This subject is very close to me Jen. Thank you for your post.

We were advised to have an autopsy done on Christian to find out if his problem was genetic. If so it would mean that there was a 1 in 2 chance if we fell pregnant with a boy that the very same thing would happen again. While holding my son in my arms I thought to myself, if I find out that this is genetic there is no way I will want to be pregnant again so I refused the autopsy. 1 year and 4 days later my little girl River Eve was born healthy and alive. I still have no idea if Christians problem was genetic. I am thankful I didn't find out. I couldn't bare the extra burden of "more worry".

Sending you many warm wishes.

Carly x

We went ahead and had the autopsy and all the tests and learned nothing...I do not have any specific disorder that caused the placental abruption that took away my Ezra. And yet we are told that once you've had one, there is more of a chance it could happen again. Despite that, the desire to have another child is so strong, too strong...we are trying, just haven't been so blessed yet.

Hope outweighed fear about the time I actually brought Myles home. I tried to hope after losing Alex...only to lose Travis too. I let fear make the decision not to ever try again and then the universe/God/fate/supreme-whatever decided to veto that decision. Honestly, fear itself never left my side the entire pregnancy. There were moments of hope...but I never felt like it was a permanent resident...until we were all safe at home.

My baby after Indigo and two miscarriages was a huge, wonderful, perfect surprise. The decision was taken out of my hands. I am not sure we would have tried again.

We were told by the autopsy that an umbilical cord accident (what is called a non traditional cord accident) was the likely cause of death of our son. At our age we really didn't have the luxery of a long thought process over the decision to try again. Getting pregnant again came pretty easy but the pregnancy itself was, despite being medically easy, 9 months filled with worry and anxiety that the odds would beat us again. I've had my baby home now for almost a month and I still feel as though I am waiting for the other shoe to fall.
I think once you have had a loss like ours you never recover from the knowledge that you truly have no control over what happens, no matter how careful or diligent you are.

My son's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome cannot be fully explained - there is probably a genetic component but there must be environmental triggers as well and no-one knows what they are. We were given a 10-15% chance of a heart defect in a future pregnancy, although only 3-5% of it being HLHS again. Having said that, there was no doubt in me that we would try again. I had been ambivalent about having children before getting pregnant the first time - in fact had spent the first couple of months of pregnancy terrified that I had made a terrible mistake. But his diagnosis in utero, and then the birth, and the utterly unimaginable joy of seeing my own child's face for the first time, and the thrill of having him at home for 5 weeks once he had survived his first surgery, were such unexpected and vivid joys that I knew I had found something special beyond compare, and that was motherhood. His loss did not erase that joy. And I have gone on to have two healthy girls. Yes, the fear is overwhelming at times, and my 2nd child has an anxiety condition that I am sure must have been contributed to by my deep fear during pregnancy, but for me, having tasted the sweetest wine, I knew I could not live the rest of my life without it.

Our 2nd daughter was stillborn @ 41w in 2007, due to cardiomyopathy. My OB told me he personally has never seen or heard of a mother having two babies with it. Not to say it couldn't or wouldn't happen, but just that it's that rare (and he's a high risk OB).

We decided 18m to start trying, meaning we thought it'd take awhile, b/c i still was so scared. But that first month we TTC (no charting, just unprotected), well, we got pregnant.

I'm currently 26w pregnant, and I've had one fetal echo done with a pediatric cardiologist, and Eli's heart looks fine and normal, and I'll have it repeated at 32w. Additionally, my ob assured me it wouldn't be fatal this time, IF Eli did have the same thing as Catti, b/ c delivering early means that medication etc can make it better.

So I don't know that I have hope. I guess I do. It's just that hope is so tinged with fear, it isn't quite that innocent, unadulterated kind of hope that I used to have.

JEN

Our darling Hope was stillborn at 40 weeks and 5 days due to a severe accute bacterial infection - the doctors think it only took 24-48 hours to kill her. It got in after my membranes had already ruptured when I was in early labour. I had not noticed I was leaking fluid, hence why I did not make my way to hospital. The doctors have told us it is incredibly unlikely something like this will happen again. I had a clean swab at 36 weeks in the pregnancy, and again after the birth. The bacteria showed up late and we really have no idea where it came from - possibly a midwife giving me an internal examination when I first went in to hospital (but was sent home) one day past my due date. There are so many unknowns, so as a result I will of course be monitored much more closely in any subsequent pregnancies. This happened in August this year, and my husband and I started trying right away - eg the first cycle I had, six weeks after the birth. The first two months we did not fall pregnant were disappointing, but I also knew probably a good thing as I know I need to let my body heal. We are now currently waiting to test with my period due on Christmas Day, of all days. Hoping like crazy this is our month. Childless motherhood is such an intense pain. I just want to mother.

Jen, the scene in that party kitchen broke my heart. i have been there, stricken dumb. i am so sorry.

we started trying again about four months after Finn died. i knew that my body might fail another baby, and also that i could be monitored to perhaps make for better odds. i was scared shitless, but felt like i needed to try, needed to get at least one variable - the "will i be able to get pregnant again?" variable - out of the way, if at all possible. i figured grieving would take years no matter what we did, wasn't sure i'd ever reach a place where i felt healed...so i figured why wait? in a sense, i felt as though i was grieving two separate things at once...both my baby, my particular, wanted, beloved baby, and the experience of being a parent. i was so afraid that the second one might never happen again that i felt like it was getting in the way of focusing on Finn, himself...so we started to try. and we had Oscar and i did, truly, then spend a lot of his first year facing grief. but it was tempered by thanks for what i did have.

not the coping method i'd recommend for everyone, but we're head-on, dive in people, and i think for me the chance to be actively engaged in moving forward (by trying) was healthy, decreased some of my rage and hurt and powerlessness.

It is a terrible thing to lose a child (as we all know), and I am so sorry for your loss.

My daughter died due to my incompetent cervix and a Strep B infection that reached her through a small rupture in my amniotic sac. I have always wanted children, and my husband is thirteen years older than I am, so when we lost our daughter, there was in the back of my mind the idea that we didn't have much time to waste if we still wanted to have children. But I was terrified, I won't lie to you, and I was on birth control for three months before we decided we would be okay if I got pregnant again. The way it came about was this:

I was driving home from lunch with my best friend, and I got this bizarre light-hearted feeling. I had been living under the proverbial black cloud up until that point, and to feel unaccountably happy was weird. The feeling passed, and I felt sad once again. I am a Christian, and I had been (and still am) wrestling with God about the anger I feel toward him because of the loss of my child. I went home that day, and I began to pray. I prayed and prayed, and I was honest with God about my anger and my bitterness and my disappointment. My final words to Him that day before, I broke down in tears were "Daddy, my baby died." As I sobbed, I unaccountably had that joyful feeling again. I paused in my tears, and I heard as clearly as though the words were spoken to me God saying that our next child would be one we would bring home. I told my husband, and a month later I stopped taking birth control. Two months later I was pregnant with our son, and I felt like I was at the top of a rollercoaster about to plunge down the other side. My son is three months old now and the joy of our life, but I am scared almost every minute of every day. I was scared every time anything seemed remotely wrong during the pregnancy. I live with the heart-knowledge of what it feels like to lose a child, and so can feel a reality to the possibility of loss. I don't need to imagine what it feels like - I know, and it terrifies me. So that's my answer - a promised son, a lot of trust, bedrest, and a lot of fear. I don't know the fear will ever go away.

Only you will know when it is right, and you should expect to be afraid. You've lost a lot, and opening your heart up again is terrifying. My prayers are with you.

We agreed to an autopsy, blood work, anything and everything to find out what happened. Turns out, we will never know. I was past my due date, my fluid was low, I went into labor - sorry, the baby wasn't getting enough oxygen. Then there was the issue with my placenta. It was small but Abbey wasn't - the doctors were perplexed. I wasn't comforted with hearing that if they couldn't find a reason then it probably wouldn't happen again. No one could promise me that it wouldn't happen again.

We began trying right away because that had been our plan - to have two babies back to back. Plus, the overwhelming need to mother was slowly killing me. I became pregnant again right away. At 17 weeks, they found out that I was pregnant with triplets. Identical triplets sharing a placenta. One baby with a "birth defect" - spina bifida. The doctors couldn't tell us what would happen - we were told to be cautiously optimistic but that the odds were against us.

Hope didn't outweigh fear until I heard each one of those babies cry. And Anna survived her surgeries without issue.

My husband and I have permanently decided to not have any more children. The fear will always be with us.

We found out that it was Parvovirus B19..Fifth Disease that killed Scott. I got it from my two kids who both had it.

Symptoms don't show the same on Adults...so I didn't know I had it.

It causes anemia basically......

I now carry the antibodies so the chances are slim that it would EVER happen again.

Doesn't help Scott....
But makes me paranoid about EVERY sort of infection now with this one.

When Charlotte died, I felt as if two separate things had been ripped from me all at once: my daughter, and my parenthood. I grieved my daughter with my heart and soul, but my feelings about my lost motherhood were more frantic and angry: I wanted it back. I did not want to be without my child, and I couldn't stand the place where my husband and I now stood, in a hazy area somewhere between a couple with no children and being a mum and dad. I knew I could not get my daughter back, but I wanted the hell out of Dodge. I did not want to stand in the mist watching the world go by, unsure of where I belonged for one moment longer than I had to.
My son was born exactly eleven months after Charlotte died, and now when I look back, I can't tell whether I think I was crazy for going at it again so soon. Basket case can hardly even approximate what I was when he was born; I was still so laden with grief and my emotions were wild and intense. But having him soothed me in a way that is indescribable, and he continues to heal me to this day. I was so relieved, so grateful to have the gift of motherhood back again that perhaps it freed me somewhat to grieve Charlotte alone, the truest loss of all, and I have done so ever since.
I think that it's also important to say that we did choose to determine the cause of Charlotte's death, and did find out conclusively that she died from a cord accident that occurred when my water broke. Knowing this alleviated some of the fears about trying again; although my pregnancy with Liam was fraught with worry, there was little to no actual risk of recurrance which made the decision less weighted than it might have been.

We just didn't get an option after the miscarriage. The doctor I had seen at the time refused to prescribe birth control, and well, neither of us was apparently very good at the whole "barrier method" thing. Nobody bothered to try and find out a cause, either, so there wasn't anything said but "You're young."

Nine months of terror, the birth was really sort of the easy part, though the emergency c-section wasn't easy I wasn't that scared of the surgery, more the anaesthetic. I've been terrified of anaesthetic for years, so that had nothing to do with anything. Thankfullly they didn't use a general like they did for the D&C, I couldn't have handled that, but I didn't attach to the weird little squalling blob they held over the curtain, and I'm pretty sure I didn't see my son for several hours. It took me about six months to figure out that this kid was really mine.

When I was in about 5th or 6th grade I was in 4-H. A neighbor found this scared rabbit, my sister, four years younger than me, wanted a rabbit. So (really being dumb here) we just stuck her in the hutch with my little dutch bunny. They were both female, that was as far as we thought. Well, a few days later we went out and there were baby rabbits there. We were thrilled. But then, the babies died. We couldn't figure out why, they had all seemed healthy. My dad or my mother, I think my dad, explained that sometimes animals don't attach to their babies if there's danger to them, and that maybe the change in environment felt like danger, or that maybe there was something already wrong with the babies which would be why the wild rabbit got caught in the first place. And that was that, we buried the babies and both rabbits went on to live long and comparatively pampered lives.

I thought the miscarriage would sort of be like that. Never thought it would happen again, it was supposed to be one of those "one-in-a-milion" things, the ovum was malformed or something didn't implant properly. Now, we do have an explanation which fits both Aeryn's death, my son's kidney dying off (likely a clot lodged itself in his system, we are still always fingers crossed about function and swelling and such), and the miscarriage. I'm told by both the maternal-fetal specialist and the hematologist that a fairly straightforward program of blood thinner just prior and during pregnancy should be easy. I used to laugh at the articles talking about planned conception, "babymaking chores" being one phrase that would at least evoke a smile every time. But I don't know what to tell you about "trying again" (a phrase I think all of us hate but end up using because we know it is an attempt, not a guarantee) because I know that even if I "manage" a pregnancy, my son or daughter will be at least a carrier for the thrombophilia.

My son and his future wife should that ever occur, somehow I can't take that for granted even, will be advised by me before he marries that she needs to undergo testing for the mutation. My son will be tested with his next round of labs for his kidney; just safer to know given what a clot could do to him if it happened and lodged in the wrong place. So I just don't know. The "odds" for us are also that I could carry another child to term, it's just too hard to process even now. I miss my children and I miss what could have been with my son, that "falling in love" feeling people describe that I've never gotten to feel. I had hoped it would be different with Aeryn, that the lack of bonding with my son was just because of the c-section and the anxiety of that pregnancy. I've read studies dealing with "maternal involvement" and methods of delivery, reported outcomes after infant loss, and all the statistics tell me nothing. So, I have to wait for things to quiet in my head and in my gut, and see what I can figure out. You can gather information from everywhere, and ultimately, unfairly, it still ends up coming back to what you can stand and whether you actually have any real options.

My baby was healthy and "normal", until my body reacted against the pregnancy and restricted bloodflow, causing her growth to stall. I develeped Pre-E and HELLP, resulting in an emergency C-section and two hours later, the death of our perfect tiny baby.

We have a 1 in 3 chance of going through it all again.

We're 8 months out now, and I feel ready to try again. Still trying to fully convince my husband- as much as he wants a child it was very scary for him to see me get so sick, and he can't bear the thought of potentially losing me too.

As of now we're planning on starting TTC in the next month- lots of prayer, bedrest and heparin, and see where we end up.

I guess I'm luck (how sadistic, right?) that we know that it was a fluke genetic condition that caused us to loose Blue. After trying to get pregnant for five months and carrying him for three and a half, I found myself in a situation that caused me to lose my faith in everything. He was originally dx with anencephaly, an always fatal condition where the scalp and round part of the skull simply do not form. After we realizing that we could not bare to carry him through an entire pregnancy only to turn around an burry him shortly after giving birth, we ended our pregnancy. With the tests that they carried out on him afterwards we learned that he was also triploid. The poor guy just had all the cards stacked against him. Chances are that anencephaly occured because of the triploidy and the triploidy was likely a miotic accicent in my ovary. The chances of it happening again are the same for me as they would be for anyone else. That being said, am I scared?
Hell yes.
I just found out that I'm pregnant again last week after trying for six months. During the first few months of trying I was very trepidatious and probably would have had a melt down had the positive come at that time. Towards the end of the six months however, I was beginning to believe that it was never going to happen again and I was deliriously happy when I got the positive test, now after a week for it to marinate, I'm probably back where I started. Why can't I fast forward through this part and just get the point where I have a baby in my arms?
I was talking to my Mom about this and she said I just couldn't let it bother me. To that, I replied "You mean I just have to act like it doesn't bother me." She said, yes, I did - that that was probably going to be the only way through it. She's probably right -
So, that's my plan of action. I'm going to do my best to pretend that I'm not screaming and crying on the inside and that I still believe that this baby can't be taken away in the blink of an eye. I'm going to pretend that I believe that I'll actually get to take this baby home when I leave the hospital. What else can I do?

Though no one knows exactly what causes preeclampsia, it's an extensively-studied disease and the doctors were able to give me a fairly precise rundown on the statistics. Prior to getting pregnant with the twins, my odds of getting preeclampsia were something like 1%, since I'd already had a pregnancy without PE.

Now that I've had PE once and because it was so early and so severe, my chances of getting it again would be about 60%. If I did fall into that 60% category, the baby would have about a 50/50 chance of surviving.

Immediately after the twins' deaths, I learned these odds and decided that the only way I would consider having another child was with a gestational surrogate. Within a few weeks, I was researching agencies and looking at profiles.

I am 7ish weeks along, and it is now 6 months after my son died. How long did it take hope to outweigh fear? I am having a hard time answering this question, because I've been eerily distanced and unattached to this pregnancy so far.

But the other is that fear has not been as large a part of my experience of loss, as much as grief and anger, ferocious anger. I suspect this may change as the pregnancy progresses, and that fear might become a larger part of my repertoire--the fetal abnormalities that caused my son's death are exceptionally rare, 1/15,000, and are not known to recur. However, in part because he was preterm, I had to have a classical cesarean (the low transverse section of the uterus where most Csection incisions are made, not existing until the uterus reaches term), and that does place me at greater odds of going into labor prematurely for subsequent pregnancies (50%, based on one study of 100 women I read), or of spontaneous uterine rupture (4ish percent, although this number is debated, based on what one might define as "rupture"). That's what "worries" me--but I would not classify that worry as fear. Yet.

We did not expect our grief or anger to subside anytime soon to make a meaningful difference in our decision to try again, we have a history of fertility issues and are only getting older, and so, jump we did. Emotions be damned.

We decided to go ahead with an autopsy after Oliver was stillborn at 27 weeks. My doctor said it might show something that would be relevant to future pregnancies. It showed nothing. My doctor told me that his death was basically "a fluke." Not the most reassuring news.

So, now it has been just over 4 months and we are just going to start trying. With Oliver it just kind of happened the first time we tried but with our daughter (she's 22 months old) it took longer. I just want to have the whole thing over with to know that we can have a healthy baby again.

Friends of ours have a newborn the same age that Oliver would have been and the pull of having one of those is definitely bigger than the fear today.

I guess I am somewhat amazed at all of the comments above. It seems like all, or at least the vast majority, tried to get pregnant again fairly quickly after their loss.

We never received any answers, despite having an autopsy performed. "Cause of death unknown." Her organs were perfect, no known syndromes were detected, no infections were found. The placenta and umbilical cord were unremarkable. We even had the case reviewed by another world-renowned pathologist. His only finding was slight curvature of one of her toes.

I still can't wrap my mind around it. She was 6 lbs 9 oz with dark curly hair and chubby cheeks. If she was perfect, why is she not here with me?

I just celebrated the year-mark since her death. I blame the timing, the finances, my job, my relationship with my husband (which is actually pretty good). But really, it's the fear. Not only the fear of loving and losing another, but of feeling hurt like that again.

With Teddy, I thought we were home free until that 29th week, when we found out about the CDH. There's very little chance that I'll carry another baby with the same congenital defect, as doctors have told us repeatedly. But there was little chance, statistically, that my first baby would have CDH, so nothing feels safe or certain, and I don't think there's enough yoga or herbal tea in the world to get me to relax should I find myself pregnant again.

Because of the c-section, we have been strongly advised to wait several more months before trying, which is probably a good thing since it gives us both time to think of what it would mean to go through pregnancy again. In my more lucid, cogent moments, I wonder if I'll/we'll really be brave enough to try for another. But before Teddy, having a child felt very much like a choice. Now, after his loss, it feels more like a compulsion, and I haven't sorted out all of why yet. I know that another baby could never replace him, or cause me to stop grieving him, but I hunger for a living child now in ways I never have before.

i also have find it remarkable that so many women dove headfirst into it again. i applaud the courage. after i lost my daughter, maia, at 33 weeks due to trisomy 13 i had a couple of weeks where i desperately longed for another, even thought i was strong enough to try it all again. those thoughts, however, were short lived. it took more than a year to consider the idea and even then it was pins and needles every day. my son was born almost 2 years after my daughter died and i would say, in answer to your question, that for me hope never did outweigh fear, not until my son was here, in my arms and ok. i spent every day of that pregnancy filled with doubt. i have now gone on to have another child, a girl, and with her pregnancy it was much easier. somehow having my son here with me, his joy, it allowed me to believe again, to have faith. i wish you peace and strength as you try and decide what makes sense for your family. such a daunting road to travel.

I'm not sure I really had hope exactly. I think I still had some the first time we started trying after losing M, but then I had a miscarriage. It wasn't really hope that made me try again, it was more that I felt I had one more try in me. I felt that if I didn't, I would always wonder "what if?". I knew that if I tried one more time, and the outcome was bad, then I would be done for sure. I just felt like I had to give it a chance, give myself a another chance to not only have a reproductive life that ended with sadness.

My Jonathan's post-mortem revealed nothing: my water broke at 26 weeks, despite monitoring (twin pregnancy- surviving brother). He was in a 1% risk factor for developing sepsis, which --coupled with grade IV IVH and hydrocephalus-- ultimately took his life.

We'll never know if I had an infection which caused the PROM, or if his illness was a result of "trying to go longer" (two weeks of hospital bedrest with propylactic antibiotics that apparently did nothing).

Once his brother came home, following three months in the NICU and many health scares, hubby and I were in no hurry to have another child.

Despite being told we'd need fertility treatments to get pregnant, nestled on my chest at this moment is my week-old son: my "rainbow" child.

People have asked me what I did differently this pregnancy; what treatments I used to go full-term, to have a healthy, living child...

If only it were that easy; to diagnose what went wrong, take a pill and ensure a long, full life for our little ones (for that matter, anyone!). Because I had no answers, I had no "safety" measures to take; only to embrace the fear and realize that virtually nothing I do, can ultimately guarantee results... and it sucks.

baby taz was born september 10th 2006. he had undiagnosed trisomy 13. from the moment he was born he looked a thousand years old. maybe that is why he died 2 days later. as we all know it is the saddest of sad to have your baby die. So i grieved intensely and made a commitment to give it a year. I would have tried immediately but my husband was not ready. on the first anniversary of baby taz's birth and death my husband and our daughter Lily who was almost 3 when taz was born hiked up a mountain near our home. We left a jar with pictures words and drawings. When we came home we hung origami birds on a newly planted tree for taz. We also planted a tree for Lily and one for hope. This hope tree is now our daughter Lucia's. Lucia was born 9 months after the tree planting. There comes a time to heal. Not forget. Taz will always be part of our family. Lily speaks of him almost daily. I had to try to have another baby-a healthy strong baby. i am with the others-my pregnancy was long taxing mentally-I call it my elephant pregnancy. I had every test imaginable to assuage my guilt and fear-still i could not get my head around having a healthy baby. baby taz was 1-20,000 live births. Statistics don't work for me. Though I was not at a greater chance then anyone to have another trisomy baby. there are so many things that can go wrong. The strong healthy babies are truly a miracle. One mantra that carried me was "I have had dreams and I have had nightmares but i conquered my nightmares because of my dreams" jonas salk I wish for all the women in the world that have lost a baby that they may experience the miracle of a healthy birth and miracle baby. Much love and understanding
Lara

I have a balanced translocation that means that the odds are slightly in favour of having another child that will die as opposed to one that will live. I can do IVF with PGD, or have an amnio and choose to terminate if the child has unbalanced translocation. Nice choices hey. It sucks way way way beyond words. But there is still a decent chance for me to have a child that can live - I just have to be prepared to go through a lot of hearbreak to get there.

Sex is the place where all my longing and all my fear collides head on. Two and a half years later that collision can still shake me to the core.

I'm w/you G - in my case hope never would have overcome fear... I was more-or-less coerced by hubby & whaddaya know, he wound up leaving anyway!
[My baby Jessica had hydrocephalus & spina bifida - had the full autopsy & genetic testing done to try to determine cause or apportion blame; we found nothing & were given the "lightning strike" probability of anything similar happening again. Physically uneventful & perfectly normal baby Z when we conceived again, 1 yr after losing Jessica...]
& yes, I talk to her all the time.