Story #95 - Laura, Dumfries VA (USA) - Pregnancy Loss, Termination, Postpartum Anxiety, Rainbow Baby, Latina Mom, Infertility, Trauma Survivor & Mental Health
I was born in Alaska and raised in Uruguay, where both my parents are from. They separated for domestic violence, so the family dynamic was rocky growing up. I came back to the US at 19, after having met someone who lived in the US. I knew this was bad the minute I got here, but being the stubborn person I am, I stayed. I wanted to make this work. God forbid, this was the only person that would ever, ever love me.
I stayed for a year, then went to New Jersey, where my sister lived. New Jersey is our base, even now. It is where my parents first immigrated before going to Alaska. I was so lost when I came to her. The only thing I was good at was school, so that's what I did.
To pay for it, I also worked—used and abused—at a bar during that time.
That's where I met R. He was smart. That's the thing that drew me to him. I could have a conversation, and he cared about what I had to say. He's a Republican, so I would always poke him, "Show me how I'm wrong!" Politics was the basis of our conversations. He was teasing me a lot, and there's something very Latino about that. Latinos can fight; it's not a big deal. You're not sworn enemies, and you can marry the opposition!
After we started dating, I moved in with him in Virginia. He's a Marine and had told me about the Peace Corps. That sounded great, and I applied. Soon after, I was sent to Mozambique, where I lived for two years. That was hard, lonely, and I wouldn't do that again.
But when I came back, we had "The Talk" on whether or not we were going to make this work. That's when we decided to have a baby.
It was 2010. When you try to have a baby for the first time, you think it won't be too hard. Movies tell you that you have sex and then get pregnant, but we tried and tried: nothing. I stopped drinking. Quit smoking. I was like, "My body is my temple." I got my life back on track, and I didn't want to ruin my kid's life before he was even out.
I'm the kind of person who needs to have things done a certain way to function properly. I took the same principle and applied it for myself: ate clean, exercised, did yoga. Everything the books said to do.
We went on a trip to Mexico with his family. One of the places we visited had these little figurines, and the guy who was selling them showed me one for fertility. Of course, I bought it, and I put it in our hotel room—cause that’s where things happen! When we came back, I learned that I was pregnant.
I have two sisters, and they have five kids between the two of them. All c-sections. My mom had vaginal births, and I was a 10-pound baby, so I thought, "I've got this, my sisters had the wrong doctors." I stayed away from hospitals and believed that if I treated my body with love and respect, it would treat me with love and respect in return.
But my kid didn't agree with that.
Elias was still in at 42 weeks. Everyone would tell me, "You're ready to pop!" but I wanted to let him do his thing. I was so happy pregnant. I felt beautiful: mother nature and me. Effortless.
I was so naive.
Naive and ignorant.
My caregivers eventually told me I needed to be induced. I fought the idea because, to me, it was the first step towards a c-section. So I looked on all my crunchy blogs about the less invasive thing you could do to induce and found out about castor oil.
I took two bottles. It was not pleasant. Spent a lot of time in the toilet. But unfortunately, my baby did, too and popped in utero. When my midwife came after my water had broke, there was brown water everywhere. She looked at me and said, "Oh honey. You have to go to the hospital."
That, too, I fought. And hard. I had planned for a home birth, and I wasn't going anywhere: I had my kiddie pool, and I had done everything the crunchy books had told me to do.
But my midwife insisted. So eventually, I did.
The whole time I felt high. I was so chill and relaxed. Agreed to everything. Not at all who I expected to be. At some point, the nurse told me I was only at 7.5 cm, and they needed to do something. Something like a c-section. I asked if I could wait longer, but they said no because I was running a fever of 104. After that, I stopped being aware of what was happening. I was very cold. I have flashes of Elias being born, of him crying, and of things being stuffed inside his nose.
Now I know how important those things were and how important it was for him to be taken care of in the hospital.
But back then, I was bitter that he had been taken to the NICU and spent our entire stay there. I wanted to see my baby. I knew my baby needed to be with me. I had lost control of the entire situation. That was a huge hit, and I felt betrayed by my body.
The baby blues was bad, too. I didn't know this kid. I loved him, but I had no idea who he was. Then there's the nursing part. We were put on two different levels at the hospital. Every two hours, I would have to go downstairs and tell the nurse I wanted to feed him. They'd tell me, "You know, he's losing weight... why don't you give him a bottle? We don't know if you're producing or not. Your child needs food."
It was crushing. I wanted to breastfeed exclusively, and that was the one thing that I could do for him. But I was an inconvenience to them. And I caved.
That's the only time I was bullied or in any way disrespected, but they made me feel like I was hurting my child. Nothing seemed right about nursing in the NICU. They brought me a pump, and it hurt like a motherfucker. I would crank it up—now I know it wasn't really cranked, but it was the worst.
They had also hit my hand's cartilage with the IV, and I couldn't move my right arm. It was difficult to pick up my baby, and I had to learn to do everything left-handed. He was a 10-pound baby, so not easy. But I went with it, and eventually, we grew out of that phase.
Elias and I bonded and were immersed in a bubble of love for three and a half years. He learned to nurse like a champ. The bottle at the hospital was the only one I ever gave him. I couldn't birth him at home, so at least I was going to feed him myself.
And God did I feed him. Everything was solved with la teta. You're crying? Teta. You fell? Teta. It's comfy, delicious, and warm. He's six now, and he still loves the smell when I feed his sister. He remembers which side he preferred. I gave him a shot of milk the other day, and he said he loved it.
He was my perfect baby. My baby blues came and went, mostly because I clung to the idea that my magical birthing experience had been stolen from me. I thought that I had to vaginally deliver this baby to be a mom; if it doesn't go through your vagina, it doesn't count. The word in Spanish for birthing isn't the same as in English. We say, te parí. "I brought you in from my body dropping." It's a different type of relationship. Like an offering of life.
After two years, I started lobbying for a second because I wanted to have two kids within a two-year gap. R. wanted to wait a little longer, but I began to take vitamins anyway. I bought whatever the internet was telling me to do: fourteen supplements and vitamins, yoga, clean eating, no drinking, and no more smoking, which had been a nice permanent change.
I wasn't allowed a home-birth because of the previous c-section, and honestly, I didn't want to go that route either, knowing how negligent I can be when I don't know everything. I decided to trust those who went to school for many years. But I still found the crunchiest doctors out there.
After a while, I got pregnant, and I thought it was my time to redeem my birth. I had a beautiful pregnancy, like the other one. Everything felt right. We went in for the 20-week appointment, and Elias came with us because he knew he was having a sister, and he was so excited. By then, we were going to GW because they were crunchier than anywhere else in the area, and they had midwives who delivered at the hospital. I remember going to that appointment taking the metro. I had Elias in the stroller, and I felt great: I had my baby boy, and now I was having a girl. How much more perfect could that be? It was also the first time I was flaunting my belly, and I felt powerful.
When we got to the doctor's office, the tech has a hard time getting her measurements. I thought, "No big deal, she's probably new. We have a heartbeat. It's fine. We have all the time in the world." She asked me to move a bit and drink some water. She gave Elias cookies and let him nurse, thinking it could make the baby move around a bit. We even danced in the room.
After a while, she tried again but couldn't get the images. She told me, "Baby is alive and well, but I can't seem to get her in the right position." There was also not as much movement as you would expect.
The tech called her boss, who then referred me to the Children's National.
And then, our world collapsed.
They told us she had Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita (AMC). Most people know it because of the club foot, but all of her limbs were like that. I think I stopped breathing. We had no idea what the fuck that was. They told us they needed to do more studies to understand what was happening. I asked what the possibilities of her being born alive were, and they didn't know because she was so small. Everything on the inside was developing incorrectly.
When we came back home, I did what everybody does, and I started googling. I took notes and notes. About everything. I also talked to as many doctors as possible, and that was never enough. Somebody had to know something else, something more.
But no one could give us any hope.
We were told that even if she were to be born alive, she would probably die within a couple of days. If she didn't, she would live a shitty life and would need to be intubated. The prospect of a healthy child was never in the cards.
We weren't given many options: either continue the pregnancy, see what happens, or terminate.
And that's... that's what we did.
We terminated at 25 weeks. By then, everybody knew I was pregnant, which made it harder because I was reminded and asked about it all the time. It was already so late in the pregnancy, and I kept going back to the logistic. What does it mean to have an abortion at 25 weeks?
Because that's what it is: an abortion. And that's what they were calling it. It made me so sad. In my head, I wasn't having an abortion because having an abortion is something you choose, and I wasn't choosing this.
It's such a shitty situation: the last thing you want is abort and end this pregnancy. Still, you feel like you have no choice but to do it.
We knew her name would be Isabella. That was the name we had picked for a girl since R. and I met.
I asked if they could give her an injection to stop her heart before doing the surgery. I knew that since I was so advanced in my pregnancy, they would have to separate her to take her out. They couldn't simply dissolve the fetus, and I didn't want my daughter to feel that she was being dismembered. I wanted her to go peacefully and without any pain.
I remember the doctor's name was Alexandra. She was really, really nice, but also really, really young. She had a supervising doctor who was old and had a cane. He didn't have a steady hand, so that's why she was the one doing it. They were trying to find her heart, and Isabella was moving. She was moving so much. It was the first time in months that I had felt her move like that.
To this day, there is still a side of me who thinks that she knew. She knew what was happening, and she kept moving away.
So I prayed. I prayed as hard as I could for the entire time while they put this huge ass needle in my stomach to reach her and stop her heart.
After the procedure, I had to stay with her for a full day before they could take her out. I have no words for the pain I felt throughout that day. It was on January 31st, which is also the date my dad passed away many years ago. My pregnancy with her was supposed to be perfect, and the last thing I wanted was to hurt her.
When you think about having children, all you want is to give them everything you can. You don't bring children into this world to have them struggle, suffer, or die. To us, bringing her onto this earth would have been just that.
I don't know if it was the Catholic guilt, but even though R. and I made the decision together, it still felt my responsibility. I was the vessel. I should have known better and been able to care for her.
On February 2nd, 2017, I went back to GW for the procedure. On that day, we also celebrate Yemanjá, who is the goddess of the water. She is the lady with black hair in a white dress, standing over the waves. I thought, maybe this is a good thing. Maybe Isabella will be washed away with her, and she'll be ok.
You try to convince yourself that it's best. That it's for her own good. You tell yourself so many stories: that you would have died one day, and no one would have been there for her. That she might have been abused, or worse. But there was also a world of possibilities for her, and I never got to explore any of that.
I don't know. I still don't know. And that's the worst part: to recognize that I didn't give her a chance.
Every time I see a person who has a disability, similar to the ones that she would have had, I think, "This could have been my kid."
I remember one Fourth of July. We were in Alexandria for the fireworks. We had a few drinks, enough to be happily tipsy, and I started getting sad looking at the sidewalks. I thought, "These motherfuckers don't have a handicap ramp." If we had been here with her, she wouldn't have been able to experience the event because she couldn't have gone onto the fucking sidewalk. And I started sobbing. Not only was there no ramp, but there were also all these trees that destroyed the pavement. And I was like, "How dare you, trees?"
It's the little thing that makes me think of her. We'll take trips with our live children that we wouldn't have been able to take with her. I want to do everything for them, everything that I couldn't have for myself when I was little. My babies need this capsule of perfection, and I couldn't have done that for her.
As soon as we left the Children's after they told us about Isabella, I called my mom and asked her to come. I needed her here. So she flew from Uruguay and cared for Elias while I underwent the procedure.
He knew that he had a sister, and we explained that she was not going to come, that she was with God. We told him that she was an angel.
Then one day, I was sitting with him in the bathroom while he was on the toilet—because that's what you do when you're a mom, you totally sit there while your kid poop—and he said, "Mama, I think sister is with God eating chocolate chips cookies."
I will never forget that. Naturally, his sister was with God eating cookies—and not just any cookie! It was great. Exactly what I needed to hear.
I had such a hard time after the termination, not only because we had lost our baby, but also because I couldn't nurse Elias anymore. I had to take specific medication, and it just didn't feel right to keep going. I had to say goodbye to tandem nursing and toddler nursing, or whatever you want to call it. I was always so afraid not to have enough milk to give him. Up until two months ago, I still had milk from when he was born. He just turned six.
But I still have Isabella's milk. I pumped out some after they took her out, and I keep it in the freezer, next to her baby sister's milk.
I don't know why I love breastfeeding so much. I think it's the connection, looking at them with love and compassion. It's a link you never lose.
Loss is not something we talk about in the Latino community. And it's definitely not something you talk about publicly.
My husband asked this morning, "Why are you talking to a stranger about this?" Before him, everyone and their mother had told me that I should go see a therapist—so it remains private—but I told them, "No. I don't want to go talk to a therapist. I want to talk to my family first!"
I need to talk to my family.
When our daughter passed, I had a lot of "Everything happens for a reason," and "It will pass." These comments aren't a form of support. It's dismissive. As Latinos, we need to grief more healthily and not brush it off.
But it's not always that simple, and in a way, I've embodied that. I am battling with the guilt and shame of feeling these contradictory emotions. I keep telling myself that "I didn't get to do this or that," but then think, "She didn't get to live! Why are you complaining?" It bothers me to talk about myself because, ultimately, it shouldn't be about me. I don't deserve that.
I was just there for the ride. Isabella is the one who had to suffer.
I've always been pro-choice. I still am, but I'm aware of more things now, like all the wondering and the "what ifs."
A couple of weeks after the termination, I tried to find support groups. My insurance didn't really cover therapy—or covered only ten sessions, and I felt I needed help for the rest of my life. Ten felt overwhelmingly small. I longed for someone to tell me what to do and to fix me. I tried to talk to R. about it, but it didn't go anywhere. We would end up crying and arguing.
I did find groups for women who had gone through losses, but I never sensed they understood what I had gone through. Most of them had early miscarriages or lost their baby before twelve weeks. All I have from my daughter is that extra ten weeks. I didn't want them to compare my loss to them. It's unfair, but I could only think, "What do you know about loss? We're not the same." I attended one session, then never went back.
We went on with our lives and took a trip to Paris. My mom was still at our house and told us to take some time for ourselves. There was a special on plane tickets that weekend, so we booked it.
This is where R. proposed. It was the worst time. I mean, he hadn't asked me to marry him for years. I knew he had the ring in our closet, and we had several vacations, the birth of our son, we traveled together in beautiful places, and he never asked. Why wait until I lose this baby to propose?
It felt like he was sorry for me.
The day we got engaged, we ended up arguing. It was a shitty time and a shitty trip. I eventually told him, No pasa nada. Nothing's happened; let's move on with our lives and stop talking about that issue. It doesn't exist.
I knew it wasn't the truth, and I knew there was a lot to address.
There still is.
When we came back, we took some time off from trying because I couldn't bear the thought of losing another child. But after a while, I got the itch again.
It took a while for me to get pregnant. And when I did, I'd lose the baby. Three times I got pregnant, and three times I lost them. With every miscarriage, I thought God was punishing me because of what I had done to Isabella. I would shame myself for killing this baby.
I'd believe that Elias would never have a sibling and his parents would die, and he'd be all alone. I have sisters and an older brother who committed suicide when I was 14. My sisters and I became really close after that event, and even more so as we got older. R. is very close to his cousins, his mom, and his sister. I love that about him. His family is so united. If something happens to one, they all chip in and try to resolve it. They take care of each other. I wanted that for my kids: this sense of cohesion.
We ended up going to a fertility doctor because I thought something was wrong. The first pregnancy I lost was never tested. The second came back inconclusive, and the third, it was Turner syndrome. We sort of knew what was happening, but the doctor was not doing anything with me. He told me to take different types of vitamins. He said to try for a certain amount of time and then come back. I could do IVF, but his concern was whether or not I would keep the baby if I got pregnant.
The financial and emotional commitment to IVF was also significant, and ultimately, it was too much. Too much money, too much sacrifice, and too much unknown.
But on January 7th, 2019, I got pregnant again. I remember because it was R.’s birthday. By then, we were not having sex for pleasure but to keep a schedule and fulfill our duty to get pregnant. It had taken a toll on the relationship, that's for sure. After we made sure the baby would stick, we talked about resuming a normal sex life. But I told R., "Let me try on my own first."
And I started bleeding.
I was 13 weeks, and I was bleeding because I masturbated. I felt like God was telling me to go fuck myself. I was not only cursed, but I would never have kids again and be able to enjoy my life.
Of course, we went to the doctor. It was on a Friday, so to have an appointment wasn't easy. I can still see myself in the office, crying of embarrassment and shame, telling him that I'm bleeding because I masturbated.
We did some tests and found a clot between the placenta and the uterine wall that had burst. That was the extent of it. The baby was fine, and I could go on with my life.
I was already considered high-risk because of my history, so we monitored the pregnancy as planned, which meant doing every test possible. All my blood work and testings came back normal. Overall, I had a completely normal pregnancy. It was a very scary one, but also very easy.
I didn't take any pregnancy pictures with her. We didn't even have a name up until eight months and a half because it had to be the perfect name. It was so hard. Even picking the color for her room was difficult.
The name Olivia came to me because of the olive branch in the Bible. The dove that brings the branch to Noah's Arch also announces the end of the flood. Olivia is the one who brings peace to her home.
Her arrival felt like the missing piece of the puzzle, even though the puzzle will never be complete. Not only because of Isabella but also because of the other three I lost.
Olivia was born on September 28th. Her birth was completely different than Elias'. I did whatever the doctor told me to. It was no longer about how I felt but about what needed to be done. I began labor with a fever, and she was breech. I tried to flip her, but she went back. I just wanted her out and healthy, so when they told me they'd take her out earlier than 40, I said, "Whatever. Do what you want." She was born via c-section healthy and alive.
It felt great to hear her coming out. That was a miracle. Afterward, I didn't have any baby-blues. I felt more experienced. They put me in a room with so many windows. So different than with Elias in the NICU that felt like a dungeon. Olivia was with me in the room—on the same level!—and I had everything that I needed. The first night was tough because she would cry and not latch. I struggled because I thought, "This is the one thing I know how to do. Please give me a shot at nursing you. It fixes everything, just give me time."
But she wouldn't get it. The nurse kept coming in and out and saw I was struggling. She told me, "Let me take her to the nursery so you can sleep a bit, then we'll try again later." I felt awful, like I was letting her down because I sent her away, but at the same time, I really needed this. I slept for two hours. It was the best. When the nurse came back, she'd brought a pump. She got my consent, put my breast in the pump, and got milk. So much milk. She was so effective. A machine. Boom, bam, out, Olivia had breakfast. It was great.
My mom came after Olivia was born too. Then she got pneumonia and was in the hospital for three weeks. Luckily I was still on maternity leave so I could take her to the doctor. It's nice to have her here. After my brother died, she became more hands-on with me. I think it's because I look so much like him. Elias does too. Maybe she feels the same about him as I do with Olivia: we don't want to compare, but we see the children we lost in our other kids.
Olivia is seven months now.
I never want her to feel like she's a substitution. Never.
But every once in a while, I slip out, and I call her Isabella. I don't want her to know about it, but I see her sister when I look at her. I wonder if they'd have the same hair, straight like mine or curly like R.
It bothers me that I don't know who she was—who they all were. I can't remember the names I had given them, and that bothers me too. To start forgetting details. You don't want to forget, but at the same time, you don't want to have to live with that in mind constantly.
Had I known then what I know now, maybe I wouldn't have attempted to have another baby. But it felt like it was the only hope we had. I knew that if I could stay pregnant, things might be different.
Olivia has just started to come to me. She loves her dad. Oh my god. I never want to admit it, but she does. It's nice to finally think, "My baby loves me too!"
I wish the love and pain I feel when I look at her wouldn't be a secret.
I wish it were ok to talk about it. I have an urn with Isabella's ashes, right there in the middle of the living room, but nobody ever talks about it or asks questions.
And Elias, well, he was so little when that happened. One day I would like for him to know that he's a big brother to others than just Olivia. Every night we pray for his sister(s), and I lower my voice when I say the word, to swallow the plural. We pray for our angels looking, like his grandfather and uncle, so he knows they are out there; he's simply not aware there are many more.
As for Olivia, I have no idea how I could tell that to her. It's hard being the last one to the party. It all happened before she showed up, so not really her problem. But Isabella is also her sister.
Maybe I should just start talking to them about her. Maybe that's the healthiest way to do it. To show them pictures of her ultrasound and stuff that I keep in a little box, alongside the cross my brother gave to me before he left. Try to make it less weird.
I'm not sure. Time is passing, and my feelings vary on a day to day basis. I just don't want to mess them up, especially now with COVID and the possibility of death roaming around. There are so many things I'm thinking about. Maybe my family is right. Maybe I should keep it private and see a therapist… and for more than ten sessions!