Our June angels have names!

Your Name

i put your name in the sand.
but the waves washed it away.
i put your name on my hand.
but i washed it away the next day.
i put your name on paper.
but i accidentally threw it away.
i put your name in my heart and forever it will stay
~Shelby Ann Arthur

I mentioned the other day that I had thought about naming our June Angels. It has been 11 and 2 years since we lost them, but it's never too late, right?

I never had a feeling about their genders. Both pregnancies were over so quickly after finding out about them. When I told Eric that I wanted to name them, we decided to come up with unisex names.

Our June 2000 angel is Tristan Avery. I've always loved the name Tristan and wanted to use it for Christian, but Eric thought it was too girly. I've seen little boys and girls named Tristan, so it seemed perfect for our first angel.

Our June 2009 angel is Riley Addison. We both like Riley and I think at some point we even tossed it around for one of the other kids, same with Addison.

All of our kids, except Kelsey, now have middle names that start with vowels. I'm a theme person. I went back and forth about Kelsey not fitting the "theme," but her middle name was picked long before her first name--Grace. Because she is proof of God's Grace for us. After losing Sydney, I knew if we had another girl, her middle name would be Grace.

It feels so good to finally have named our other two angels. This past weekend, we included their names on our October 15 activities. I'll post more about that tomorrow!

Another June Angel

Post 4 of 31 for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month

“Miscarriages are labor, miscarriages are birth. To consider them less dishonors the woman whose womb has held life, however briefly.” ~Kathryn Miller Ridiman


After Sydney died, I knew right away that I wanted another baby. I physically ached to hold my baby. From a realistic perspective, I knew I wasn't getting any younger. I was 30 when Sydney was born. Eric was sort of on board, but needed some more time. I had some immediate health concerns after delivering Sydney, which ended up being caused by retained placenta. I refused a D&C, not wanting to further damage my cervix, and the medication I could've been given isn't used in women with a history of high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia. Fortunately, I passed the tissue on my own about 3 weeks after Sydney was born.

I started getting my ducks in a row for another pregnancy. First, Dr. Simckes suspected a bacteria called mycoplasma might have caused my pre-term labor, so he did testing for that, which came back negative. I also requested a full panel of bloodwork, specifically an anti-coagulant panel (for blood clotting disorders). This showed that I have a heterozygous mutation for MTHFR . Due to this, I was put on a daily baby aspirin and Folgard, which is a high dose of folic acid, B6, and B12. Finally, I consulted with a maternal fetal medicine (MFM) specialist, to get his opinion on what had happened and if another pregnancy was advisable.

After our appointment with the MFM, we were given the okay to try again when we were ready. Physically, it was fine to try again, but emotionally, we needed to be prepared for the roller coaster of a very high risk pregnancy after loss. I'm not the world's most patient person, so we decided to start trying in May. Amazingly enough, on June 10, 2009, Sydney's four month birthday, I found out I was pregnant on our first try.

I wasn't completely shocked that I got pregnant so quickly. Sydney was conceived during a time that I never would've guessed I would get pregnant. I was scared though and I only told a couple of close friends that I was pregnant. Eric and I were nervously excited. I calculated my due date and it was February 18, 2010, one year to the day we laid Sydney to rest.

Only a week later, I was at work and started having some very painful menstrual type cramps. I tried to ignore it because I've always cramped in early pregnancy and I wasn't bleeding at that point. Late that evening, though, I started bleeding very heavily and I knew that I was miscarrying again.

I was in disbelief that this could happen. Why did I have to have a miscarriage on top of losing Sydney? It only worsened my grief and convinced me that I would never have another living child. At that point, I'd had more losses than living children. I prayed and told God that I'd rather not get pregnant again at all if I only had to endure another loss. I was broken, emotionally. I felt broken physically.

It was an odd feeling, but having a miscarriage seemed to only deepen my grief for Sydney. Maybe it was because I felt like she was my last chance to have another baby and she was already gone. Maybe it was just the added grief of another loss and I was so focused on Sydney that I couldn't separate the two. Lately I've thought a lot about my two tiniest angels. I regret that we never named them. I suppose it's never too late and perhaps naming them could give me some closure or peace over losing them.

The First

Post 2/31 for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month

Eric and I were married on May 27, 1998. He had just turned 20 and I was 19. We both knew that we wanted a family, but we also wanted to wait a while. We lived with my parents for a few months, then moved into our own apartment. Within a few months of being on our own, baby fever hit me. We talked it over, went back and forth, and finally decided we wanted to have a baby.

Getting pregnant wasn't an easy task. In June 1999, I was diagnosed with PCOS. We tried Clomid and it did nothing. My doctor added Metformin to the mix and I finally started ovulating. On our second wedding anniversary, I finally got that long awaited second line on a pregnancy test. It seemed so perfect, to find out I was pregnant on our anniversary.

I called our fertility nurse and told her that I'd tested positive. She had me come in right away for bloodwork. I was nervous because the test result had been very faint. The next day, the nurse called and told me that my hcg level was only at 12. But it was still early, so I needed to get checked again on Tuesday to see if the level went up.

We didn't tell anybody what was going on. I went in on Tuesday for my blood test and waited. And waited. And waited some more. On Wednesday, I called the nurse and she told me that the level had gone down to 7. She called it a chemical pregnancy. All I knew is that I'd been pregnant and soon, I wouldn't be anymore. I was so upset, I had to leave work. I went home and cried all afternoon.

A few days later, June 2, 2000, I started to bleed. It was over. I had feared this happening when I finally got pregnant, but was in disbelief that it had actually happened to me. My little June Angel, barely a whisper and then s/he was gone. I've never forgotten my first little one and I never will.