Welcome to our Virgina page.
Our Chapter Leader in Virginia is Lauren. You can contact her via Email @babieswithwingsva@gmail.com
I have 5 healthy children. My husband and I wanted to have a 6th baby. I was still in my twenty's and thought it would be no big deal. I got pregnant very easily as usual and had my first known miscarriage a few weeks later. I was devastated! I knew that most women would experience at least one in their lifetime.... but I could not believe how much I grieved the loss. What hurt so deeply was that everyone was so quick to point out that I already had 5 kids... this made me feel selfish, like I should not even be sad for wanting another one and having lost it... so now not only did I feel tremendous sadness but I also felt guilt and I felt I had to hide them both. People also tried to make me feel better with what I like to call "pat" answers.... they tried to explain God and why this had happened.... they told me I needed to move on and not question "God". I did move on but it was only to hurry up and get pregnant again because I wanted to escape my sadness and the awful things people said to me because I was so sad. I thought that if I got pregnant again I would be able to move on... not that I would Forget Charleigh. I just felt I could hide my emotions better if I had something new to focus on. I got pregnant again easily. I was scared to death... I all to soon discovered that once you lose a baby.... "miscarriage robs you forever of the peaceful innocence of pregnancy". I started to bleed between 8-10 weeks and lost this baby too. This sent me into a panic. I did not understand why I had lost 2 in a row. I began to blame myself for this one (we named Bailey)... I feared I had gotten pregnant to soon after the last miscarriage. I had fears set in that something was wrong with me. I was angry at every person who had said to me "oh you'll have another"...... I wanted to shout at them" Oh yeah???? well what do you have to say now?" I really thought the depression was going to kill me. I went to see a counselor to get some help because I could see I was not headed in a healthy direction. I still wanted another baby so after a bit I got pregnant again. I went threw lots of fears but I just could not believe that I would loose yet another. I was also feeling better emotionally (some) not so much about the losses but the counseling helped me to learn how to deal with the awful things others said. When I got to week 12 in my pregnancy and I guess you could say even week 10 with no problems I really began to believe this time would be different. Sadly, as soon as I allowed myself to feel comfort again the bleeding started and an ultrasound showed that Callula's heart had stopped. This time people were different though... I noticed fewer cards... fewer calls...know-one knew what to say anymore.... they finally realized they could not just pat me on the shoulders and say"it's gonna be okay" or "God will give you another" because it was obvious now to them that this might not happen. You see, it was real easy for others to just pat me on the back and dole out "easy comments" that don't really take a whole lot of thought but when it came time that the easy things just didn't apply anymore to me... people got scared. No one wanted to guess anymore what God was up too... no one felt they had "magic" words anymore to make me feel better. What they did not realize was... I didn't need any magic words...no one could possibly understand how I felt and that was OKAY... All I wanted was someone to listen... someone to cry with me. Someone who would let them tell me all my silly fears and all the reasons I was mad! I realized that we are a society that "likes to fix" and when we can't just fix it , we back away. This was the worst thing anyone could do to me. I needed people... I needed to be surrounded. Instead I found my sofa and there I stayed .... getting more depressed by the day. When I got pregnant again, the doctor wanted to try some new things she thought might help... they still had no idea what was causing all these losses. They were rather puzzled too because I did have 5 healthy kids all in a row. When the pregnancy got to 12 weeks I began to relax some... I just felt positive that the things I was doing different were gonna work. By 15 weeks I was ecstatic... I just knew our baby girl was going to live and this whole nightmare would all be over. Christmas came and went and we were so happy. Then, on a weekend in January I had some light bleeding... I freaked out. My doctor said she would see me on Monday or that day if I wanted... I opted to wait because it was mostly brown blood and I thought maybe I had just strained something (brown is old). On Monday, Eden had no heartbeat... I was almost 5 months. I was hospitalized for shock and also to be induced to give birth. It was a long, lonely and sad delivery... I will never forget her... never forget holding her and discovering the only things about her that I would ever be able to know. As devastated as I was by her death, I was encouraged by the fact that I had carried her so far... we were puzzled though because the treatments... meant to prevent blood clots had not worked... they did find a clot in her cord. After her death I found a specialist in California who does research in pregnancy loss of the most difficult types. They accepted my case and made it quite simple for me here in Va. They simply told the Doctors here in Va what to do and had my blood sent to California where they did their tests on it. Before the results came back I was pregnant again. This time the Doctors would not do the same treatments because they said it had not worked with Eden. It scared me but I still had very high hopes. I carried "Tully" till 13 weeks when the heartbeat stopped. Again I was devastated. Because the story is long I won't go in to it now but, the doctor who was on call in the hospital botched things up during the surgery and caused me to have some of the worst nightmarish pictures in my head of my baby.... I will never forget. He forever ruined any beautiful baby images of "Tully". I have learned to replace them but I have never forgotten..... anyhow, after we lost Tully I got back the results from California. Not what I wanted to hear but at least now I had some answers. It was discovered that for an unknown reason.... my body had suddenly started to treat pregnancy like it was a cancer. When I got pregnant, the baby became a ticking time bomb... I could carry 2 weeks 10 weeks 20 weeks or 9 months and the baby would just be attacked till it died. There were some treatments but nothing was proven to work and they were insanely expensive.... by the time you would have a baby if you got lucky enough...... the LEAST you were in the hole was 100 thousand dollars and I did say at least! We decided that even though we could not understand why this had happened to us... we did not have the resources nor the mental energy left to go threw anymore. We called it quits. Then I accidentally got pregnant and we had another early loss. I was sad and I missed Isolde very much but I never really allowed myself to get to attached... I was angry.... why did God even allow me to get Pregnant if it was all just going to end? After we lost Isolde my husband said he would have a vasectomy.... he never did but I went on reliable birth control and I very slowly healed... never fully.... I became active in my hospital where I work in the Bereavement services program. It is a great program but we do not have the services available that BWW does. What an awesome addition BWW would be! Last summer I began to have severe migraines. I went on topomax but the neurologist never told me it would ruin my birth control. I became pregnant again in the Fall with another girl. Everyone told me that since it had been so long maybe my body had miraculously changed. I did go on some of the treatments to suppress my immune system... to try to trick my body in to allowing the pregnancy to grow. Zaida (her name means grow) grew for and lived for about 16-17 weeks and her heart stopped. I was once again devastated..... I just don't know why... I don't have the answers.... all I know is that I love them all and I miss them and I have always wanted to bring honor to their memories by doing good for others. I have done all I possibly can to help support moms and dads when I become aware of a loss. Thanks,
Lauren
Our Chapter Leader in Virginia is Lauren. You can contact her via Email @babieswithwingsva@gmail.com
I have 5 healthy children. My husband and I wanted to have a 6th baby. I was still in my twenty's and thought it would be no big deal. I got pregnant very easily as usual and had my first known miscarriage a few weeks later. I was devastated! I knew that most women would experience at least one in their lifetime.... but I could not believe how much I grieved the loss. What hurt so deeply was that everyone was so quick to point out that I already had 5 kids... this made me feel selfish, like I should not even be sad for wanting another one and having lost it... so now not only did I feel tremendous sadness but I also felt guilt and I felt I had to hide them both. People also tried to make me feel better with what I like to call "pat" answers.... they tried to explain God and why this had happened.... they told me I needed to move on and not question "God". I did move on but it was only to hurry up and get pregnant again because I wanted to escape my sadness and the awful things people said to me because I was so sad. I thought that if I got pregnant again I would be able to move on... not that I would Forget Charleigh. I just felt I could hide my emotions better if I had something new to focus on. I got pregnant again easily. I was scared to death... I all to soon discovered that once you lose a baby.... "miscarriage robs you forever of the peaceful innocence of pregnancy". I started to bleed between 8-10 weeks and lost this baby too. This sent me into a panic. I did not understand why I had lost 2 in a row. I began to blame myself for this one (we named Bailey)... I feared I had gotten pregnant to soon after the last miscarriage. I had fears set in that something was wrong with me. I was angry at every person who had said to me "oh you'll have another"...... I wanted to shout at them" Oh yeah???? well what do you have to say now?" I really thought the depression was going to kill me. I went to see a counselor to get some help because I could see I was not headed in a healthy direction. I still wanted another baby so after a bit I got pregnant again. I went threw lots of fears but I just could not believe that I would loose yet another. I was also feeling better emotionally (some) not so much about the losses but the counseling helped me to learn how to deal with the awful things others said. When I got to week 12 in my pregnancy and I guess you could say even week 10 with no problems I really began to believe this time would be different. Sadly, as soon as I allowed myself to feel comfort again the bleeding started and an ultrasound showed that Callula's heart had stopped. This time people were different though... I noticed fewer cards... fewer calls...know-one knew what to say anymore.... they finally realized they could not just pat me on the shoulders and say"it's gonna be okay" or "God will give you another" because it was obvious now to them that this might not happen. You see, it was real easy for others to just pat me on the back and dole out "easy comments" that don't really take a whole lot of thought but when it came time that the easy things just didn't apply anymore to me... people got scared. No one wanted to guess anymore what God was up too... no one felt they had "magic" words anymore to make me feel better. What they did not realize was... I didn't need any magic words...no one could possibly understand how I felt and that was OKAY... All I wanted was someone to listen... someone to cry with me. Someone who would let them tell me all my silly fears and all the reasons I was mad! I realized that we are a society that "likes to fix" and when we can't just fix it , we back away. This was the worst thing anyone could do to me. I needed people... I needed to be surrounded. Instead I found my sofa and there I stayed .... getting more depressed by the day. When I got pregnant again, the doctor wanted to try some new things she thought might help... they still had no idea what was causing all these losses. They were rather puzzled too because I did have 5 healthy kids all in a row. When the pregnancy got to 12 weeks I began to relax some... I just felt positive that the things I was doing different were gonna work. By 15 weeks I was ecstatic... I just knew our baby girl was going to live and this whole nightmare would all be over. Christmas came and went and we were so happy. Then, on a weekend in January I had some light bleeding... I freaked out. My doctor said she would see me on Monday or that day if I wanted... I opted to wait because it was mostly brown blood and I thought maybe I had just strained something (brown is old). On Monday, Eden had no heartbeat... I was almost 5 months. I was hospitalized for shock and also to be induced to give birth. It was a long, lonely and sad delivery... I will never forget her... never forget holding her and discovering the only things about her that I would ever be able to know. As devastated as I was by her death, I was encouraged by the fact that I had carried her so far... we were puzzled though because the treatments... meant to prevent blood clots had not worked... they did find a clot in her cord. After her death I found a specialist in California who does research in pregnancy loss of the most difficult types. They accepted my case and made it quite simple for me here in Va. They simply told the Doctors here in Va what to do and had my blood sent to California where they did their tests on it. Before the results came back I was pregnant again. This time the Doctors would not do the same treatments because they said it had not worked with Eden. It scared me but I still had very high hopes. I carried "Tully" till 13 weeks when the heartbeat stopped. Again I was devastated. Because the story is long I won't go in to it now but, the doctor who was on call in the hospital botched things up during the surgery and caused me to have some of the worst nightmarish pictures in my head of my baby.... I will never forget. He forever ruined any beautiful baby images of "Tully". I have learned to replace them but I have never forgotten..... anyhow, after we lost Tully I got back the results from California. Not what I wanted to hear but at least now I had some answers. It was discovered that for an unknown reason.... my body had suddenly started to treat pregnancy like it was a cancer. When I got pregnant, the baby became a ticking time bomb... I could carry 2 weeks 10 weeks 20 weeks or 9 months and the baby would just be attacked till it died. There were some treatments but nothing was proven to work and they were insanely expensive.... by the time you would have a baby if you got lucky enough...... the LEAST you were in the hole was 100 thousand dollars and I did say at least! We decided that even though we could not understand why this had happened to us... we did not have the resources nor the mental energy left to go threw anymore. We called it quits. Then I accidentally got pregnant and we had another early loss. I was sad and I missed Isolde very much but I never really allowed myself to get to attached... I was angry.... why did God even allow me to get Pregnant if it was all just going to end? After we lost Isolde my husband said he would have a vasectomy.... he never did but I went on reliable birth control and I very slowly healed... never fully.... I became active in my hospital where I work in the Bereavement services program. It is a great program but we do not have the services available that BWW does. What an awesome addition BWW would be! Last summer I began to have severe migraines. I went on topomax but the neurologist never told me it would ruin my birth control. I became pregnant again in the Fall with another girl. Everyone told me that since it had been so long maybe my body had miraculously changed. I did go on some of the treatments to suppress my immune system... to try to trick my body in to allowing the pregnancy to grow. Zaida (her name means grow) grew for and lived for about 16-17 weeks and her heart stopped. I was once again devastated..... I just don't know why... I don't have the answers.... all I know is that I love them all and I miss them and I have always wanted to bring honor to their memories by doing good for others. I have done all I possibly can to help support moms and dads when I become aware of a loss. Thanks,
Lauren