Mummy and Oscar at Sofitel Brisbane enjoying High tea with family

Mummy and Ollie enjoying our annual Christmas photo shoot at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens

My husband and I have been together now for almost 11 years. We have actually known each other long than this. We grew up in the same area, a beautiful place called The Sunshine Coast in Queensland. We got together after university at 23-years-of-age. Life was good, we travelled, bought a unit and then our family house together, got engaged in Paris, had an amazing wedding day on the banks of the Brisbane River and are now proud parents to our beautiful sons, Oliver and Oscar.

We now live in a beach-side town, not too far from the city. One which has a beautiful community and we have been very blessed to meet lots of lovely people in the area, at a similar stage in their lives to us. We are loving life as a family of four and know just how special it is to bring a beautiful bubba in to this world. Our journey as some would say, was not an easy one. We found out that we were first expecting our very first son in November of 2013. It was something though that sadly wasn’t meant to me. We had just celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and being big lovers of the festive season, we were eagerly counting down to the most fun time of the year!

After being quite shocked at falling pregnant so soon, we were keen to share the wonderful news with our family and had personalised Christmas baubles made and a lovely celebration dinner at our unit was planned to all enjoy.
We had a really special first scan, where after my two blood tests, confirming that my HCG hormone was going up, that we would be set to welcome our little Chickpea in to the world in July of 2014. Our due date was set to be just four days after my 30th birthday and in our eyes, our son was going to have so much love around him. It truly was a special but also unknown time. As it is for any new parents to be! I was experiencing morning sickness and all appeared to be going quite well up until my morning sickness started to stop. I was extremely worried as any new mum would be and I started to experience slight back pain. Little did I know but soon after our scan, our little one’s heart stopped beating. As you can imagine, we were both absolutely devastated. I remember the day like it was yesterday and I don’t think the time in our lives of this sad experience will ever really leave me.

I had never had an operation before and because what we had was a missed miscarriage, it was only picked up and confirmed just one week before Christmas. Our OB was going on leave that afternoon so I was referred to a lady whom she was a colleague with at the hospital and had the D & C procedure the next day. With it being Christmas, we did not want to risk waiting for the inevitable to happen. It was truly traumatic and I don’t think I would have coped if we had to take the wait and see approach. I felt so empty inside, I felt broken. I know this sounds dramatic but I honestly feel like a part of my soul broke that day. A part of me that I don’t think I will ever get back. I know that we have a little angel watching over us in heaven and as time would soon teach us, our road to parenthood, was still a bumpy road ahead…

We had had a trip planned for quite some time to Paris and Italy which was great that in the end that we still got to go as we had booked before we found out that we had been expecting but of course, we wanted our baby here happy and healthy more than anything and that was what we longed for as soon as we had experienced the loss.

Once one experiences the loss of a child, everyone of course deals with grief differently. I know my husband was absolutely devastated also and in his heart there is a special place for our little souls who didn’t make it earth-side, but having sadly lost his dad just weeks before he turned 21, he had experienced grief more that I had.

In early May of 2014, just two months before the original due date of our first son. The due date was also the same date as my parents meeting anniversary. (Can you tell that I’m quite big on dates and special anniversaries!)

I think that I knew that something wasn’t quite right with our second pregnancy. We decided to buy our current family home the day that we confirmed our positive pregnancy test. We knew that soon enough, we needed more room that what our two-bedroom unit could accommodate for. It was mid-May when we attended one of my dear friend’s weddings. I was quite active in helping out on the day, dropping off things to the hotel and helping set up the aisle with scattering the rose petals. At the reception when I started bleeding, I was worried but not too worried. After all, we hadn’t actually experienced proper bleeding the first time round when it was deemed a missed miscarriage.

After many hospital visits and blood tests over the course of the next week, including two ultrasounds, it wasn’t until I was in excruciating pain and dealing with quite significant blood loss and clots that we realised it was an ectopic pregnancy. It was originally thought to be a natural miscarriage and despite Doctor Google leading to be highly likely it was an ectopic pregnancy, due to my symptoms and my HCG not going up the way that it should have, it still didn’t make it any easier. I remember sitting at my work desk, not feeling very well at all and no-one really knowing the true extent of what I was going through at the time. I had called my husband to bring home some Panadol for the pain and remember being in agony crying on the phone to the home doctor to come out and see me.

I remember the doctor clearly saying that he highly thought it was an ectopic “ruptured” pregnancy. I hadn’t really heard too much about ectopic pregnancies but have later gone on to know another handful of lovely mummas who sadly have also been about of the club which no-one ever wishes to join! After originally saying no to an ambulance, in hindsight, I totally should have opted to go in the ambulance! Lesson learnt the hard way! Pretty sure the stabbing pain that I felt in my right side was my tube rupturing as by the time we waited to see a triage nurse and a doctor in the ER at night time, it wasn’t too long until we had the scan that confirmed our little one’s fate. Sadly, there was no hope for our second baby. We will never know the gender sadly but in my heart, I always thought a little girl for some reason. I didn’t have morning sickness like I did with the other three pregnancies that were boys, but perhaps it’s because that my HCG hormone never got high enough perhaps. It’s hard to tell and we will never know for sure. With our first pregnancy, we were able to do chromosome testing but that was with a private hospital and because the emergency rupturing situation meant I was to go to the nearest hospital first, I ended up also having the operation there too. With the loss of our first son, there were no chromosone issues. I often wondered and worried if when he stopped growing was when I had had a reaction to a commercial cleaning chemical that had been on our bath/shower which I had had a reaction to, but we will never truly know and as horrible as the whole life journey has been, as the doctor said so clearly to us both that day. Sometimes, life just happens. The things that happen in life, don’t always go the way that you had hoped. I guess that is what makes the future so exciting.

For a long while there, I spiraled in to a bout of depression and anxiety, I didn’t know how to cope. I should have sought professional help then. Luckily for me, I eventually did. During our second pregnancy I sought help and I am so grateful to the help that I did receive. Life is so different now and the best kind of different. The birth and journey of our two gorgeous sons is something that my husband and I are so very proud of. Life really truly is a MIRACLE. I have made a promise to myself. To not forget your past, but to live in the future and to forgive. xo

– Rachael Elizabeth, The Baby Blossom Editor and Founder. xo