If I could turn back time, would I do it all over again?

Would I delay trying for kids until we were educated and stable in our careers, just to end up leaving my career?

Would I keep trying after our first loss? Our second? Our third? And our fourth and fifth?

Would I naïvely trust my local fertility clinic?

Would I seek out specialized medical expertise sooner?

Would I let myself experience the loss of 5 babies?

Would I voluntary sign up for another abortion to safe myself?

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Honestly, I don’t know. There is no way to know for certain because what we know today changed our ability to try again.

Part of me says, absolutely. I would relive every moment, to just have one more moment with each of my little ones growing inside of me. To know the unconditional love that goes along with creating and carrying a baby, I would do it all over again.

Part of me thinks yes, it’s better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all.   I cherish each and every moment of happiness that we had with our little ones. I cherish each positive test, and I would give anything to have had more than one ultrasounds when we saw our little one’s healthy heart beat flickering away. I would give anything to spend my day filling up on soda crackers to keep the nausea away.

Some days, I still long for more time with each one of them. I long to know them as individuals, to see their smiles, to sing them lullabies, to read them stories, to laugh as their cute little antics and to watch them sleep the night away. My heart will always long for a future that we did not get.

If I could back in time and know that I would suffer, Mr. MPB would suffer, our babies would suffer, I don’t know if I would. Mr. MPB and I have found our own ways to handle the suffering and to live with the grief and the loss. But our babies, they should never have been forced to live the short little lives they did. Our babies should never have suffered. Our babies should have had the chance to grow strong.

Knowing my babies suffered is so hard to accept and to be at peace with. I struggle immensely with this.

We created them with the absolute best of intentions. We loved them like we’ve never loved before. Yet, we were naïve. Knowing what we know now, we realize our babies never had a chance thanks to my body. They had no chance, my uterus was going to slowly kill them no matter what we did to help them and no matter how hard they fought to live. Our diagnosis, this piece of information, was the game change for us. This made us realize that creating life that is bound to die is something we could not do. We could not sign up to put an innocent child to death, slowly.

My feelings aside, my longing for another moment, I would never wish a small baby to die, and yet that’s what we did. Part of me feels very selfish for wanting another moment with them, knowing that they would have been dying. Part of me feels overjoyed that I got what I did, while each life was too short, at least I got to know what it feels like to be pregnant, to carry a life within me, to love unconditionally, if only for a little while.

So, I have no idea how to the answer the question, would I do it all over again. Yes, if I were still naïve to our diagnosis, I probably would do everything the same again from the very beginning – get married and try for kids once our careers were stable, it was the responsible decision. I would probably try again for a first or second time. Would I try again for a 3^rd, 4^th or 5^th? I don’t know, maybe. My trust in the medical system is gone now, so I find it hard to believe I would be naïve for as long, but who knows, maybe I would be because it was a necessary (albeit slightly evil) process.

But, what I do know, is that our burden of knowledge means that now I could never try again. I could never create a life to essentially just watch it die. I cannot relive that agony.  I cannot imagine having to endure another abortion for medical reasons.  And, I most definitely cannot put another innocent baby through a slow death. I just can’t.

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