My heart aches so much. After a year and a half of Ivf treatment, we were expecting a girl. Our son, 4 years old was so excited to finally be an older brother. At every ultrasound he asked me to bring back pictures, and he would lovingly look at them. We called her strawberry. She was an active one, a real athlete. Sometimes I'd feel as if she was trying to kick her way out. At 34 weeks, while putting our son to bed, I became really dizzy, we rushed to the hospital. I knew that something was going wrong, but I knew just as much, that I'd be going home with my baby. I had an emergency c section and abdominal surgery. Our baby was born with oxygen loss. We named her Miriam Yaffa. Miriam lived for four days. I loved and love her so much. She was beautiful, and sleeping, forever sleeping beauty. I miss her so much. Miriam would be two months old now. My heart aches so!

Hi Devorah,

My story is so similar. So many IVF treatments, finally expecting a baby girl. Our son was ecstatic. At 37 weeks I had a concealed placental abruption. Came out of nowhere. Our daughter James did not survive. It was two months ago and my heart aches every minute of every day. I'm holding you and Miriam in my heart and thoughts.

Love,
Meg

Meg, I am so sorry for your loss. I hope you are recovering physically well ((if you want to hare more...). our daughters James and Miriam should be the same age. It's been getting harder for me. I'm thinking about you both. Love, Devorah

Hi Devorah,

I find that some days are okay while others feel like the pain and grief are just too much to hold. The physical recovery has literally made me feel like I'm trying to climb a mountain and someone keeps kicking me down. Just seems to be one thing after the other. How has your physical recovery been? If you don't mind me asking, did you have an abruption?

I'm thinking of you and Miriam and sending a hug you both.

Love,
Meg

Meg, I hope your recovery gets better and easier! I had a ruptured spleen (a concealed avm that grew during pregnancy). It's so upsetting. The similarity to yours is the concealedness, which I find hard to deal with, after being and feeling in control over all the testings that were great during pregnancy. I feel really sad that I couldn't protect My Miriam, even though I did everything. I'm thinking of you and James, and also feel a little warm feeling that we're going though this together. (Hope it's not too strange to say). Sending a hug

Not weird at all!! There are so many similarities between our experiences and there is comfort in knowing we are not alone in this. Miriam Yaffa is such a beautiful name. Is Yaffa hebrew? How is your son processing everything?

Yaffa is Hebrew for beautiful, named after my husband's grandmother, a strong woman who survived the holocaust as a child and as she grew up went onto becoming a professor, was very into photos and family. How did you choose the name James?
My son seems ok, he asks many questions (when are we having another baby...) and says he misses her and wanted to see her. I feel that it's also so unfair to him. He seems to be processing ok, he plays normally and interacts with his friends the way he did before all this happened. We gave him her octopus Miriam got at the hospital and he sleeps with it all the time now. How is your son doing? How do you answer his questions?

Oh Devorah-- I just got goosebumps. What an amazing namesake for your daughter. I love hebrew names so much and was almost going to name our daughter Orly (i love the name and also to honor our jewish heritage) but then we went with James b/c the universe sort of told us we should :). The story goes.....on our second round of IVF the embryologist asked us if we wanted her to play any music to the developing embryos (we live in Portland, so I wasn't surprised :))! My absolute favorite singer is James Taylor. I asked her to play the song Sweet Baby James to them. When we found out we had gotten a healthy girl embryo i said to my husband, "we have to name her James." And it stuck! When I was about 6 months pregnant, I wrote to James Taylor and told him about our story. He sent back a book dedicated to our James Rose. We buried the book along side the tree we planted for her in our backyard. I like to think it's a lullaby for her whenever she needs it. If you don't mind me asking-- where do you live? Also, if you would like to correspond, my email is kozak.megan@gmail.com.

Love,
Meg

I will write to you