I am a TFMR Mama

I write this over and over in my head and it's different every time. I'll never have the perfect words to concisely express the Everest-sized mountain of pain we've experienced this year.

How do you convey the rolercoaster of emotions that is getting engaged in January, planning a wedding for September, finding out we were pregnant in April, surprising our immediate family with that news and a surprise small wedding ceremony in May - only to have the high of all that love and joy come crashing down?

Let me try to share.

In the middle of June we learned our surprise, yet so wanted baby, was incompatible with life at 14 weeks.

As we listened to our midwife read the radiologist's report, under what felt like the hottest and brightest fluorescent lighting in the world, Kevin and I melted into each other on that dumb crinkly doctor's office paper. We grasped for scratchy medical supply tissues - and air - as the room closed in on us.

We listened to the report of how our baby's scan was now unfortunately, incredibly abnormal and felt our world as we knew it come to a screeching halt.

Imagine hearing that life-shattering news and then in the same breath hearing your ''options'':

1. Carry the baby until the baby decided she was done. this could have been anytime or never. there was a chance we could have made it to full term and given birth and then we would have watched her pass within minutes or hours. If i miscarried, it could have been medical emergency because of her size. Or,

2. Choose to terminate our pregnancy for medical reasons (TFMR), preserve my health and prevent our baby from suffering further.

What a 'choice' huh? How was this possible? Up until now we knew our baby was perfect; ''there was nothing to worry about''.

We had made it through the marathon of the first trimester. Gifts were arriving, we shared excited phone calls with our friends and family as we trickled the news out and I had a tiny bump. We were dreaming up nursery themes, debating names and picturing what this next chapter of life would look like. Kevin had perfected the role of my private pregnancy chef. I had perfected naps. So many of our friends and family were pregnant or had small children. It was all perfect.

I thought at this point we would finally get to breathe and relax into this new chapter.

Ultimately, there really wasn't a choice. In the seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks that followed making our decision, we simply existed in an actual living nightmare.

We lived off Annie's mac and cheese. I had to excuse myself from work. We held each other and sobbed in bed, on the couch, in the kitchen. We sobbed through each agonizing appointment and phone call with genetic counselors, social workers, hospital schedulers and doctors, begging for any opinion that may give us hope. I found myself wishing i would miscarry, even if it meant a medical emergency.

So that we didn't have to make this decision, so we didn't have to choose when and how to end this incredibly wanted pregnancy.

You feel so helpless. and desperate. Completely powerless. How could we, as new parents, already be facing something so horrific?

At one point I found myself asking in the pre-op appointment, the day before surgery and as hot tears streamed down my face, if there was a chance the scans were wrong? Could these really be ours? Is there a chance there was a mistake and these were someone else's scans? Could we scan again??

After many phone calls, appointments, waitlists, scrambling for last minute dog care and hotel reservations, our very, very, very wanted pregnancy was terminated for medical reasons at 15 weeks.

There's a photo Kevin took of me the morning after we found out we were pregnant (above). I was completely spiraling. we went for a drive and got a bagel and sat by the water and talked.

We had learned about this baby less than 24 hours ago and while I was excited, selfishly I was worried about the wedding, my dress, if Kevin and I had spent enough time existing as just the two of us. I had finally let myself dream a little. I was so in love with my (then) fiance. I was so in love with our little life. I was so in love with our big dreams we dreamed together.

Every 'milestone' seemed to be happening all at once. Could we handle all of this?

Now when i look at that picture of me, imagining that version of me, I wish I could hug her.

I wish i could tell her to just enjoy the bliss and also to forgive herself for being selfish in that moment, because the guilt will linger. That she should enjoy the chaos because soon she'd watch all those dreams slip right through her fingers, morph into a tsunami of grief and turn right back around to try and drown them.

She would experience PTSD nightmares, wonder if driving her car into the cement highway median would feel like relief and sob religiously into the void of solitude that was the shower.

That version of me feels like a stranger now and I also wish I was still her.

We have wedding photos from our small surprise ceremony in May that are beautiful and filled with love, shock, and excitement as we announced the news to our family.

Thinking about sharing them or hanging them on our walls feels impossible. They are so tainted with pain, in so many ways and at best remind us of suffering through the worst year of our lives.

Following the surgery, we cancelled our September wedding celebration. My wedding dress is still waiting for me to find the courage to pick it up from the bridal salon. How could we celebrate at a wedding when we were wading through what felt like a birth and a death at the same time?

The grief that followed our TFMR has been absolutely rude.

It's like an unwanted houseguest that won't leave. It will likely never leave. It has changed me, my new husband and our life forever. It's now just part of us. We live right beside it. Invite it in for dinner. Ask it to stay over as we open another bottle of wine. Tuck it into bed with us and snuggle right up to it.

It's always there. Some days it feels quiet, maybe a little softer. Some days it holds us hostage.

Neither Kevin nor I knew anyone in our lives or circles that had experienced TFMR - let alone in the second trimester.

Overwhelmingly, most of my friends who have children have had perfect, healthy pregnancies. This was completely unknown territory for all of us. There was nothing anyone could say or do that could help or take the painful load off of us and there still still isn't.

There is no playbook for how to process receiving your baby's autopsy directly to your email or how to navigate checking yes or no to cremation.

I'm sharing this because I've never felt or experienced such isolation or desperation for community or support - even just a hint of being seen - in my entire life.

After suffering in silence, as many do for many reasons, i'm sharing this because to know me, to know us, is to know this.

I'm sharing this so that maybe someone else doesn't have to feel so alone.

We know that this was the most selfless decision we could have made. It was full of compassion and truly the ultimate expression of love.

No one can tell us otherwise, and even so, it completely consumes us.

And with the biggest exhale, I hope sharing this gives you a little perspective. A little reality.

A little reminder to show up for your people because everyone is going through something. Hug them and love them no matter what.

I'm here for anyone who needs a hand to hold, for anyone who has questions, for anyone who is struggling and would welcome a warm text, call or dm.

While debilitatingly painful, sharing this also feels a little freeing.

As if sharing this grief slightly takes a laod off. That now it's not just my pain, or just Kevin's pain, but now it's everyone's pain. As if to say ''come on in, the water is absolutely dreadful, but we can tread through together.''

dH