Hello everyone. I just found this group today, and how I wish I had known about this community back in 2015 when I was in the thick of it. I don't want to take up anyone's time with some longwinded story, but I do want to introduce myself and share a bit of my journey in the hope I can connect/relate to/and possibly help others.

I am a former L&D nurse and student nurse-midwife who was set on my journey by the loss of my first child, Evangeline, in March 2015. At 34 weeks exactly, I woke up in the early morning with excruciating pain in my right lower abdomen. It was paralyzing. By the time I went into the hospital (where I worked), she was already gone. Watching my coworkers do the same rountine I had been taught when faced with a loss was a completely surreal experience. I knew what they were doing, I knew what they weren't telling me because I could read it on their faces, and as an L&D nurse, I just knew--but still I hoped they were wrong. Then, watching my preceptor (the nurse who had trained me and was like my work-mom) shake her head at me over the OB's head was the single most earth-shattering moment of my life. I will spare everyone the minutae of that day, but my diagnosis was HELLP Syndrome with an atypical presentation (I was completely asymptomatic when I had arrived though my kidneys were starting to shut down) and concealed placental abruption. My days  spent in the hospital oscillated wildly between laughter, numbness, and utter despair. The hardest moments for me came at the funeral home in the following days when faced with the finality of it all.

4 months later, my husband and I were pregnant with our son, our rainbow baby. To say I was a neurotic mess the entire pregnancy is an understatement--but he was born March 2016, pink and screaming. It was the most beautiful sound, and we had come full circle. In June 2017, our son was joined by his little sister.

The pain is still there. Some days, I don't have the strength to look at pictures of Eva, and other days I gaze at them and cry over what might have been. It will always hurt, and my two beautiful babies now cannot erase the hole left by the death of their big sister. But time marches on, relentless. Losing Eva will never be okay, but it did manage to turn out alright. 

I want to share my story to give hope to those of you still hurting, still raw. I have walked that same road. I have stood where you now stand. You don't have to walk this road alone. If you get lost, if you stumble, if you need a hand to help show you the way forward, I am always here to listen.