So I'm not ttc. I don't know if I ever will again. I lurk here often, but post mainly in "for one and all." I'm mainly looking for clues and answers to this one burning question that I can't get out of my head, which is: if you've suffered multiple losses and/or had a complicated miscarriage or delivery experience where your own physical health was compromised, how did you get the courage to try again? What did you do? Who did you speak with? How did you get over the crippling fear of losing again? There is nothing I wanted more than to enjoy the experience of carrying and delivering my baby. Right now, I'm considering finding a gestational surrogage because I just don't know if I can depend on my body to protect me and my baby. Any tips, advice, or encouragement will be appreciated.

Time. Really. I don't feel like I've taken any heroic action or done anything special. I really want to have kids, and so I need to do this. Am I afraid something will go wrong again? Oh yes. But I guess some part of me believes that things can't keep going wrong forever. Or that I need them to go more wrong before I can give up on the idea of having kids.

I don't think of it as courage. It is in a way, and I see that. I simply have no other options if I wish to be a mother to a living child.

5 pregnancies (maybe 6). The closest we ever came was Gabriel, born early due to undiagnosed incompetent cervix. Bad luck, over and over. Maybe MTHFR (previously undiagnosed) played a role, maybe not.

The one thing I always knew in my life with certainty - second only to wanting to marry my husband - is that I wanted to be a mother.

So, I can suck it up and find a way to face the fear (or put on blinders, or push it away and ignore it) or I can give up my dream. We can't afford a surrogate, adoption is not currently an option (though that could change in future - we're not opposed to it, just financially speaking it's not an option and there is concern that due to mental health histories, we may be denied).

That leaves us, backs against the wall and all the things that can go wrong.

I don't want more heartache, I don't want more pain, I can't promise I won't be an utter wreck for an entire pregnancy and after.

But right now, the dream is heavier than those things. When that might stop being the case, I don't know. I suspect that will be the time to quit trying.

I wish I had better, more concrete advice. I did talk with a therapist who specializes in losses and didn't start trying until we'd had some testing done (discovering the MTHFR and incompetent cervix). I felt like I had a handle on Gabe's death and was coping better with that. The real clincher though was inadvertently having excellent timing when we weren't really trying and realizing I was disappointed in the negative outcome.

Good luck. This decision is such an awful one and there are so many factors.

i cope by not anticipating how terrifying next time (pleasegodletherebeanexttime) will be. i'm well aware that i will be terrified, but similar to eliza's situation, if i want to be a mother to a living child this is the way i have to go.

it's not the healthiest coping mechanism i'm sure, but it's all i have.

Not courage in my case, just bizarre chance. I am not sure whether I am coping or not other than by enrolling in a study regarding pregnancy and one of my meds, telling someone at work to keep from being exposed to certain things. Turns out I will end up doing something completely different in two weeks no matter what though as an original job mysteriously popped up. Also being told by everyone not in cyberspace
that I have now had too long mourning and need to stop, go on with my life, etc. So I am not sure I can be much help for you here but I guess I can go to show that sometimes people don't do things bravely either.

I felt like i had no other choice... like the only thing scarier than trying again and having hope was NOT trying and having NO hope.

*thinking of you*