'I’ve carried 7 children, but only delivered 2: To the babies that I never got to hold.'

This post deals with pregnancy loss and might be triggering for some readers.

I still remember the first time I saw those two lines, the two lines that told me that life as I knew it would change forever. 

It was December 2016, and after trying for approximately two seconds I was pregnant with my first child.  

My husband and I were so excited – we drove to my parents’ house immediately to tell them in person, then called his parents and our siblings to share the good news.

The following day, I told a close work friend. It didn’t occur to me to wait until the 12-week mark. That night, cuddling up to my husband in bed, I felt so happy and content. Everything felt like it was slipping into place.

The next morning, I was getting ready when I noticed a spot of blood as I went to the toilet. My stomach dropped. It was the first ominous sign. 

This was the first of five miscarriages I would go on to have.

I tried to remain positive, but after my third miscarriage I really began to believe that I might never carry a child to term.

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By this stage I’d already undergone fertility testing, was giving myself daily blood thinning injections each time I was pregnant to address a blood clotting mutation that could cause miscarriages, and using progesterone pessaries. Still, the miscarriages kept coming.

I vividly remember sitting in my fertility doctor’s office with my mum by my side and, through tears, asking a million questions: Is it something I’m eating or drinking? Could it be my husband’s sperm? Am I struggling to carry a particular gender?  

I was convinced that there was something I was doing wrong, and I just needed to work out what it was so that I could fix it.  

My doctor tried to assure me: “You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re doing everything I’ve asked of you.” 

But instead of bringing me comfort, the knowledge that I couldn’t do any more than I was already doing made me simultaneously angry and distraught.

Generally in life, if you try hard enough at something you will succeed – but fertility doesn’t play by those rules. 

A few months later, I fell pregnant again, and nine months after that my daughter Lily was born. Holding her in my arms was incredibly healing.

Image: Supplied.

About 18 months later we started trying for a sibling, knowing it would likely take a while.

Falling pregnant came easily, but keeping the pregnancy did not, and at only seven weeks along I miscarried again.

By this stage I was too scared to be excited by positive pregnancy tests anymore. Instead of those two lines being a symbol of hope, they became a reason to be afraid – afraid of losing the tiny person growing inside of me. 

In those last pregnancies I started to fear the things that would typically bring a pregnant woman joy. 

Rather than carefully wrap and store that positive pregnancy test, I would throw it away immediately. Any doctor’s appointments would be written on post-it notes, so that I could remove it if needed rather than come across a penned-in scan that never eventuated. Discussions about baby names were on hold. Ditto shopping for baby.   

These coping mechanisms were necessary. I needed to shield myself from as much future hurt as possible in the event that another loss was coming, so that I could pick myself up and try again.

Then I became pregnant for the sixth time.  

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When I went for the first scan, I discovered I had fallen pregnant with twins. However, I had already lost one of them – the only evidence a second, empty sac.  

In the days following that scan, I started to bleed. Convinced I was in the process of losing this baby too, I was devastated. But the bleeding eased up and, despite a very nerve-wracking couple of months, my son Alexander was born.

Every day, I get the opportunity to shower my two beautiful children with kisses and hugs, tell them I love them a hundred times over, show them the world and try to impart the little wisdom I have.

I know many people who have struggled – some for much longer than I – without success, and it’s something I never let myself forget.

But I have five other children who I will never get to share those precious moments with.  

Most of the time I am fine. Truly. Then every once in a while, I am hit with a wave of grief so intense, so raw, so overwhelming. 

And yet, despite the heartbreak, I look at the two beautiful children I get to hold in my arms and think – if it wasn’t for those I lost, I would never have had them. 

The feelings are complicated, sad and always just under the surface.

I look at my son, and I wonder if he knows that he began life in utero with a twin by his side.

I worry that as he grows, he will spend his life feeling like a part of him is missing. 

Recently I came across ultrasound photos from my fourth pregnancy – at the time, the baby was growing well and had a strong heartbeat. 

Within a week of that scan, that baby would be no longer. 

The photos were stored among some old bills and documents, and I took them out, and placed them within one of the many memory boxes I hold keepsakes in for myself and the kids. 

These are the only images I will ever have of this child. 

I will never get to hold you in my arms, never sing to you as I rock you to sleep, never mediate fights between you and your siblings. I have only these grainy black and white images to remember you by.  

It still saddens me to think that while I have brought two children in this world, I have carried seven, however briefly.

To all the babies that I never got to hold in my arms, Mummy loves you xoxo.

If you or a loved one is suffering after pregnancy loss or miscarriage, please seek professional help and contact SANDS on 1300 072 637 or support@sands.org.au, or Lifeline on 13 11 14. If you are in immediate danger, call 000.

Feature image: Supplied