Memorial Monday

This week's Memorial Monday post is in honor of Laura.This is her story in her own words.

I'm Laura and I am 31 years old. My husband Alex and I were high school sweethearts that ended up breaking up to go to college and then getting back together four years later. We ended up getting married and I thought we would be that storybook couple with the fairytale life. At first we were very happy and we couldn't wait to be parents.

When we first started trying we got pregnant after only six months. We were both thrilled. At my 20 week appointment there was no heartbeat. I delivered our son two days later. We got pregnant again a year later. At my 18 week appointment there was no heartbeat. I delivered another son that same day.

Testing on both babies showed no abnormalities but we went to a very smart doctor who decided to do some more testing on me after the second baby died. It turned out that I had a bicornuate uterus with a full septum and the babies had probably died from IGR [intrauterine growth restriction]. Although many women can carry pregnancies to term with such a problem, my uterus was completely divided almost evenly (most women have a larger side, or the wall doesn't form completely and the baby can grow enough to make it to viability).

Because of how severe my case was I did require surgery if we wanted to try any more pregnancies. Because it was a major surgery and usually causes scarring our doctor didn't seem very enthusiastic about it. We got a second opinion to be sure and the second doctor we saw seemed more confident that it would be a good fix. I was scared of surgery but I did want children very badly and Alex did not want to adopt.

The day of my surgery I was very nervous and right before I went into the OR I told my husband that I had a bad feeling and did not want the surgery. He told me that it was up to me but I could tell how disappointed he would be.

When I woke up in recovery I remember feeling the most horrible pain of my life even worse than when had my sons. I was thrashing around on the bed and two nurses were trying to hold me down calling for a doctor at the same time. I remember looking down and seeing the sheets and blankets bright red from blood. It was like something in a horror movie and I passed out from the shock and pain.

When I woke up in recovery again I was not in pain. My doctor was standing on one side and my husband and a nurse was on the other side. They all had very serious looks on their faces. It turned out that I had hemorrhaged after the surgery was over and the blood loss meant they had to go back in to try and repair the damage. Too bad for me they couldn't stop the bleeding and I had to have a hystorectomy to save my life.

My physical and emotional recovery were very tough. I had lost a lot of blood and was anemic for many months. I also had to deal with the reality that I would never carry children of my own. I felt like a piece of me had been torn away. I had signed all of the consent forms yes but you really don't ever think those things are going to happen to you.

At first my husband assured me that he would be okay with adopting a baby but we started looking into the process and all of the stories of birth moms taking their babies back scared him. He only wanted an infant, he did not want to adopt a child of another race or with any sort of special needs and he did not want to have an open adoption. That meant that domestic adoption would be very difficult if not impossible. Wanting a caucasian baby made international adoption more difficult too. We did sign up with an international adoption agency which made me feel better but I soon realized that his heart wasn't truly in adoption.

Apparently his heart wasn't in our marriage any more either. Two weeks before Christmas this last year my husband called me from a business trip to tell me that he wasn't coming home. He sent some of his friends and his brother over to pack his things up. While it wasn't a complete shock I still never thought my marriage would truly be over. He filed for divorce immediately and now we are just waiting for the final hearing in April. I have tried contacting him several times and even though he is always very polite and is being nice about letting me have the house and alimony he does not want to see him because he says that it is too painful.

I feel as if I have lost everything: two babies, my ability to have more, and my husband, all in a few short years. Somedays I am so sad that I don't know how I will move on. I have been told by our friends that Alex is already seeing another woman and I can't imagine ever falling in love again or really being happy.

To be featured in upcoming Memorial Mondays, please contact me by clicking on my profile link and then by clicking on my e-mail link. You can either write your story yourself or provide me with the details and I will do it for you. You may include pictures, poetry, whatever feels right. This is your memorial for your loss.