Infertility and Infant Loss…. When Lightning Strikes Twice~By Guest Blogger KJ

Infertility…the silent grief. The longing to want something so badly that should come naturally. But for so many of us it doesn’t. 
My name is KJ and I am 1 in 8. I have two beautiful children from a previous relationship, and then 3 years ago I meet the love of my life, we get married and life is great. Soon after we decide we decide we want to start trying for a baby of our own, the final piece to our puzzle. Well after months of trying, I knew in my gut something wasn’t right, so off to the doctor we went, it turns out we had Male Factor infertility, easy to diagnose, but hard to treat. So we start seeing our RE, she suggests IUI as a first step. The anxiety through the process was awful, I start wondering if we will ever get the baby we so desperately wanted. So we went through the motions, early morning appointments, injections, ultrasounds and blood draws, with our numbers we had about a 3% chance of this working….and guess what, it did! Two weeks later I had my positive pregnancy test! My HCG numbers weren’t doubling, my progesterone was low, our RE told me “it’s not looking good Kiddo” I had come to terms with the fact that this was too good to be true, probably a chemical pregnancy or something. I went into my 7 week ultrasound and there was a heartbeat, a perfect 171. I could hardly breathe I was so happy. My husband and I were so afraid to let our guard down, after being so disappointed we were still scared to celebrate. After that, things went smoothly….a completely normal healthy pregnancy. This perfect baby, so wanted and loved. 
Brace yourself…..
Fast forward to 30 weeks, I had a doctor appointment earlier that morning, things were great, we had our nursery prepared all ready for our sweet boy. We went from cloud 9, to pulling ourselves out from the depths of the worse possible thing that could happen. At 30 weeks I experienced a rare placenta abruption, bleeding out of nowhere. My husband took me to the hospital, where I was transported by ambulance to a hospital with a NICU, I gave birth to my son Sterling Thomas Tucker at 4:37am on December 22nd my emergency c-section. He was 3pounds 8ounces 14 inches long and looked absolutely perfect. Our NICU Doctors did everything they could for our baby, but he lost a lot of blood during the placenta abruption which caused his tiny organs to shut down. He stayed on life support for 36 hours, and then he took his last breath in the arms of his Daddy and I. Our lives are forever changed, we’ve spent the last 3 months just trying to get through the days, keeping our marriage strong. We’ve been surrounded by so many loving people, people tell me I am strong when just getting out of bed takes maximum effort. Our infertility struggle was not fair, and with the passing of our son, we felt picked on, why us? I’m not sure there’s a greater pain in this world. All of this is still so fresh, but talking about it and having my story heard comforts me. For the last 3 months I’ve been stuck in survival mode, obsessively thinking and analyzing the past and the future and all of the “what if’s”. My mind is so overwhelmed with worry and guilt and sadness that my mind just wants to run away but it doesn’t know where, so instead I drown myself in the busyness of day to day life, take on too much, and focus more on solving other people’s problems so I don’t have to be focused on pain. I would like to believe that happiness exists in my future, grief changes your perspective on life, and as part of my journey to heal I’ve vowed to myself that I’m taking all of that grief, all of that love for my son and I’m putting it into the things and the people I have into my life, I’m giving all of that love a place to stay…..as long as I’m still breathing, this journey isn’t over.
Talk soon Friends 
-KJ