The Story Behind Our Rainbow Baby

I want to start by telling anyone that is reading this that I am not sharing our story for myself. For the longest time, I actually did not want to share this with the world because I just wanted to keep it to myself and the people close to me.

The reason I am sharing about our two babies that are in heaven now is to give hope to anyone who has gone through or is going through this type of loss. When we lost our first baby in August 2018, I felt completely alone. There weren’t many people I saw talking about miscarriage on the internet lat this time. I remember desperately seeking out any stories that were relatable to ours, just so I could feel less alone.

In this blog post that is very close to my heart, I will be sharing our story up to getting pregnant with our rainbow baby, Davis.

What is a “rainbow baby?” A rainbow baby is a baby born after miscarriage, still birth or loss from natural causes. The word “rainbow” was chosen because in the Bible, God uses rainbows as a symbol of hope and light, which is exactly what a rainbow baby is.

Our First Pregnancy:

In early July 2018, Cody and I found out we were moving to Dallas. We had been praying for this move for a very long time and God provided Cody with a wonderful job opportunity in a city we had dreamed of moving to. Cody had to move just a few weeks after we found out about the job. I had to stay back in St. Louis to sell our house.

On Cody’s first day at his new job, I felt something was off so I went to take a pregnancy test. It was positive. I was on the pill and this was definitely a surprise. I was hysterical and without thinking, I called Cody at his first day of work and told him. I had no idea what he was going to think. With our huge move, a new job for him, no job for me and so many unknowns – the timing really threw me off. He was relieved when I told him I was pregnant, because with how I sounded on the phone he thought I was going to tell him horrible news. As soon I saw that Cody was excited, so was I.

A few days later, I had my first doctor’s appointment. Cody couldn’t come because he had started his new job just a couple days ago, so I asked my mom to come with me. This appointment was at 6 weeks. I honestly had no idea what to expect at this appointment because I hadn’t really had any close friends have a baby yet and wasn’t sure how the process went. I had my first ultrasound and heard my angel’s heartbeat for the first and last time.

In the next few weeks I was just over the moon excited. Both of us were. I felt so connected to this baby. It was the best surprise of my life. I created a baby registry, I was planning the nursery, we were talking about names and doing all the things that soon to be new parents would do.

When I was about 8.5 weeks pregnant, I attended the PGA Championship in St. Louis with my parents. It was a hot day in August and I have never been someone that did well with heat. About an our into walking around, we stopped at a hole to watch Patrick Reed and a few other players tee off. I started to feel very weak and nauseous. Before I knew it, I was on the ground and had briefly blacked out. Patrick Reed’s wife actually saw me and gave me her water (fun fact). I was taken to the medical tent and once I cooled down and felt strong enough, we went home.

At 10 weeks, I had my second doctor’s appointment. I went by myself since we had already heard the heartbeat, Cody was working in Dallas and this was just a routine check to listen to the heartbeat and it was not an ultra sound. I had been excited all week to go to my appointment and hear my baby’s heartbeat again. My doctor came in and had her doppler machine with her to find the heartbeat, but she couldn’t find it. I wasn’t concerned at all. I just figured something was wrong with the doppler machine or the baby was in an odd position. My doctor sent me to wait in the hallway to have an ultrasound. I still wasn’t nervous at all and couldn’t wait to see my baby. About 20 minutes later, it was time for my ultrasound. The tech found the baby and I was shocked by how much bigger my baby was compared to our first appointment at 6 weeks. I remember looking at the monitor and thinking how much it looked like a real baby. The tech went to get my doctor and I still thought nothing of it. My doctor came in and continued the ultra sound. Neither of them were talking. A couple minutes later, my doctor told me that this baby was only developed to about 8.5 weeks and that there was no heartbeat.

I didn’t believe it. I was in complete shock. I didn’t even understand at first what was happening. I just saw my baby on the screen. How could this be happening? As soon as she said 8.5 weeks, I thought back to my incident at the golf tournament and figured that’s probably when things went wrong. I had hardly ever even heard of someone having a miscarriage before much less having one myself. They handed me some tissues and sent be out the back door of the office so that I didn’t have to walk through the waiting room of pregnant women all alone to go to my car.

I ran to my car hysterically crying and as soon as I got to my car I called Cody, my mom, my dad, my brother and a few of my best friends and no one answered. I started to have a panic attack and was hysterically crying and screaming. Finally one of my friends called me back and she immediately came to pick me up and take me home because I was not in a state to drive. Cody called soon after and he couldn’t believe it and was in just as much of a shock as I was.

I had had what is called a “missed miscarriage.” This is when you have a miscarriage, but there are no symptoms. My doctor said it was best to get a D&C so that I didn’t end up in the Emergency Room from pain. Cody flew home that afternoon and the next morning my parents and Cody drove me to have the procedure done.

Those were the two worst days of my life. Finding out I had lost my baby and having a procedure done to solidify that. I didn’t think I would ever recover from this. The night before my surgery I kept waking up and screaming for my baby. I think I took the news extra hard because the thought of miscarriage never crossed my mind. Again, I hadn’t had close friends that had kids yet and honestly never really thought about why you wait to tell people until after your first trimester. I also had absolutely no idea that it was so common and that 1 in 4 pregnancies ended in miscarriage.

Cody had to return back to Dallas a few days later. I spent the next couple of weeks depressed in my parents’ basement binge watching The Office. At the time, The Office was literally the only thing I could watch that didn’t make me cry. That and Shark Tank. I couldn’t go anywhere for those next few weeks without getting upset. Even seeing a teenager with their parent made me upset, so needless to say I would just lose it when I saw a pregnant woman or a baby. That’s just how it was for those first few weeks.

After plenty of time of feeling down and depressed, my dad came down to the basement. He turned on all the lights and turned the tv off. He started reading me scripture after scripture from his Bible and proceeded to tell me that I had a choice to make. That choice was to turn away from God or to run and cling to Him. My dad has been that person in my life that gives me the hard truth and snaps me back into reality when I need it. We had an extremely similar conversation in that same exact spot in the basement years before about getting out of a relationship I was in. I don’t always like what my dad has to say, but I am beyond thankful for him telling me the hard truth and speaking God’s word to me when I need it most.

After the conversation, I picked myself up and did my best to get my life back together. I still had horrible moments and very bad days, but I was getting better. Turning my troubles to The Lord and trusting His plan for our family gave me the hope to push through this dark time. Even though I went through a very dark part of my life, I never once doubted God. I never once lost my faith. Was I depressed for a while? Yes. But that didn’t cause me to lose my faith in God. I found peace knowing my baby was with Him in heaven. I held on tight to the fact that my baby was actually much better off than I could possibly imagine.

In September 2018, I made the move to Dallas and was finally reunited with Cody. Being away from my husband during the hardest time of my life made it so much worse. Moving to Dallas really helped boost my spirits. The move gave me a lot to do and a lot to be excited for. As soon as we found out about losing our baby, we had decided we would try again as soon as we could.

Our Second Pregnancy:

On December 8, 2018 I took a pregnancy test as early as I could (4 weeks) and it was positive. We got pregnant again the first time we tried. I think we were both shocked since it happened so quickly. We were soaking it all in and so happy for our new baby on the way.

For anyone who has experienced a miscarriage, you may relate to how I felt. It was very difficult for me to get excited for this baby. During my first pregnancy, I could hardly contain my excitement and wanted to tell the whole world. For our second pregnancy I was so happy, but wasn’t letting myself get excited to protect myself. I felt disconnected from this pregnancy. For me, a lot of the joy of finding out I was pregnant again was taken away due to experiencing a miscarriage before. We told our family and very close friends about this baby, but that was it.

Around 5.5 weeks my worst fear became a reality. Cody had already left for work. I woke up and went to the bathroom and saw that I was bleeding. I immediately broke down and knew exactly what was happening. I called Cody and he urged me to try to get in to see the doctor ASAP. I made an appointment for that afternoon and Cody met me there. Waiting for this appointment felt like a lifetime.

I couldn’t stop crying. I knew we had lost the baby. I didn’t want to go through having an ultrasound to prove what we already knew. Finally our doctor came in to do the ultrasound. She was very quiet. I had experienced this same sort of quiet before and was preparing myself for what she was about to say. What she said next was pretty much the exact opposite of what I was expecting her to tell us.

“Let’s not get too excited yet, but there are two.” TWO?! TWINS?! We were shocked and OVERJOYED. We came in to that appointment expecting to hear we lost our baby, but quite the opposite news was delivered to us. It was too early to see heartbeats on either baby, but there was definitely two of them! She explained to us that there is a much higher chance of getting pregnant with twins if you get pregnant immediately after having a miscarriage.

Because this pregnancy was twins and because of the bleeding I was experiencing, our doctor wanted us to come in a week later to have another ultrasound and see how they were developing. During this week I was the happiest woman walking on earth. Every time I saw a baby, I got so excited. I hadn’t felt this way in a long time. I remember seeing twin babies out with Cody at our favorite area to shop and we were talking about how that would be us soon.

A week went by and we went to our next appointment. This appointment was on December 23, just two days before Christmas. I was so excited to see my two babies on the monitor. Again, our doctor was silent. When I asked what was going on, she finally told us that neither baby was developing. My heart sunk. Flashbacks to losing our first baby came flooding back to me. I couldn’t think straight. She wanted to make sure that we were miscarrying before taking any more action, so she wanted us to wait another week and come back for a final ultrasound.

That was the worst Christmas I have ever experienced.

A week went by, but it felt like months. Google owned me that week. I read every discussion board possible about experiencing bleeding with a twin pregnancy. It came to the point where I recognized the usernames of the women posting on the discussion boards from years past.

Finally it was time for our appointment. I honestly had no idea how to feel at this point. I had no idea what to expect. I was so emotionally drained at this point due to the rollercoaster of emotions from finding out we were pregnant (high), experiencing bleeding and thinking we were miscarrying (low), finding out we were having twins (high), hearing neither was developing (low). In my mind, we either lost our babies or we were going to have twins on the way.

I was so used to these ultrasounds at this point. I was prepared for the worst. After some expected silence from our doctor, she told us that she was able to find one heartbeat of a strong and developing baby. We were immediately relieved and overjoyed. We both were prepared for the worst news. Unfortunately, I was bleeding because I miscarried one of the twins. We were so happy to hear that one baby was healthy, that I feel like we didn’t really mourn the baby we lost. To this day I still struggle with guilt from not properly mourning the second baby we lost.

After those few weeks full of so many unknowns, we were absolutely overjoyed that our rainbow baby, Davis Stafford Cripps, was on his way to us.

As many of you reading this already know, our story of Davis coming into this world did not end here. He was born 6 weeks early due to me having Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome. Then at just two weeks old, we learned he needed to have brain surgery. We spent 48 days in the NICU until we finally brought our miracle rainbow baby home. To read more about his birth story, click here.

To anyone who has experienced this type of loss, you are not alone. I felt so alone during that time in my life, which is why I wanted to share our story. I pray that no woman ever feels alone when she loses her baby. I know that Cody and I were very fortunate to be able to get pregnant again and so quickly and to bring a baby home with us. I know that is not the case for everyone. There is not a single day that goes by where I do not think about my two angels that are in heaven. That pain will never go away. Everyday that goes by is a day closer to when I get to meet them and be reunited with my heavenly children. That will be a glorious day when I get to hold them.

“Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” -Ezekial 1:28

“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” -Genesis 9:16

But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. -Isaiah 40:31

“It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” -Deuteronomy 31:8