I am a mother of nine. Only five are here with us. My fertility journey started early because of my husband being in the army and deploying. I knew he was the only one I ever wanted to have a family with. We conceived our first easily and pregnancy and birth were a breeze. We didn’t plan to have our children super close but life rarely goes along with our plans. I had stopped the birth control I was taking because it was making me sick. A month later I had what I assumed was my period. The bleeding continued for two weeks and during the third the cramping was so painful I couldn’t move. My husband came home from work and had to carry me to the car while juggling our sweet baby who was barely walking at this point. I arrived at the ER around 7 pm. They did a urine test and came back and the Dr. said congratulations, You’re pregnant. We were shocked but happy. If only that happiness could last. We were young and scared but we knew we could figure it out. The Dr finally came back in the room and said they were going to do some other tests to figure out why I was in pain and bleeding. I was so scared. The ultrasound tech came in a started the ultrasound without saying a word to me. I asked questions and was flat out ignored. The Dr came in and they whispered to each other. I was yelling and crying at this point because I was being ignored completely. I understand that the techs can’t tell me anything, but she could’ve said SOMETHING!! They left the room without even looking at me. I’m in tears because I didn’t know what was going on. Thirty minutes later, the Dr finally came back in the room. He said that there was no baby in my uterus and that it was likely an ectopic pregnancy but they couldn’t tell where it had implanted from the ultrasound so they would be doing a surgery to figure it out. I’m shaking and crying at this point. I had never had surgery in my entire life and here he was telling me they were going to cut me open just to see if they could find what was going on. This man was so cold and uncaring. I was on the edge of a panic attack and being in that tiny room was suffocating me. I asked to go outside to get some air and think about what I wanted to do. I was told that if I walked out then they wouldn’t accept me back in the hospital and that because I was bleeding like that, then I would be dead by morning. He told me it was my choice and that my OBGYN was on her way and then walked out. I’m crying even more now and screaming and cussing like no other. I’m sure everyone in that ER thought I was insane. Not even ten minutes passed and two nurses came in to hook me up to an IV and prep for surgery. I told them to get the fuck away from me and no one was going to touch me until I spoke to MY doctor. She finally got there a little after ten pm.(She had been delivering a baby at the time they called her) She came in and calmly explained everything to me. She told me that I wasn’t losing enough blood to warrant an emergency surgery like they had told me. She wanted me to stay the night in the hospital and have the surgery in the morning. So I let them hook up the IV’s and eventually we were settled into a room. My parents took our son to stay the night with them while my husband stayed with me. The next morning they prepped me and the last thing I remember was my mom telling me she loved me. I woke up in the recovery room completely out of it. I remember my Dr coming in and telling me that she had to remove one of my fallopian tubes that my baby had implanted in, causing it to rupture. So not only did I lose my second child, I also lost my tube.

Almost a year later we conceived again and we had our first rainbow baby. Things were great and when he turned two we began trying for another child. After a year of trying, we finally went to the OBGYN. I was prescribed clomid and luckily it worked the first cycle and we then had our next rainbow.

When our second Rainbow was almost two we began trying for our fourth. I didn’t expect it to happen so fast since we had issues before. We got that positive test on the second cycle trying. I had planned on switching from an OBGYN to a group of midwives. With my ectopic pregnancy before, I always get an early ultrasound to verify it implants in the right spot. We were referred to an OBGYN practice that did ultrasounds for them at the time. We saw two tiny embryos in the perfect place. Twins! We couldn’t believe it. We went ahead and stayed with that OBGYN until we knew more about the pregnancy. At ten weeks we went back in to get another ultrasound to verify twins. She began the ultrasound and we saw two tiny babies. The room was silent and I knew something was terribly wrong. She moved around for a couple more minutes. Then she broke the news to us. I already knew it and I had already started tearing up. They were no longer with us. We lost two more sweet babies. We had our two year old with us so we were trying to hold it together. She fell asleep as we were walking to the car so we put her in her car seat and turned the car on. We broke down in the parking garage while our sweet two year old slept innocently. We started to drive home but I made him stop by my mom’s work. I spent the next half hour crying in my mom’s arms. We waited almost a month trying to let things go naturally but after the stress of waiting that long we opted for a D&C. I woke up from the surgery in tears. This hospital was completely different than my first experience and everyone was amazing and caring.

We started trying again and got pregnant again about six months later. I found out the day before I missed a period. We went for the ultrasound three days later. We didn’t see anything because I was so early so we did the blood work and waited. Within a week I woke up to blood. I knew I had lost yet another baby. We went to the ER to get more blood work done. As soon as he told me my levels I was sure that this baby was another one taken from me. This ER doctor stayed and comforted me while I cried. He was on the verge of tears himself because his wife had lost a baby not long before.

We went on to have two more rainbows. I still have times where I break down. With my first loss, I shut everyone out and no one knew what had happened until a few years down the road. When I lost the twins, I knew I had to share my stories. I didn’t expect much at all. What I found was a very large community that had gone through the same things I had. Friends that I’ve known for years came forward with their very own stories of loss. I didn’t realize that so many had suffered the same or in some cases worse. I am very open about my losses now. No one deserves to suffer alone in silence. We are 1 in 4. We are not alone.

My angels’ names are Charlie, Ariah and Declan, and Emery.

-Kira Leach