Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.

   It's early Sunday morning and I'm wide awake. The house is still quiet, dark, my husband and dogs are still asleep and I'm laying in bed just thinking. We have 22 days until my transabdominal cerclage is placed. It's been a very long journey to get here and I wish nothing more than for it to not have to happen. Meaning that my girls would be here and I'd know nothing about an incompetent cervix. I wish so badly for them to be alive. And this TAC journey is pulling those types of feelings to the surface.

I am so grateful that this is an option for us and many couples. So grateful that the top doctor is in a place that's so easy for us to travel to. We didn't have to purchase expensive plane tickets, just a couple of cheap Amtrak tickets. 7 Years ago we rode the Amtrak to Chicago, a few months before we got married. With no idea that we'd be traveling it again for life changing surgery, carrying a past full of excruciating pain and hoping for a brighter future.

I'm nervous about the surgery, about going under and anesthesia. Nervous that I'll have to have c-sections for the rest of my life. But I'm so happy for the future. So happy that we may finally get to bring home a baby. 

I've researched this since Evelie passed. I research too much but it's calming to me and it helped me focus on something so I could slowly handle my grief. I wasn't trying to push her out of my mind but protecting my sanity. I would grieve so heavily that I couldn't function so if I was focused on something for just a little while, it kept me alive. I wanted to know what happened with her and if there was a solution. At this point in time I think I've researched it for 1 year and almost 6 months. In May of 2012 we had a scheduled phone consultation with Dr. Haney (TAC doc) we knew it would last about an hour and from those that spoke to him before us, he'd probably answer our questions before we even had the chance to ask. 

At this point in time my husband was open to talking to him but not open to trying this. I was ok with that, it's all I could ask for him to just listen. I wasn't ready for it either, but needed to know our options should we ever be surprised again. We were nervous, I knew that what this man said would paint a picture of what our future held. Either it was going to be filled with hope, or we would live a life of terrible storms just waiting for the end. 

I was so excited to hear him. We had 2 phones so my husband could listen and ask questions too. I had a sheet of things I wanted to ask. But like all the others stated before, he truly answered all of them before I even had to ask. He explained to us that he was an engineer before he was a doctor, so he explained to Derrick in technical engineer talk what the tac does and how this whole thing works. Derrick loved that. It made perfect sense the way he explained it. I'm so thankful for that day. The conversation ended with such a high note. The doctor told me "you can have as many babies as you want" and I didn't have to worry about carrying multiples, because it wouldn't be a problem.

I can't tell you what that felt like for someone who feels so incredibly broken. Who had to watch her children die because her body couldn't function like it was supposed to. Who felt like this pain and the pain inflicted on those that cared for the girls, was all her fault. 


My mother in law already purchased fabric to make us blankets. And I'm in love with the colors and patterns. She did that when I was pregnant with the girls too. This time we'll finally get to have our blankets, because this time we're going to bring home a baby!

I'm enjoying this morning, even with all the nervousness of upcoming surgery. I am hoping that more early mornings are ahead for us. That we'll get to the 3rd trimester and we'll have an uneventful, long, uncomfortable pregnancy. I will embrace each moment of it because we are lucky to have the option to try this again.  

On Tuesday, I'll get to tell my ob our tac surgery date. She's doing a saline sono on me to make sure there is nothing in my uterus or any problems with it. She was so happy when I told her in November the plans we had. I had to make sure she felt comfortable handling my pregnancy, as she's the only one I ever want to deliver my children. She was smiling ear to ear and even had a few tears well up in her eyes. She has a friend that has a similar story and chose not to even get a transvaginal cerclage (what I had with Evelie) so I'm anxious to hear how her friend is doing as well. Hoping for a positive outcome for her. My ob didn't even hesitate to continue taking care of me during future pregnancies. She took down Dr. H's info and said she was going to get in touch with him. She's ready to learn how to do a c-section with the tac in and how to take care of me. I'm so thankful I stumbled across her a couple years ago. She's amazing!

So this morning as my house is quiet and I hear the heater and weird morning noises, I'm going over everything in my head. Thankful for this opportunity and for all the positive support we have. For even having this and to get it by the top doctor. Who told me the success rate of bringing home a full term baby, because my incompetent cervix would be cured, was virtually 100%. I'm hoping 2013 is our year <3

You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can't do something themselves, they want to tell you that you can't do it. You want something? Go get it! Period.

       There's always going to be negative that comes with us and pregnancy topics. This is one of the reasons we were going to keep the surgery quiet. Obviously couldn't because we have to tell our jobs. And if co-workers know, family should as well etc. And sometimes I get excited and I should be allowed, just like anyone else, to share their excitement. However, that has proved to bite me in the ass already.

       I believe my husband and I are allowed to be nervous and scared but I do not like when others express their nervousness or say negative things to us. We can worry enough on our own and your comments only add stress to us. Thanks for believing in us and my broken body :/..... I'd appreciate it if you'd keep those thoughts to yourself. I am not ignorant on this subject, I did not spend every hour of the last year researching this and going forward with it without knowing everything I possibly could. I did not seek out the top tac doctor for nothing. I would not go forward with another pregnancy if I didn't think it would work. I don't plan on losing children and wouldn't move towards this if I had any thought in my mind that we would. I know all the facts, I know the "consumer reports" on this surgery, you do not and if you think this won't work, then go ahead and keep that to yourself. Yes, I realize (obviously) that we have had nothing but loss but that doesn't mean that my entire life will be loss. I don't want to be treated differently than any other pregnant person you know.

So after a comment I received I will not be sharing pregnancy news with anyone. I am shocked that they said it. Thanks for pointing out that I'm broken, that you obviously have no confidence in the choice we are making and you aren't expecting this to work. Wow. Now I work on forgetting what you said and trying not to be angry with you. I will keep this between my husband and I and will not share our excitement with anyone because of comments like this.  I'm angry that for once, we can't be looked at as the couple who will bring a baby home. I'm sick of people being nervous when we announce pregnancies. I get it, I know we lost a lot but geez let us enjoy the time we have during pregnancy. We worry enough for ourselves, I don't need your stress too.

Now I'm going to ignore this, going to move forward and be excited for the upcoming surgery! I am excited and it's not that far away!!!!

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.

     7 Years. 6 pregnancies. No living children and a lifetime of heartache. We have spent our entire marriage either pregnant or preparing for a pregnancy. This means we didn't make plans for anything else, just in case we were. Sometimes I look back and feel sad that we haven't been anything other than the couple trying for a baby, or losing them. We've missed out on a lot and though my heart aches for the experiences we've missed in life, vacations we never took, I wouldn't change it. Because there isn't a vacation worth the vacation we'll be taking in Jan.

In May of this year we had a phone consultation with Dr. Haney in Chicago. I had it set up in April and patiently waited for that day. May 17th, I was so excited I forgot they were in a different time zone and called an hour early. I waited another hour and then with my husband on the 2nd line, we were connected to Dr. Haney. A conversation that I will never forget. Filled with nothing but positive things and the phrase I hold dear "Sabrina, you will be able to have as many babies as you want." You mean, I won't be broken anymore? How is this so? How is this surgery going to give me virtually 100% success rate? Well it has for many women and it can for me too. He told me he could tell me all day it will work for me, but he knows after loss that I don't believe doctors, and he said women with similar pasts, don't either. He told me to check "consumer reports" and I have, every single day since then. I am on a fb page and a yahoo group of women with tacs and there are well over 100 women on there. The ones with Haney Tacs (transabdominal cerclages) have had successful pregnancies. It is unexplainable to see those photos, of women just like me holding living, full term children and most have had no bedrest. If there is any bedrest, it usually has nothing to do with the cervix but other pregnancy stuff. 

I imagine every day of my life what a happy birth will feel like. I only know how the births of our daughters were. Watching my husband fall to the ground screaming "no" is something I wish I could forget and erase from his mind. Having to watch them breathe until their bodies could no long fill their lungs with air. I wish no parent on Earth knew the feeling of letting their children go. After speaking to Dr. Haney, I have imagined the operating room, where Dr. Tryska will deliver our baby and where for the first time in our life, they will hand Derrick a screaming, full term baby with lungs filled with so much air. Where he won't know anything but happiness for that moment. I cry every single time I dream of this. 7 years of trying to get to that point. A transvaginal cerclage surgery, all the fear, the many er visits, waiting to see a second line on a test, the roller coaster of emotions and there was one time that I was crossing my fingers that there wasn't a 2nd line (Something a infertile women would never dream of.) Only because I was too scared it would end in another loss.  I can't explain to you all the feelings and emotions we've been through. 

All of that is coming to a close. It feels like another page is being turned. I have waited 6 months to start the process of getting the tac. And we are so close. I was told I'd have a Jan surgery date and then whatever life brings us, we will handle it one day at a time. So for all the vacations we missed out on taking in case I was pregnant, or because I had to do bedrest. None of them will compare to the one we are taking to Chicago. Where I plan on ice skating with my husband in Millennium park and enjoying every second we have together. I will be nervous to go under and nervous to be operated on and most of all, nervous for the future but I will enjoy Chicago with my husband and dream of the future with a happy birth and a full term baby. Never will I forget the 2 children we brought into this world. The 2 that will be missing from every family photo, every family function, every moment of our lives and who Derrick will never walk down the aisle. But I hope to be that success story that helps another woman who feels like I do, who feels like she's the medical mystery, feels broken and can't give her husband a child or her parents living grandchildren. I want her to read my story and know that she has a chance. And that someday she'll hear those cries, and her baby will be crying for her. Not her staying up at night, crying for her babies. 

I'm trying to hold on to each positive thing in my mind, each success story I've read and all the emails from Dr. Haney telling me this will work. I am thankful to that man for repeatedly telling me this will happen, a baby will come home with us. For answering emails even though he's extremely busy. And most importantly, for performing a surgery that gives thousands of women the opportunity to bring home a baby.

Right now, I have waited 169 days, only 11 more to go and I can send my surgery forms in, receive a date that I'll be getting my tac and my next countdown begins.  I hope with every thing in my body that this is it for us. I fear of what may happen if we endure another loss, but I dream of a future where for once a birth is a happy thing and not a huge tragedy. For now, I am living in the moment of time over which I have any control: now.

Some things I feel like I need to clear up

I feel like there are a few misunderstanding about my pregnancies that I'd like to clear up. 


I was healthy, I have a bad cervix, that is it. My weight was not normal but I was healthy. Blood pressure etc was completely normal. 

My children were extremely healthy. NOTHING and I mean absolutely nothing, was wrong with them. They came early due to my cervix not being strong enough to stay closed because of the normal weight of the baby and the water. If my cervix was normal, my children would be here. That should be obvious since they both held on at such a young age. Being able to live an hour and Evelie being able to continue to live without any water for 14 days and make it through the birth and live almost 2 hours after birth. They were strong babies!

They were not miscarriages. I gave birth just like any full term mother does. I had labor, I felt pain just like any mother and they were born just like any other baby. I do know what it feels like to have a natural birth. My experience was just the same, except too soon and they didn't live.

I don't want people to think that if the next pregnancy is full term it's because I'm now "healthy" Health has nothing to do with your cervical function. For whatever reason I was born with a bad cervix. You can damage your cervix but that isn't the case with me. I didn't have any procedures done to it in the past to cause the weakness. I simply was born with it. Again, there was nothing wrong with my kids, their heartbeats were strong and they were strong. 

There, I've said what I needed to say. If there are any questions, I will be happy to answer them.

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future.”

     I'm nervous for my future. Nervous of so many things. The thought of taking the next step in my future has me scared and tears well up when I think about it. If I don't do this, we have no chance of children. The last time I felt this much fear was when they were wheeling me to the OR for my transvaginal cerclage. I felt my heart in my throat and the only thing that kept me on that table was knowing I was doing all I could for that baby who was peacefully growing in my tummy. You don't know fear until your water breaks at 20 weeks and your child is hanging on for her life with no water. Knowing that at any minute her heart could stop or you could go into labor and her life would end. Knowing that her life will end even though she's so healthy, but your body can't do what it's meant to do. That is fear. Not so intense as it once was because there isn't a child inside me. But because I fear the unknown and fear that it will happen again. I fear surgery, anesthesia and c-sections. I grieve my children, I grieve the natural birth I always wanted and I grieve the life that was supposed to be.

Fear is powerful. I find it stopping me in my tracks daily. But the need to have a "normal" life, the need to give my husband the chance to father children is so great that I'm putting myself through a surgery that I'm so extremely scared to do. The only thing letting me move forward and not scaring me out of this, is knowing many women who have their dreams after this terrible life we've all been given. I can't think of  a life without children and my husband often tells me he can't live without being a parent. What a terrible feeling, knowing you are responsible for not only your pain but for your husband's pain. So many emotions right now. So much stuff coming up in the next few months. It's overwhelming and I cry daily from the amount of stress and grief. It's a difficult thing to try this all over again. I'm not sure I'm ready for it but I'm not getting younger and this is the only chance I have left. 

Someday I hope to tell our children how much we love them and all that we had to go through to get them. I wish every day of my life that I knew what it was like to get pregnant and have no worries and know that at the end of 9 months a baby would come home. I would never wish this condition on my worst enemy. I have never struggled so hard for anything in my life. I dream of the simple life we had before this. I wonder what our problems and struggles in our life would be if we never had to bury our children. Life would be simple and easy. The worst thing would be getting up early and I laugh at that. Really, how easy life would be if it weren't this way. What would we really get upset over? We will never know that because we carry the death of our daughters with us until we die. Nothing will ever fix that, we will never forget them and life will never be the same.

“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves”

   There will always be waves of grief. There has been for 5 years, now there is 2 reasons for the waves. Feels like it's all the time. I get a couple "good" days and then the waves. I can feel them coming, but you really can't do anything to stop them. No matter our plans for the future, these waves will be there and it's my little moment where I miss my daughters so much, and its that moment where it creeps into my heart. I do great at keeping it out for a long time, because it's really too much to handle. I saw a little girl wearing a onesie that I registered for. Evelie should be wearing that. She should be here.

It's watching a young dad with a baby the age of Evelie, pushing the shopping cart talking to her. That should be my husband. It isn't and never was. He never got that. I'm angry he hasn't. I'm angry that people don't think he hurts. They talk to him when they don't want to tell my announcements. As if he doesn't feel this pain. He was very involved, never missed an appointment of mine, never missed anything. Once he could feel Evelie move, his hand was constantly on my belly.

Today is a wave, a big one. One I don't want to allow in, it hurts too much. What I would give to hold them one more time. What I really want is to keep them, to have them here and watch them grow. I know that wish will never come true. I've wished it everyday for the last 5 years. Here we are dreading Evelie's first birthday. This last year has been hell, and it wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be the best year of our lives. Again. I still can't believe we are doing this again. A double headstone of our only children. Something is extremely wrong with that. I'm angry. I watch people disappear. When I play the happy, positive card they are everywhere but when you put something out there that isn't positive, that's real it's like they hide. They don't know what to say or do. They run and I'm not sure why.

Today's just a bad day. I have a long list of things to check off before we can start towards our goal. It won't fix our past and I hate that we have this past. I'm just trying to find us both happiness. Something to live for again, something to smile about.

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

   I don't write much anymore. Sometimes I have lots of stuff to say but no ambition to sit and get it out. Sometimes it's the writing it out that hurts so I just don't do it. We're getting closer to what would have been Evelie's 1st birthday. I don't really think about it much. I don't want to. Had one decision been made, she would be here and I hold a painful grudge against my perinatologists for that. Something I have to learn how to cope with for the rest of my life. 

   However, today I feel strong. I am filled with ridiculous amounts of hope. Of hope for a happy future. Although it will always be lined with pain. I am trying my hardest to handle things the way I would, if I got to watch my daughters grow up. Handle things the way I would want them to watch me do. I am in control of my life and no matter how much I feel like people rub things in my face or no matter how painful life is, I will make my life the way I want it. It will not end here.

   I am so grateful for my husband. He has given me my hope back, the little glimmer of happiness. It's like I see a twinkle at the end of this extremely long tunnel. The pain we have endured is excruciating and even with days passing, the pain won't stop. It just gets manageable. We have an extremely intimate relationship. Going through what we have has put us on a level of closeness that I never imagined possible. I wouldn't want that with anyone else.

   I am excited (to say the least) of what the future holds for us. We have been busy with things, goals that we need to hit. I'm glad for the things we've been doing. They keep me busy and get us one step closer to our happiness.   We've made a very important step, one of many. The next 6 months, I'm hoping they pass quickly. I'm ready to get back to living. Get back to happiness and begin a new chapter. I have met with people, talked with one over the phone. One that has made a huge impact on my life. I owe him for giving my husband and I hope. Something that sounds so tiny, just hope, has a very large impact on your soul when you feel like your life is pure crap. I don't know how I could ever thank him. I know I'm being vague, and I apologize for that. I just don't wish to share everything because of negative comments. We don't need them and I won't live that way. We know what our future holds, we've educated ourselves and sadly lots of people just don't understand. That's ok, I don't need them too, I don't need anything from anyone. I have my husband and I've spent many hours of research, phone calls etc. I am very aware of what is going on. 

I remember a statement my father said to me. He said "You have always gone out and got what you wanted. You wanted to move out, you did. You wanted to get married, you put it all together and did. Anything you've ever wanted you've worked at and accomplished. You are independent." I never thought of myself like that. But I'm trying to live up to that. I have a goal in my sight, and I will get it.

 My biggest accomplishment isn't far from my grasp. I have studied and educated myself hours on end and was complimented by an extremely intelligent individual who told me "I've never met a patient so educated about these topics" It's my life. I do not go into something without trying to learn everything I possibly can about it. I do not live with a condition that I know nothing about. I live with a condition that I know lots about. I am my own advocate. I never stop trying to learn. Today I am filled with a tiny bit of happiness and a gigantic amount of hope. And the best thing about it, my husband feels the same way. We are in this together. I am excited for our future. I am about to put my mind, body and soul through hell. Especially my body. Nothing physical will ever hurt as much as watching your husband hold your children as they take their last breath and gasp for air that can't fill their lungs. Nothing physical could ever inflict the pain that those images inflict on my heart and soul. I can do this. I will do this. This is nothing compared to what we've been through. And at the end of the day, I will know this is worth it. Today I feel strong, empowered and not a single person can take that from me. My children have changed me and although the way it happened isn't at all what I wished for, I live for them. They have made me a better person. Our experience has taught me to love deeper and when you feel happy, you feel it on a completely new level. When I feel an emotion, I feel it so much deeper than I did before my kids. My eyes have been opened. This quote is the easiest way to explain it "He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness" Now obviously I am not happy that what happened, happened. However, I know I feel in a way that some won't ever feel.

"We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot."  Eleanor Roosevelt.

I'm going to do something I thought I never could. It won't fix the pain from the past but I will go forward with that pain. I will carry it with me every day of my life. I will learn to love a deeper love and be thankful for things others take for granted. I will soak in each moment and learn to love life again.

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
― Ellen Bass