the end, but never took their first breaths. I have their hat and blankets, I have their footprints, I have pictures. I held them, I loved them, I let them go and buried them. This was the hardest thing that I had ever done in my entire life. I did not want another child and we were waiting on my first period to start birth control. God had other plans and my period never started. 4 weeks after the birth/death of my daughters.... I was pregnant. This time I was sure that God would bless us. He did bless us, just not in the way that I wanted. He blessed us on His terms with another healthy baby boy.

I had been on birth control for most of the next 4 years. When I was not, we always used condoms. We were out of town for Christmas holidays this past December and did not have any condoms on us. lol So we had unprotected sex ONE TIME the day after my period ended. Super Bowl Sunday (YAY Saints. lol) I was shocked with a positive pregnancy test. I am from Louisiana and this may sound dumb, but I thought a positive pregnancy test on the day that the Saints went to and won their first Super Bowl meant that miracles could happen. lol I knew without a shadow of a doubt from the moment that I saw that positive test that I was carrying a girl. We went in for our 12 week OB appointment only to discover there was no heartbeat. Because of what happened with the twins, genetic testing was done on Grace. On March 22, we got the results and the hurt and pain hit me like a ton of bricks all over again. It was a girl and she was perfect. All tests were normal and only God knows why Grace was taken from us.

So that is my story and I certainly know the pain that all of you feel. We will be attempting a girl. This is our first and last attempt at swaying. This can go three ways. We can get another perfectly healthy boy, we can be completely and totally blessed with the daughter of our dreams or we will have a fourth angel in heaven watching over us. I am hoping and praying for one of the first two.

All I can say is your story made me cry! SOmeties life seems to be so unfair! I just want to send you my prayers for a good sway and most of all the safe arrival of a baby....its amazing how something many take for granted is so desired for those of us with angels. Rebecca

I am sorry for all your losses...I have found my losses(3 of them...one was twins.) has been something I still think of and grieve over years later.. 

 

I also lost a dg pregnancy...my first to be exact. I saw the baby with a beautiful heartrate of 155bpm...started to bleed a few wks later and found out I lost not  only one by two babies...I was carrying mirror twins where one hides behind the other but it had died at 6 wks just before the first u/s so we couldnt see it until the baby that was alive died and moved to the bottom of my uterus...I was sent home to naturally delivery my 10 wk twins and put the "products of conception"(cringe) in a sterile cup for genetic testing...the testing came back normal and revealed my babies were male/female(of course they said possible the female cromosomes could have came from me but I new it didnt)...my dream....it happened oct 19th of 2004...its forever etched in my mind and I hate the month of oct for that reason...I went on to loose 2 more pregnancies....my losses totaling a staggering 3 for and 18-19 yr old. I'm not mentioning the emotional turmoil the losses caused in my life and marriage...I felt like a nutter for a lonnnngg time.

 

Thank you so much for sharing your stories on this thread.  I am utterly heartbroken by these losses.  The main comfort I've found this past month though is relating to those who know my new hell of feeling like an alien on planet earth.  

I am so so very sorry for your dg losses.  This is just unbelievably unfair, and I hope with everything in me that we all get our dg babies next time.  I am just so gutted, leveled, depressed, confused, and shocked that this kind of loss has to happen at all.  I believe in God and try very hard to pray and be grateful for what I have, but I do not understand why having my dream son removed so horrifically from my life is supposed to make me a better person, especially if another son may not be in the cards.   Did I somehow cause this?  Was it sex/orgasms right when implantation took place, insomnia, stress over whether to get the H1N1 vaccine, getting the vaccine?  If it was my fault for not controlling my stress levels better then I am beyond devastasted by that.  I was an emotional wreck when pregnant with DD, but not until halfway through the pregnancy when I found out she was a girl.  Then I was a wreck but the pregnancy still went smoothly to full term, so I assumed that my body was bred to make healthy babies and I didn't need to worry about my stress levels or anything early on this last time.  I'll never know for sure whether stress caused the bleeding or the placental anomaly caused the stress, but I will always feel responsible because it was my body that housed this pregnancy 'fail'.  God help me.  

I cannot wait to hold my own healthy, full-term baby in 2011, but I can't see me not being in some form bitter for the rest of my life if my next child isn't a boy.  How can I honestly avoid being disappointed?  And it bothers me now how people are growing impatient with my despondency, like I'm supposed to be over it by now with the knowledge and closure I received this week about how it ended. It has been only 5 weeks, but the impact is lasting.  I know this will plague me for the rest of my life, what could have been of our irreplaceable Jacob.  

 

I was just decluttering and found an old slip that I kept from a fortune cookie I had opened last summer or fall.  I remember being confused and a little scared by the message at the time because I linked every fortune to reproduction.  It says,"Your road to glory will be rocky, but fulfilling." 

Wow, that moved me to tears. I am so sorry for your loss, and the loss of something that you so longed for. I do believe that the will of God will only take you where the grace of God can keep you and hope that you and your DH can soon find peace. I hope that your next pregnancy is a complete one and that you have your third child placed in your arms instead of your heart.

hi aprilmama, so sorry to hear that you had to go through the hard time again.. glad that its clarified and you can continue to strive towards your dream again. Im very sure that you will hold your baby soon and remember back all the experiences that got you there, and you will feel fullfilled! we make our own destiny and i totally believe that there will be light at the end of the dark tunnel that you are passing through now, just as how I have found the light... my thoughts and prayers are with you always!

 I am so sorry to read everyone's stories. They are truly heartbreaking. I too, lost my dream gender baby last fall at 26 weeks gestation. Our story is on my blog, and too long to repost. Have a look here if you'd like to read it. http://katina128.blogspot.com/

 Katina - thank you so much for sharing your story; I followed the link and read it all.  My broken heart goes out to you.  I am so happy though that you are expecting a baby!  That is awesome, and I hope everything goes without a hitch.  That nub looks girly too...

 You're welcome. If my story can give anyone hope, then great. I'm so blessed to be pregnant again, with what appears so far to be a healthy little rainbow. I'm terrified every day of something going wrong again, but I'm trying to stay faithful and in prayer that God will let me keep this one. 

aprilmama:

,"Your road to glory will be rocky, but fulfilling." 

Thanks for sharing that.  I can personally relate to that.

 

youngmoon:

we make our own destiny

 

Aprilmama - I think that is one of the hardest bits too is that people expect you to be over it. I know people are fed up of me talking about her (not true friends but maybe some that I have realised are not) but at the end of the day I lost her not even 6 weeks ago, I can't even begin to process everything I am feeling. How are you doing physically at the moment?

Vickie, I have been thinking about you and all you've been through. I am doing much better. We're actually planning on moving in June out of state, so I've thrown myself into the house-hunting search which has really numbed the pain of our loss. I am completely consumed by house prices, neighbors, and realtors! I miss my Jacob but not nearly as much since I finally know what happened with him in how he died and that he is in a much better place and I don't have to worry about him anymore. I guess I need to start my swaying preparations for a summer/fall conception, but I'm just not into it right now. I'd like to secure a house and get my bearings in a new area before I can really focus on reproduction. My loss has made me appreciate children, regardless of their gender, so much more lately. I just don't care about other people's family make-ups these days because I now understand that you have no idea what people are dealing with and if they are happy or not just by looking at them. I used to stare like crazy at other people, but it just doesn't matter anymore. Heck, I don't even know if I'll be able to have another healthy child. I've just learned that i need to be glad for what I've got, and I am. Of course I feel bad when I think of what could have been with my daughter's little brother. My last big wave of grief was when DH and I had sex 6 weeks after our loss - for the first time since I started bleeding when I was 12 weeks pregnant. It was like I knew that was the exit path my sweet Jacob, who I never saw, took out of this life. I couldn't stop crying. It's all unimaginable, and sometimes it just doesn't feel like it ever happened. Of course I know once we finally buy a house and settle in the obsession will consume me once again, but maybe not as much as before. My period started up a little over a month after the procedure, so my body seems to have healed well. I should be going to bed earlier each night, but I can't stop looking at housing listings!