Meet Melissa

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When my fiancé and I decided to have another child (our son was four years old at the time) we were full of hopes and dreams for our baby- would he or she have his perfect lips and intelligence or my humor and witty attitude? I had heard about pregnancy losses through mutual friends, in books, in movies but, I never thought a pregnancy loss could happen to me.

We were camping with family (that we had not told about the pregnancy yet) when I woke up beside my fiancé and son thinking “ugh, pregnancy bladder again.” I went to the campsite’s washroom and saw what I knew in my heart was the beginning of the loss of our baby. Fast forward a couple hours, a lot of tears, a very lonely and isolating drive to the hospital I was officially apart of the “pregnancy loss” club. Because our son was so young at the time we made the decision that my fiancé would stay with him and I would go to the hospital, the part of me not wanting to let my family down said “it’s probably nothing” but, I knew.

When I arrived at the hospital I spent what felt like an eternity “segregated” alone in a room where the janitorial staff were more sensitive and pleasant than the doctors and nurses. I was told that my baby didn’t have a heartbeat and I had the choice to stay in the hospital or to go home and “follow-up” with my family doctor. Given nothing more than a sympathetic,” we have more serious cases to deal with right now” look. I chose to go home where I knew I would be treated with kindness, empathy and be supported however, I realized this unfortunately isn’t the case for some women that experience losses.

As I walked out of the hospital I felt broken, lost and confused. However, this is where my passion grew and I knew that I would use this pain and suffering to help other families with their journey in navigating all that comes along with a loss of a baby, child, sibling. The truth is, pregnancy loss does not discriminate and looking back I wish I would have be more gentle with myself and allowed myself the opportunity to grief all of those hopes and dreams when we lost our baby in early pregnancy.

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