A Little Help From My Friends

Well hello old friends. Yep, we are still here. No, I did not fall off the edge of the world. I just left social media... (which is basically the same thing). Can you believe it's been over three years since I posted here?? Yeah, me neither. But, here we are.

I used to find so much comfort and connection here. This was the place I could open my heart to share the deepest, darkest parts. The place I could get the hurt and pain out so it didn't eat me alive. The place I knew I could pour out my love for the sweetest little boy that world will never know. But then, something happened. I realized no amount of words could change our situation. Nothing would keep the hurt from coming, and nothing would ever stop me from being a loss mom. Somehow, I thought if I just said enough, if I just showed everyone the deep murky depths, that something would change. But, it never did. I will always and forever be a mother without her son. It settled into my soul and I made peace with my lot in life. And the words stopped coming. It was as if I had said every word on the subject and there was simply nothing left inside. Like Forrest Gump, I simply decided "that's all I have to say about that".

For years after Samuel died, I wrote. And wrote. and wrote some more. I ran countless online support groups, I had thousands of conversations with families whose own precious children had died. I shared posts and articles on many loss websites and magazines, I shared our story here and on other blogs and in books. I was interviewed and quoted and shared. And nothing brought him back. So I stopped it all. I left the online loss world, and really, social media with it. I had used up all my energy grieving deeply, walking through hell with other bereaved families, and pushing back on the widespread ignorance people have about traumatic loss and healing. I needed to just be in my new life, unplugged. I had reached my limit.

As I write this, it's been eight years since this all began. E I G H T years. (I'll give you a second to let that sink in). There have been times when I didn't think it was possible to still exist eight years without your child. There were times when I wished I wasn't still existing without him here. And there have been times when life has just gone on like people always wish it would. But every single day of these eight years, Samuel has been loved. And every day of the almost eight years he's been gone, he has been missed. Some days, excruciatingly. Other days, tolerably. Every day, with all my heart.

So, why am I here now, writing, when I have nothing left to say? Because I need a little help from my friends.

But first, there is something I haven't told you. Something most people don't know. A piece of our story that fills in the blanks. Are you ready?

The year after Samuel died, Samuel's sibling died, too.

Months later, we lost another.

We have three babies in heaven. And I don't even know how to say it out loud.

One of the worst parts is that we don't know anything about these tiny precious babies who shared our lives for a few months. I can't even name them because I was never able to learn their genders. And that killed me. The pain of their loss joined the pain of Samuel's absence, and it took everything I had to keep going.

We didn't tell very many people. It was all too much. Too painful. Too private. Somehow, having miscarriages made it seem we were defective people. Like we were incapable of being normal humans. And I was deeply ashamed.

Even now, I don't want to talk about this. But I'm trying to be brave. I know in my heart that I am not responsible for these losses. We have seen countless doctors who have all said in their own ways, "this was unavoidable, unlucky, not your fault". We have done every test known to man and they all say the same thing: there is no reason why your babies don't live. Yet, none of them do. Apparently both PUV and early miscarriage are considered "flukes of nature". Lucky us. The last specialist I saw looked over our chart and said "if you didn't have bad luck, you'd have no luck at all". (Thanks, super helpful doctor...).

While all this was happening, Bryan had lost his job, we had to sell our house, and we moved out of state. And every single person I knew was easily pregnant. And everyone we knew was asking when we were going to try again. Those times you though I was being unreasonable for being hurt by the pregnancies of others? Those were times another one of my babies had just died, or times I just learned another month of trying resulted in failure. And you wonder why I wasn't celebrating someone else's easily achieved pregnancy. My world was all loss. Only death, never life. And I had nothing more to say to anyone.

We stopped trying. Three babies in heaven was three too many. And I was DONE. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. I told myself we didn't want to have any living children and I cut myself off from everything involving children. All of the loss, combined with the maddening reality that there was no reason for any of it made my heart turn to stone. Where do you turn to for help when no one can help and nothing can be done?

Slowly, over the years, I've come back to life again. Somehow, I've kept on going. Somehow, I've rebuilt my life. And two years ago, we decided to try again.

Two years later, it's today and we still have no baby. Due to our ages and all the losses, we have been working with fertility specialists to become pregnant. We have gone though five cycles of assisted reproduction, with all the monitoring, medications, injections, and then IUI. And five times we have been disappointed to learn I'm not pregnant. (Funny story, we still don't even have an infertility diagnosis.) Everyone  maintains there is no reason why we shouldn't be able to get pregnant and have a healthy baby. So, here we are, running out of time, and completely out of money -- do you have any idea how expensive fertility treatments are? Whew! We do! (and, of course, insurance doesn't cover any of it... because why help people who need it when you can just pocket their money?)

But still, we long to bring Samuel's sibling home.

At this point, we have two options left: IVF and adoption; both of which cost more than should be allowed. (Am I the only person who didn't know you need $30-60 thousand dollars to have a family if you can't naturally??) Our wonderful fertility doctor -- he's seriously such a caring and nice man -- "firmly believes" IVF is a good choice for us. (You know, since there's no reason we can't have babies). And, we are open to adoption, but my heart wants more than anything to look into the eyes of Samuel's full sibling as I tell him/her about their very brave big brother. So, we are going to give IVF our best try.

This is where you come in. Because it's absurdly expensive, and we've already drained every dollar we had saved up in treatments these past two years, we are at the point where we need financial help if we are going to pursue this. It's so incredibly hard for us to ask this, because building a family should be a personal issue, and it feels incredibly unpleasant to have to ask for money (I basically feel like the lady on the corner with the "will work for IVF" sign), but the truth is we need a little help from our friends.

Here is the plan: our fertility clinic offers a package deal that give us three IVF cycles with a guarantee that if we don't bring a baby home, we get a large refund of the cost of those cycles. Should that happen, we will put that same money into adopting. So, basically, the package guarantees we will have a child to raise.

The reality is, we need $60,000 to do three rounds of IVF. (Yeah, I know. That's what I meant when I said it's absurdly expensive). Bryan and I are both doing everything we can think of to cut cost at home -- no spend months, anyone? -- and bring in extra money -- garage sale season is coming! Why, yes, I'd love to walk your dog for you! But we need to get this process started due to my age, and the clock is ticking. (Fertility treatments are less successful after 37 and guess who's turning 37 today??)

Would you consider donating to our fund to help us bring Samuel's sibling home? Every little bit would help! (And if you can't give financially, would you consider sharing our story with everyone you know so they can help if possible?) I wish dearly it didn't come to this, but after soul searching and talking to trusted friends, I realized the goal is worth the risk. So, I humbly ask you to consider helping.

We have created a GoFundMe campaign to get us at least half-way to our goal 

(because, trying to raise $60k is absurd to me). 

You can find it HERE.

Baby Fredrickson, we can't wait to meet you!

Please, dear friends, give what you can and SHARE IT far and wide!

All we ever wanted was to raise a family like everyone does. Never, in our wildest dreams, did we think it would be this hard. My only hope is that one day, I'll look into the precious little face of a living, breathing child, and know this was all worth it. Please donate and spread the word!

Oh, and one last thing: I read the sweetest idea and I'm totally copying it! For everyone who donates, we will write his/her name on the back of a puzzle piece. When it's complete, we will frame it to hang in the nursery so one day, we can tell baby Fredrickson about all the very special people who helped bring them home.