Share your ink with me!

Did you get a memorial tattoo to honor your lost baby? If so what did you get, where and why?

I lost my twins due to a genetic condition almost 3 months ago and I've been planning one since. I'm going to be getting a pair of white pumpkins with their footprints on them like jack-o'-lanterns. I'm so excited to see how it comes out!

I’m a 28 (f) that just found out devastating news that my baby tested positive for Down syndrome. Me and my husband discussed getting an abortion and I know with the way our life at the moment it’s the right decision for us. We’re both not in a financial position to be able to care for baby with special needs and I just feel it’s extremely selfish to bring a child into this world you’re not 100% sure you’ll be best parent you can be for that child. Even though my mind is made up i can’t help but feel a tremendous amount of grief and sorrow.

This is my first pregnancy and from the moment I found out I was going to be mom it was honestly the happiest day of my entire life. It has always been my dream to be a mother. And to add to that I always dreamed of being a mom to a girl and through this test I found out I was going to have a girl. Which just feels even more cruel. Everything I dreamed for and hoped for now all feels like a distant dream that feels unattainable. I’m trying really hard not be so negative but I can’t help but go to all the worst case scenarios. What if I’m never able to conceive again? What if this happens again? I’m so petrified of the abortion.

If anyone has gone through something similar, please share how you were able to get past it. I feel so alone and I feel like I have no one to turn to.

****EDIT: I just wanted to come on here and thank everyone for all the love, support, and kindness you’ve shown me. I’ve read through every single comment, even though I haven’t been able to respond to a lot of them. Please know that I’ve read them all, and every single message has meant more to me than you can imagine.

A little update: I’m booked in for my abortion tomorrow. I’m still incredibly scared, and I know tomorrow is going to be an emotional and difficult day for me. This is not how I ever imagined my first pregnancy would go, and I’m still trying to process everything.

But reading your stories and hearing from so many people who have gone through something similar has brought me so much comfort.

I’m trying to remind myself that this is not the end of my dream of becoming a mother, even though it feels that way right now. I’m taking things one day at a time and trying to trust that, eventually, I’m going to be okay.

Thank you for making me feel a little less alone during one of the hardest experiences of my life. I wish I could give every single one of you a hug. ❤️

I posted a photo on Instagram stories of a candle lit in honor of our baby girl, with her hand prints visible in the background. I wrote "wave of light" in the centre of the photo, and a comment with her name. Prior to this, I shared a few reels of what 15th October was and what wave of light meant.

My Instagram stories are only visible to a few "close" people. I rarely post - perhaps one or two stories every month or two. But whenever I do, most people always like them or comment on them.

I always felt like many people didn't support my loss and don't acknowledge it, but I wasn't sure if I was just overthinking it or not.

There were quite a few people who didn't react to my story yesterday and that just proved to me that I'm not overthinking it at all.

They'll happily like photos which include my living babies, but will ignore and forget about my dead one who I think about every single day.

I know it's just a post and it doesn't necessarily mean anything. I'm not a social media person, so I don't usually take these things personally. But to not heart-react to someone posting in memory of their dead baby is quite heartless.

I terminated in 2022 due to extremely severe HG.
Nobody in my life really knows I was ever pregnant, so I don't talk about it.

But October 15 would have been my due date, so today my baby would have been turning four.
I just wanted to say it somewhere.

Sending a big hug to everyone on this subreddit, thanks for reading 💜

It’s been a little over a month since our TFMR, and in many ways, I can genuinely say that I’m coping and healing. When I look back at how I was feeling a month ago, I can see a massive improvement in myself. The grief is still there, of course, but I’m slowly learning how to live with it, and I have days where things feel a little lighter again.

But there is one thing that I’m really struggling with at the moment, and it’s the uncertainty of not having answers.

We TFMR’d at 26 weeks after discovering that our little boy had suffered a stroke and had severe bleeding in his brain, which resulted in significant fluid build-up. What makes everything even harder to process is how normal everything seemed before that.

Our genetic screening came back low risk, and our 20-week anatomy scan was completely normal. There were no indications that anything was wrong with our little boy. We went into the second half of our pregnancy believing that everything was okay, only to have our world turned upside down just a few weeks later.

Since our TFMR, we’ve undergone various tests, but so far, nothing has given us an explanation for what happened.

I keep hearing how rare our situation is, how uncommon it is for something like this to happen, and how difficult it can be to find answers. Somehow, the more I hear that, the more isolated I feel.
I know that no two TFMR experiences are the same, but there is something incredibly difficult about trying to process such a devastating loss when you don’t even know why it happened. It’s one thing to grieve your baby, but it’s another to be left with so much uncertainty about something that has changed your life forever.

My husband and I have now decided to pursue whole exome sequencing before trying to conceive again. We want to explore every avenue available to us in the hope of understanding what happened and what it might mean for a future pregnancy.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come emotionally over the past month, and I genuinely feel that I’m in a much better place than I was immediately after our loss. But the uncertainty of not knowing why this happened is becoming the part I’m struggling with the most.

Has anyone else experienced something similar, where the 20-week scan was normal but something devastating happened later, and all the testing came back inconclusive? Did you eventually find answers, or have you had to learn to live with the uncertainty?
I think I’m just looking for some reassurance that we aren’t alone in this. ❤️

Posting here because I do not have anyone else I can say this to except my therapist.

I feel so isolated. I feel so angry. It hasn’t even been 2 months since I lost my daughter and my close support system is expecting me to be okay. They’re surprised when I fall apart.

In the last week, my best friend and today my SIL told me they are pregnant. They called me to tell me. I wish people would stop for a second and think before doing that. I wish they’d ask “will this hurt her? What may be the best way to talk to her about this? Should I give her a text heads up?” These are questions I’d ask myself and it didn’t take me losing my own baby to think this way. I have always operated that way, always putting other people and their feelings and expectations before my own. That’s why this hurts so much because these people should know me better than this.

Instead I sit on the phone, trying my hardest to feign excitement while instead I am digging my nails into my palms to keep myself from sobbing.

I wish people asked me what would help me as they share this news. I am not expecting, nor do I want to be, in a bubble forever. But I need some fucking grace because every day I am literally doing my best to feel okay being alive.

Has anyone else felt this? How did you deal? I am really, really struggling.

This is my first time posting but I have been following since I got my NIPT back in April. I just know this is the only place I can go to and people truly understand my feelings and pain. We lost our son in May at 19 weeks due to Trisomy 13 and life has just been extremely difficult since. We had a D&E and that process went smoothly. Since, we have had 2 chemical pregnancies and I now have to get a hysteroscopy and D&C done at the end of November due to SIS showing possible scar tissue or RPOC. It just feels like I can’t catch a break or get one foot in front of the other without being knocked down again. In addition to all of this I have been fighting with insurance for the last 2 months because they are refusing to cover the procedure and saying it was elective. The pain and agony I have already been experiencing then for the insurance company to make me feel like a villain when we all know the heartache and what it takes to come to this decision. It’s also my due month and both of my sisters and best friend are all expecting in the upcoming months. Life is really unfair and I’m exhausted/defeated. Obviously, with everything TTC has to be put on hold which is also really bothering me but maybe it will allow me to truly grieve. I’m tired of being in pain and having this physical ache in my chest that people don’t understand unless they have lived this life. Tired of acting like I’m okay when I’m crumbling inside. I am in therapy which helps a lot. I am looking to find more ways to help with grief and expressing feelings. I am able to do daily activities and function. I work and take care of our daughter. Most of my sadness comes around my period when hormones are fluctuating so maybe things that helped others around that time.

Thank you everyone for allowing me to vent and listening to me. This group has helped me in so many ways just by reading others post and knowing I’m not alone and my feelings are valid.

For anyone that doesn’t know, tonight is the “wave of light,” on 10/15, people light a candle from at least 7-8pm in their time zone in remembrance of the babies gone too soon.
This will result in 24hr candle burn for our babies.

Partake if it will bring your heart some comfort. 🕯️❤️‍🩹

This group has been my support system for last 2 month. We had what you would call a rainbow baby, after trying for so hard for such a long time we had to go for TFMR and it broke us completely.
I know life can be difficult but I don’t know why it keeps throwing hardest things at us. I am far away from home, my only support is my loving and caring husband who has been heartbroken and scared for life after this experience.
I don’t know how you come back from this, i have read so many experience but still it is unimaginable for me at this moment.
I was 18 weeks when we send goodbye to our baby and it was a done through medical procedure which was tortures for me. Little did I know that I have to go back again to the hospital for MVA as there was RPOC. I was given antibiotics for any infection and inflammation. I just want this to end, the amount of time I have been to hospital is unimaginable. After 2 weeks, I feel so drained and exhausted all the time. My body is aching and i feel like sleeping all the time. Is it normal? I am bleeding on and off and not too much but How would you know that everything is cleared out and my body is back to being normal before preganacy?
I have read that some of you have felt physically fine after the procedure so just wanted to clarify if there is still something left after MVA? Emotionally I don’t how to come out of it.

I’m 5 weeks post TFMR and I was surprised to wake up to my period this morning.

I have been crying on and off all day.

I logically know grief doesn’t work in a straight line. It’s so up and down. Some days I feel okay, then this week I have really struggled with time moving on.

The closer we’re getting to the holidays and then my due date in February I am really dreading.

Just looking for support on this awful journey.

When I came out I couldn’t stop crying, feeling guilt and wondering if I made the right decision.

I tried to stay strong in my decision up until the surgery, but it’s all hitting me after. I’d be waking up in the night not able to stop thinking about it the days prior, and I’m worried of how I’m going to feel now.

Part of me feels like this was right for my family, I have another healthy 18 month old son, and I’m so grateful for that but I worried so much what the future would hold if I had this baby, I guess it’s hard because you never know what they would be like.

I hope I can move past these guilty thoughts and feelings 😣

I guess this is really fresh and I just came across this group, so if anyone else is going through this right now and wants to chat, or has been through this before what helped you mentally?

Feeling shocked and heartbroken. We will always love our baby boy. Nervous about trying again and future risk. Announced our pregnancy to all of our friends and family LAST weekend and now have to deliver the news. This was our first pregnancy.