roozendaal 's Home Page

Welcome to our homepage!!

The following is a brief discription of our story. I hope it can help any and all who are going through this terrible ordeal!

On October 4th, 1996 I finally had the answer to all of my prayers. I was pregnant!! After 2 years of trying, every ounce of my being was screaming-YEAH!!!. Within days I started spotting. Something was not right. All my doctors kept telling me to relax, this is normal, some women just spot. But I knew that something was not right. After a week and a half of light spotting-it happened. I miscarried.

All I could think was what did I do wrong. Everyone told me that miscarriage is common. Especially if this is your first pregnancy. (why does no one tell you that until you have already miscarried). To top it off, my best friend delivered her baby 12 hours later. Her baby was 4+ weeks earlier. Her baby lived. Hold that child 24 hours after I had lost mine was the hardest thing I have ever done. After being sad, then mad, I thought ok, one out of every three pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Ok, I was that "one", but at least we knew we could get pregnant. That made it better- I pushed it aside, I did not deal with it.

Three months later I found out I was pregnant again. I wanted to get excited and be happy but I couldn't help thinking to myself, "here we go again". I could not let myself be happy about this. I was so scared I would lose this one too. I had all of the tests done. An HCG count every 48 hours to make sure my levels were increasing-so far so good. At 8 weeks we did the first ultra sound. That is when I saw my baby. I saw his arms, his legs, his head and his little heart. It was beating so fast. That was a real child inside of me. Everything was going the way it should be. We started to relax and told everyone. We started shopping, picking up little outfits, buying all the books, arguing about names. Everything was okay. Then at 11 weeks we went out to a movie with some of our friends. When I went to the restroom I found a tiny drop of blood and my heart dropped. I did not tell a soul. I couldn't even tell you how the movie ended. All I could do is sit in the movie theater and pray to God-please don't take this baby too. The next day was Sunday- I did not get out of bed. I thought if I just stayed in bed this would pass. The next day was my first doctors appointment with my OB. I mentioned my spotting and with my past history they wanted to do an ultra sound just to check and make sure everything was ok.

The Tech doing the u/s was so quiet, finally she asked "how far along did you say were?" When I told her she said just a minute and left the room. The nurse came back in and told me that my baby had died 2 to 3 weeks ago and my body hadn't aborted him. They did the D & C that afternoon. That was 6 weeks ago. All I did for days was cry. I got on the internet and started looking for any information I could get my hands on. This is where I found Infanlos. These women are my lifeline. Although everyone around me is sorry for my loss, they don't understand. You can never understand what it is like to lose your child until you have walked in our shoes. It is the most incredible pain one can ever endure. There is no one for you to talk to, to understand how cruel things like "you're young" "it was natures way" "its for the best" truly are. These women do. We laugh, cry and share with each other. We know we are not going crazy, that everyone else is feeling and thinking the same things. It gives you encouragement to see everyone at different stages of their grieving. And though we know that this will never go away (nor will we ever forget) we can now know that it will get easier. I recently thought I had reached the very bottom, that it can not get any worse. These women have given my the strength to seek outside help, which is something that I never would have done on my own. We share our stories, ideas, ask for advice, make each other laugh and cry. I can not put into words how much this group has come to mean to me. Everyday I come home from work and check my e-mails. I know I can always plop down on the "couch" and someone will be there for me. It is an incredible feeling to know that at times, you can help someone else. Your experiences, comments will mean the world to someone else. It makes me smile to know that there is still "good" out there. Where else can you reach California to Mass. to Norway to Australia? This is a group of incredibly strong women who are helping each other get from one moment to the next. Thank you Jan Estes! I am now starting to ramble but I hope we are able to let everyone know that Miscarriage/Neonatal death, Infant loss are not dirty words! It is ok to talk to us about it, we want you to talk to us but please allow us to grieve. We need to grieve for the wonderful angels who now watch over us. We need to grieve for our children.