Aubrey’s story: Ectopic Pregnancy

*I am honored to host a series of guest posts by mothers on dealing with the loss of our little ones during pregnancy or shortly after. Each mother has written a summary of their journey and then a letter to the baby they lost. I have found this to be a really healing part of my journey and would recommend that any mother who has lost a baby write a letter full of those words she wanted to express, but never got the chance.*

Aubrey’s Journey:

Ectopic pregnancy is quite honestly something I never figured I’d have to deal with. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Infertility is also something that sort of blind-sided me. It took my husband and me around two years (and one IUI procedure) to get pregnant with our son Judah. A few months before getting pregnant with him, we had a very early pregnancy loss. It was sad, but we only knew about the pregnancy for two days before I lost it, so it didn’t really have much time to sink in. After having Judah, my husband and I decided that instead of doing any fertility procedures we were more interested in pursuing adoption. We had already started working with an agency when we were totally surprised with a positive pregnancy test in early December. I immediately started feeling nauseated, so I was convinced that this was going to be a healthy pregnancy. I had some lab work done which was initially reassuring but the ultrasound did not look right. Repeat lab work and another ultrasound revealed a non-viable pregnancy outside the uterus just after Christmas. Thankfully, I wasn’t in too much pain and so was able to use medication to treat the ectopic and avoid surgery. Unlike our earlier loss, this one was much more heartbreaking.

Dear Baby,

I was excited and surprised when I found out about you. We thought that maybe God was calling us to grow our family in a different way when you made your unexpected appearance and so you were a wonderful surprise. You have a big extended family and they all rejoiced at the news of your conception. I immediately started thinking about what it would be like to bring you home in the humid August summer of South Carolina.

Then I found out I would not ever get to meet you in that darkened doctor’s office one January afternoon. I almost couldn’t believe it – that God would give our family such a wonderful surprise only to take it away again. And I felt so guilty because my own body was complicit in it all, by letting you start growing in a place where you would not survive. And I felt guilty all over again when I took medicine that would dissolve whatever was left after you died in that inhospitable place.

I still don’t understand why we lost you. I think some questions can’t be answered in this life. But I know that God is good and his plans are perfect. Even if we’d never had another child, he still would be good, but in the same inexplicable way that we lost you, He blessed us with another surprise. Just about two weeks shy of the one year anniversary of finding out you were gone, God gave us our sweet Naomi Ruth, your sister.

This world is broken and I am reminded of that every day. I wish I could have met you here, but I can rejoice that you are perfect and whole in a world with no brokenness, pain, or sadness. I also rejoice knowing that I will one day get to meet you and finally see what color your eyes are.

I love you, Baby.

Mama