Personal Stories

I watched the screen as he moved the instrument around. “Here is the sack,” he said as he pointed to a roundness appearing in the screen. He continued to search, yet had a blank expression on his face. “I’m sorry, but the sack is empty.”

I remember crying and saying to my husband, that in a way it was a merit to have met such a holy neshama (soul). We don’t know why G-d does anything. But I am sure that He heard our prayers and tears, and watched with amazement...

I awoke suddenly with a strange feeling of dread. Momentarily I felt as if I could not move my legs and it began to dawn on me. I had been raped...

The internet is an amazing thing. In an instant, mothers from all over the world can connect with each other online. We share interests, tips, stories about our children; we compare ourselves and pick one another apart...

Treatment after treatment, month after month, year after year, my womb remained empty. Nothing happened except the pain in my heart grew stronger...

The night before my routine ultrasound, I cried for two hours, as waves of sadness crashed over me, and took me deeper and deeper into a sea of grief, a grief so deep there were no words...

I came home and explained to my husband that I just couldn't do it again. I couldn't start with the treatments again, the running around like a madwoman, the ups and downs, the anxiety. I just wanted to be happy with what I had...

This is a no man's land, a land where weight loss is truly a loss. I would happily trade places with my burgeoning neighbors, but I didn't make it to the third trimester...

It may seem odd that I am writing such a detailed letter. But I have noticed that it’s been very hard for people to talk about this, so I decided to step forward on my own and tell this story...

For awhile, I bided my time. I went to the gym, and met friends for coffee. I enjoyed these months without bottles and diapers because I knew that the next load waited just around the corner. Until a series of miscarriages...

Miriam told me she and her husband had been trying to conceive, but after trying for over two years - nothing had happened. At first they'd laughed it off as 'work-induced stress', but after a while they realized it was a more serious problem...

Happily contemplating the way our family was now growing on the fast track, I didn't honestly consider the second ultrasound as anything more than a technicality...

Six months ago I had a late-stage miscarriage, and gave birth to a baby that had passed away in the fifth month. I got out of the hospital, and began to write...

I place one foot in front of the other, and I walk forward into an uncertain future that contains moments of both pleasure and pain. This act takes courage...

When tragedy finally came, these rules could not protect me, and it forced me to confront the real costs of playing it safe. How much had I missed out on, I wondered, as I traveled the safe route?

Without a candle to light, there is no external testament to these other two souls, who lived briefly and invisibly as members of our family. There is only a feeling of loss in the air...

I cannot have kids. I wrote to him about the emphasis Orthodox Judaism seems to place on women having many kids.

We read the story of Chana and Penina on Rosh Hashanah, when we pray for a good, sweet year. We pray for abundant blessings. Yet I believe there is a lesson in their story, cautioning us that with blessings come responsibility...

Having lost a baby makes me more aware of the miraculous nature of birth. I pray for my friends, that their pregnancies be healthy and full-term. I pray for neighbors. And I pray for myself...

I didn't feel any pain, even though there wasn't even enough time to give me much in the way of anesthesia. I could see her, but I hadn't yet heard her...