Impossible Beauty

By: Autumn Purdy

I haven’t been pregnant for almost 11 years. My youngest son, who will turn 10 soon, begs for a newborn sibling at certain intervals, and I tell him repeatedly, “Someone has to be the baby of the family, and that special someone is you.” And I leave my response lighthearted, hugging him to me, offering a prayer of gratitude that I have a “baby of the family” to speak of, not ready to tell the whole truth. The story of what we endured for the sake of our family is not easy to share, and I’m weary of repeating the tale to my youngest child.
How do I tell my sweet boy that after nine pregnancies, only three survived? He doesn’t need to know the details about my progesterone insufficiency, lengthy bouts of infertility, advanced maternal age, the Endometriosis surgery that confirmed the worst, a subsequent Adenomyosis diagnosis, too many ovarian cysts, fibroids, a long list of pregnancy complications and the risks they posed to my life. How do I tell him that the fear of potentially losing another child and breaking his heart, along with our pair of parental ones, is too big a risk to take? How can we ever look into his innocent green eyes and share how, despite love and medical intervention, six of his older siblings didn’t make it? How do I explain if it weren’t this way, we’d grant his wish for a younger sibling in a heartbeat? Despite the odds, my faith is strong, but this is family lore I’m not ready to divulge to the youngest one.
The older ones know they have six siblings in heaven. They knew far before their younger brother was born because they lived through some of those losses with us. They have heard me speak the names of our miscarried babies. They’ve lit candles with us, attended pregnancy loss memorials, and recognized the somberness of October 15th. They’ve witnessed us sobbing in remembrance throughout the years when the grief overtook us–at Mass and special occasions, on due dates gone by, or hearing the awful news of other pregnancy losses. But my youngest is unique in our family circle because he was born last, and despite being open to life, we’ve not had a pregnancy since. We may need to tell him one day, probably sooner rather than later. For now, I would like to relish in the impossible beauty that after suffering my last two miscarriages, which were incredibly physically painful and mentally taxing, leaving us heartbroken and devastated, he arrived–perfectly formed.
I want to celebrate him as our last one–the child who made it across a particularly scary second trimester riddled with complications that threatened his existence. I want to celebrate how we triumphed together despite those complications, including persistent placenta previa and his subsequent cesarean birth. When he was placed almost immediately on my chest, I exhaled an emotional sigh of relief. A resounding feeling of unbelief overtook me for the miracle of his precious life as he nursed easily, and I began my recovery from another arduous pregnancy and third surgical birth.
What I remember most about that last delivery day, as he snuggled against my chest, is that he stole everyone’s hearts and took our breath away with his mere presence. I’ll never forget what it took to get him here, but I want to remember his pregnancy story and birth as our last happy ending on the road to parenthood. Not another loss. Not a seventh miscarriage. Not a tragedy–but a love story.


Autumn Purdy is a contributing writer for Sharing Magazine and a former Reviews Editor for Literary Mama. She has published pieces on The HerStories Project Blog, the HerKind Collective BlogHaiku JournalLiterary Mama, and two photos in The Sunlight Press. She is an essayist in The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: Gen X Women on the Brink and an editorial assistant for the anthology. She earned a B.A. in English from Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA, and is now writing a book about her experience with recurrent miscarriage. She lives in Westerville, OH with her family.

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