In the fall of 2014, my husband Luke and I became pregnant with our first child together. We were excited. And while Luke had a daughter from his previous marriage, we were just so excited to have our first together. We went through all the normal first appointments, and everything went well. On December 1st, I had a routine checkup that I left work for and planned to return back from. It was at that appointment I heard the words, “There’s no heartbeat.” from my doctor. Followed by empathetic discussions about “missed miscarriage” and what was next. I was 13 weeks pregnant that day. On December 2nd, I had surgery, and that was the last day Emerson Harley would physically be here with us.

We learned we were welcoming our rainbow baby, Adalyne, that next year. She was born in the spring of 2016.

In late summer 2017, we found out we were pregnant again, this time with twins. In October, we would discover only one was viable and living. I experienced a physical miscarriage while still pregnant. It was another devastating loss I didn’t know how to cope with.

In May of 2018, we welcomed our living twin, Lilly, while still very much grieving her twin, Luna Nicole.

Throughout my journey, I turned to blogging; I chose to document everything, no matter how raw and unfiltered it was. I look back on it a lot today to remember how far I’ve come in my journey.

Around Christmas 2014, I felt very alone and had no one who genuinely understood what I was feeling. I searched high and low and found Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Since then, I have turned to NILMDTS for solace and comfort. I genuinely am not sure if my journey through grief would have been bearable without a community of people who understand.

From the Remembrance Walks to the blog stories to the commemorative ornaments around the holidays, it’s brought me comfort in my immense pain and heartbreak. In 2016, I received my first ornament when we only had Emerson to honor. Every year since, we’ve ordered one for Emerson & Luna, and they get the top of the tree every year. My two living children take a lot of pride in hanging their siblings’ ornaments each year and adding a new one.

This year, when we were able to add personalized candles for our Wave of Light ceremony, I was overjoyed. To some, these items are small tokens, but for me, they’re everything. From the Remembrance Walk T-shirts with my baby’s names that I wear almost daily to the candles and ornaments, my comfort is found, and my grieving has been bearable.

I owe a great deal of thanks and love to this organization; it’s everything a PAIL (pregnancy and infant loss) grieving mom could hope to lean on – thank you!