First Trimester

Miscarriage

“A faint second line on a home pregnancy test—that’s all it was. The next time I tested, it was gone and a few days later I started bleeding and the baby was gone. There are several terms for it: failed implantation, chemical pregnancy, early miscarriage. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to feel sad, because I wasn’t ever “really” pregnant. I knew you could miscarry at some point in the pregnancy, but I didn’t know that it could happen so early. So to the outside world, I am a mother to three perfect girls. But on the inside, I know about the three babies that I lost along the way. I had hopes and dreams for every one of those babies. I know their due dates, I know the days of the week that I miscarried. Even when the loss is early, it is a loss. I think of those babies often, I wonder about them, who they were, what would they have looked like. And I am thankful for those babies, they taught me just how precious life really is, and how quickly it can end. Not a day goes by that I don’t think that I am the luckiest person that I know.”

—by Kelley, Lexington, mother of three