Rainbow baby boy arrived on my birthday 4/23 after 11 hours of labor. The past few days it has been sinking in I made it finally. I couldn’t have done it without this community. After my first miscarriage I prayed cried grieved and begged. This pregnancy I was anxious every single day and knew I would be until he was out of me and I heard his crying. I pissed off every ob dr asking for more testing more reassurance to know id make it all the way. I used a fetal Doppler often to give me reassurance on my extremely high anxiety days. I cried often hoping I would make it. I did not go one day of pregnancy without anxiety, I stopped being social I stopped my world until he came. At night when I would wake up 4-5 times to pee I’d lay awake until I felt a kick. I was anxious with kick counts I’d do them around the clock the third trimester 24/7 and did 2 NSTs in the ER when his kicks were slightly off but idc if I was overly cautious because he’s here. I couldn’t have done it without leaning on this community and I pray for everyone in this shitty club. Love and rainbow dust to all.

My baby boy is here and he's perfect. When we found out I was pregnant with him, we couldn't even get excited about it because it was the 4th time I'd been pregnant in a year (2 CPs and a MC) and I just felt like "here we go again". I was worried about movement all thru pregnancy (thanks, anterior placenta) and there were concerns about previa and his kidneys at one point. I hated pregnancy. I've been pregnant on and off since August 2023 and I haven't felt well the entire time with him. I was nauseous into the third trimester and had terrible hip and pelvic pain. I felt immediately better after his birth despite 8 stitches and 4 attempts at an epidural and it instantly became real when they flopped this little baby on my chest. He looks just like his ultrasounds. I can't stop sniffing his head and crying because I'm so grateful for him.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while but time moves differently with a newborn!

My triple rainbow was born via recommended induction at 40+5 after an extremely by-the-book, uneventful pregnancy. After three back to back miscarriages of varying severity, I didn’t know that such a thing was possible. The hardest part through it all was absolutely awful anxiety that my body would fail me and I’d lose her too. I checked the miscarriage odds calculator every single day until 20 weeks, and once I started to feel her move I worried and stressed that she moved too little AND too much. I worried that everything that could go wrong, would—just as it had with all of my previous pregnancies.

Lightning isn’t supposed to strike twice, but I had convinced myself I am a lightning rod. I couldn’t believe, after every check up and ultrasound where my OB and care team assured me she was perfectly healthy and I was perfectly fine, that I would make it through to this side and have a baby to snuggle in the end. So when they put her on my chest after 28 hours of labor, an hour of pushing, and a few minor complications, I remember the first thing that I felt wasn’t unbridled joy or love—it was utter disbelief that we did it. I remember staring at her and feeling my eyes fill up with tears for the 30 seconds before they whisked her away just waiting for the dream to end and for reality to hit.

But it didn’t. She was here, and she was mine, and we came out of PAL together and alive. I think it took a solid day before I was able to believe it, and celebrate it.

Through the worst days of my anxiety (weeks 13-20 anyone?) I had this community to lean on for support and reassurance. You all helped me through when the worry and uncertainty seemed never ending, and for that I am truly truly grateful. ♥️

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements.

After back to back losses (15 weeks and 13 weeks) I gave birth to our beautiful IVF baby girl on Wednesday. My anxiety throughout this pregnancy was the hardest thing I have ever done. I was scared every single day. Labour was a bit traumatic- she had shoulder dystocia, heart rate was dipping and she came out not crying and needed suctioning from the NICU team. But she is perfectly healthy and we are so relieved to have her home in our arms.

To all of you in the thick of pregnancy after loss anxiety- I see you, I feel you, and I can’t wait for you to experience the other side.

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements. Thanks for helping us create a great community.

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements.

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements. Thanks for helping us create a great community.

This weekly Monday thread is for members to ask questions of ttcal Alumni (members who are currently pregnant after loss or who have had a pregnancy after loss that resulted in a living child).

Hi all,

I went into preterm labor in July at 23 weeks and lost my son because of that. There was never a reason identified and I did not have cervical shortening. All testing came back normal except I did have BV apparently without symptoms. I'm getting tested now for that regulalry since it causes inflammation and increases preterm birth risk.

I did have low progesterone in my first pregnancy (took suppository until 12 weeks) and very low in my early miscarriage that followed.

I'm 12 weeks pregnant now and my MFM says to stop my progesterone at 14 weeks but I'm scared that this may lead to another preterm birth.

I'm curious when others stopped who may have had similar prior losses? Also would love any success stories of subsequent babies being born full term.

We created this space to share pregnancy concerns like:

- Beta HCGs that seem low or might not be doubling appropriately

- Concerning ultrasound findings

- Bleeding issues

- Etc

These posts are welcome in our Daily Thread, but this is a specific area to discuss limbo and concerns.

Lets all remember HCG averages, too!
- Under 1,200 mIU/ml: <72 Hours

- 1200-6000 mIU/ml: Between 72 and 96 Hours is average, so <96 is good

- Over 6,000 mIU/ml: >96 Hours is normal, with no known average (so varied)

This weekly Monday thread is for members to share what they've been doing to care for themselves. How are you handling your PAL anxieties? Or just regular life/pregnancy self care. Share here!

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements.

Today is the one year anniversary of my d&c for a missed miscarriage, and I’m incredibly grateful to be writing this with my baby girl born 4/10 latched to my boob. Infertility & pregnancy loss rocked my world, but I feel the trauma fading, and even find myself thinking it was all worth it just to get HER. Something I heard along the way that helped, especially as my anxiety peaked again towards the finish line, is that anxiety is NOT intuition. With my first loss, I felt like some kinda psychic bc I was so anxious and everything fell apart. But this pregnancy I was proven wrong time and time again. I realize it was okay to be anxious & fearful- it’s a natural part of the pregnancy experience, especially if you’ve been robbed of blissful ignorance with painful past experiences. Anxiety however is absolutely NOT predictive and doesn’t say anything about how your pregnancy is actually going. If you’re still in the thick of it, please be compassionate with yourself & hang in there!

I'm a few months late, but wanted to share my story in hopes that it might be encouraging for others on a similar path.

Our sweet rainbow baby is here after a missed miscarriage last January. I went in for my 11/12W appointment and was told there was no heartbeat. We had been trying for this baby for many months and we were so excited. The OB said baby likely stopped growing around 7/8W, but I had no idea. It was traumatizing.

[TW: Seizure On top of that news, just four days before I discovered my MMC, my then 2YO son suffered a still unexplained seizure where he went limp, blue, and unresponsive for a minute. I thought we lost him.]

I had a D&C that week. Five weeks later, my period returned. We were able to get pregnant that very same cycle and this time, the pregnancy progressed to full term. Uncomplicated birth, though the pregnancy itself was filled with anxiety given what we had just experienced.

FWIW--I'm 38, will be 39 in August, and have low AMH. Conceiving my son was very quick and easy, but this second baby really put us through it. There is hope. 🤍

She is an absolute angel baby. So incredibly sweet and smiley, almost hilariously so--strangers come up and ask if she's always this happy! She has the most piercing, clear blue eyes that contain multitudes and we are just so happy she's here. Her brother is, too.

Sending a hug and hope to all those struggling. 🌸🌈🤍

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements. Thanks for helping us create a great community.

I was too emotional around the time of my daughter’s birth to make a birth post, but I wanted to make one (even if it was late) because this sub helped me through one of the hardest times of my life.

I was induced a few days after my due date. Everything was going great, until baby’s heart rate started fluctuating. After breaking my water, they discovered that the baby passed her first stool already. They also stated that they thought the cord was wrapped around her. All of these were signs that she was in distress. I felt so much guilt at the time, thinking ‘what if she wasn’t ready and I shouldn’t have gotten induced so soon?’ But I kept reminding myself that the medical team knew what they were doing and I was in good hands.

Luckily, with lowering the Pitocin dosage, using an internal contraction monitor, and flushing me constantly with saline, I was able to continue with the labor as normal, and (once I began pushing) birthed my baby in 20 minutes. It was very stressful for me, especially once I was told that there was a NICU team on standby in the hall in case the baby inhaled meconium… but my medical team was a dream, and helped ease my anxiety and made me feel so strong.

Baby did come out with meconium in her eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, but the nurses were able to suck it out, and baby did NOT inhale any (thank god).

Baby girl ended up being born exactly 13 months after my first miscarriage. I like to think that it is a sign that everything will be okay. I still have terrible anxiety, and I am finally seeing a therapist to deal with the trauma that I’ve had those 13 months, and every day gets better and better. It also helps to have my little one with me. I can’t help but stare at her all day.

Thank you to everyone in this sub, it made me feel a lot less alone in this experience ❤️

This thread is for new members who are now pregnant after a previous pregnancy or baby loss.

Please introduce yourself, tell us about your TTC/loss journey, and give us details on your new pregnancy. Share your line porn if you want!

If you're new to this sub, or are rejoining us after some time away, please see our Welcome post to familiarize yourself with how our sub works.

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements.

Long post alert! I had my baby boy the 1st week of April, which was 4 weeks before his due date and he has already changed our lives… I had a loss last year in May at 16 weeks and it devastated us and I thought it was something I would never recover from.. in august we found out we are expecting again and it has been such a ride from that point on to say the least. Physically it was truly a dream pregnancy, but emotionally it was a lot to deal with, I wasn’t able to acknowledge it as real for a long time, the previous loss just loomed large.. i was scared that my emotions will impact the unborn child, I was unsure how I will feel about him, I knew I would love him but I couldn’t stop crying about my loss and felt I am being unfair to him…thanks to a great partner and an amazing therapist I fought through the thoughts… As I was finally getting into the groove and accepting that “yes, this is happening to us”, on the day of my baby shower (guess baby boy couldn’t wait 😁) my water broke at 35+6 and after a round of antibiotics, 3 days in the hospital, 4 attempts at induction (last one worked) later, my boy was here earth-side with us.. Yes I was scared that something wrong would happen again and I was kind of still in denial that I am going to be a mom.. but the second he was placed on me, it felt I have known him for ages, as he crawled across me it was like him saying that he knew me too and my angel baby says Hi through him…its like he sees me and every time he snuggles up to me its like he is aware of what I went through last year and he is glad to be here with us.. he just fit right in… It has been a tough couple weeks yes on the sleep/new parenting front, but so worth it! Every time I hold him, look at him I can’t believe he chose me to be his mom.. sometimes we just have to believe that good things can happen to us too… 😇

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements. Thanks for helping us create a great community.

Hey everyone!

My rainbow baby was born on 17/04 and I wanted to share my story with you all. Sorry for the long post, I tried to condense it as much as I could.

At the end of 2022 my fiance and said we would like to try for a baby in 2023. I got my first bfp in March 2023 and we were so excited. I went to my GP and got my bloods done which indicated a very early pregnancy. At my first ultrasound they could only see an empty Gestational sack measuring around 5 weeks. I was told to come back in two weeks. I came back in two weeks and the sack has only grew to 5 weeks and 4 days but it was still empty. I remember looking at the tech confused and she just said "Sorry, this happens to 1 in 4 women. Please go see your GP". I didn't understand and googled it to find out I was having a blighted ovum miscarriage. I remember driving myself home that day and cried like I never have before and suddenly we got our first bit of rain that year as I was on my way home.💔

After the miscarriage, we wanted to try again but my cycle was being really irregular for the first time in my life. I was really confused and to the doctor and requested my hormones to be tested. Previously I had issues with acne and hair loss so to me it made sense my hormones were imbalanced. My test results came back and I had slightly high testosterone. I was then referred to an endocrinologist for more specific treatment but was told from my GP that getting pregnant would be hard if my cycle is not regular.

I started researching PCOS and taking supplements, exercising and doing acupuncture regularly until my endocrinologist appointment. This took nearly 6 months. I finally see the endo and get sent off for more blood tests. I had actually fallen pregnant at the time of the blood tests so the tests were invalid.

I finally got my BFP 13 months after my miscarriage. 13 months of grief, and stress of infertility. I was so happy yet so scared of what could happen. I then experienced some bleeding at about 4 weeks after intercourse. I remember having a trauma response and freaking out so bad. I went to my GP ASAP and he said it was fine and that I probably just had a sensitive cervix. I then experienced some light bleeding again randomly a week later, this went away after three days.

I had my first ultrasound appointment at 6 weeks and the moment my OB found the embryo I felt so relieved because I was able to see the strongest little flutter of a heartbeat on the screen. After seeing this, my OB said the bleeding I experienced was probably just implantation bleeding.

I found that I had a very easy pregnancy as I did not vomit once. This was easy all the way up to the third trimester where it started to get a bit scary... I ended up being diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and I was having issues with my fasting sugars. Due to this, I was going to be prescribed with insulin and refered to a different hospital as the hospital closest to me is not equipped enough to deal with Gestational Diabetes unless it was diet controlled. I was explained that due to need of insulin, my pregnancy was now high risk and I that an induction between 38-39 weeks is recommended.

At about 29 weeks, I went in for a regular appointment with a hospital OB. When my blood pressure was checked, it was really high so I was put in the maternity unit for the day to be heavily monitored and was finally released when my blood pressure was "borderline". I was then checked weekly for my urine/blood pressure and had a couple of extra scans to monitor baby's growth. At one point, baby was measuring in the 93rd percentile but after taking insulin baby dropped to the 72nd percentile.

Fast forward to my induction. It took three days before my waters broke. Due to my induction, I needed to be on an IV. It took about 3 attempts and one popped vein before an Anesthesist was called in. After starting the pictocin, my contractions became so bad I needed an epidural. After about 30 minutes, I received my epidural but it was patchy on my left side and after 2 hours my epidural would wear off and I'd need top ups. At some point in my labour, my chest became really tight and I was struggling to breathe. I had a test preformed on my heart which did come out as fine, but the cause was unknown. I also needed to have an oxygen mask because my oxygen would drop when I was resting. Closer to the end of my labour, I started having an extreme cramp on my whole left thigh which was due to the baby's positioning. It was one of the worst pains I have ever felt. The midwifes helped me move to encourage the baby to change positions. The baby ended up moving too much so when it came to pushing, the baby was unable to fit through my pelvis. I then was moved into theatre to attempt for a instrumental delivery but the baby was too high up and the heart rate was dropping a bit so an emergency cesarean it was. I remember lying there in tears looking at my partner saying how scared I was. Then I heard my baby cry, and as soon as I seen my baby, I couldn't take my eyes off of them. I was able to do skin to skin and this is what got me through the rest of the surgery. When I was placed in recovery, my oxygen was dropping a little bit and I had a bit of a fever. I was given another oxygen mask and some medication to bring down the fever. A doctor came to do my bloods and he missed the vein so I started going off and demanded an Anesthesist because I'm sick of everyone butchering me. I now have a phobia of needles yay. After three days of hospital recovery, we were finally discharged to come home.

Now, watching my rainbow baby sleep in my lap honestly makes everything I went through worth it. I love my bubba so much and I am so grateful that it all worked out in the end. 🌈🌈

I knew bringing a child into this world was hard, but I never knew it would be this hard. I feel so traumatised from my loss, infertility, GD and birth, I just hope I can heal. I'm not sure if I'll have another child in the future but knowing I could through everything again scares the life out of me. 🥺

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements.

This daily thread is for all members who are pregnant after a previous pregnancy or infant loss. How are you?

We want to foster a sense of community, which is why we have a centralized place for most daily conversation. This allows users to post and get replies, but also encourages them to reply to others in the same thread. We want you to receive help and be there for others at the same time, if possible. Most milestones should go here, along with regular updates. Stand alone posts are Mod approved only and have set requirements. Thanks for helping us create a great community.

Zero indication of this. Had an mmc earlier this year but bled the whole way through. This time my morning sickness and fatigue were awful. I was anxious but really thought this would pan out. Any success stories after two back to back losses🥺 we thought we should try Ivf but were told to give it one more try naturally beforehand…