Forever Carried — Honoring Pregnancy and Infant Loss

October can be a heavy month for many mothers. It’s a time to honor the babies who never made it earthside and the women who continue to carry their memories with love and courage.

In this episode of Motherhood Intended, Jacqueline opens her heart for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. She shares her story of losing her daughters Charlotte, Cecilia, and Maren, and how those experiences continue to shape her as a mother today. This conversation is a safe space for every woman who has known loss, whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, a failed transfer, or the loss of a child after birth.

Jacqueline also offers comfort through science and faith, revealing the remarkable fact that fetal cells remain in a mother’s body forever, proving that we truly carry our babies in our hearts and in our biology. She speaks about healing through connection, the creation of Your Fertility Village, and ways to honor the memory of every baby gone too soon. This is a gentle, compassionate episode that reminds listeners they are never alone.

Questions answered in this episode:

• How do we honor Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month in a way that brings comfort and connection?
• What does science reveal about how mothers continue to carry their babies after loss?
• How can sharing your story help you heal and remind others they are not alone?
• What does invisible grief look like when it comes to failed transfers and embryo loss?
• How can communities like Your Fertility Village provide support through infertility and loss?

Links mentioned in the episode: 

• Local listeners: Join Jacqueline at the annual SHARE Walk to Remember to honor, connect, and support those impacted by pregnancy and infant loss.
• Not local or can't make the event, but want to support? Donate to help provide comfort and resources to grieving families.

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 Connect beyond the podcast:

• Your Village
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• Email: hello@motherhoodintended.com
• Support the show!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Are you tired of scrolling your feed only to see the highlight reel version of motherhood? If so, then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Motherhood Intended Podcast. I'm your host, Jacqueline Baird, and I am a passionate mom here to support women like you in their unique journeys to and through motherhood. I have been through it all. We're gonna be talking about things like trying to conceive, infertility, IVF, surrogacy, mom life, and more. It's time to get real about what it takes to be a mom and come together in the fact that things don't always go as planned. So here we go. Hey friends, welcome back to Motherhood Intended. October is pregnancy and infant loss awareness month. And today I want to hold space for every woman listening whose known loss in one form or another, whether it's miscarriage, stillbirth, a failed transfer, a loss after birth, or the invisible grief that comes when embryos you hoped would become your babies never make it earth side. This episode is for you. For me, this month is always tender. My journey to motherhood has been full of both heartbreak and miracles. In September of 2016, I miscarried our twins, Charlotte and Cecilia, due to premature birth because of an incompetent cervix. Unfortunately, we lost Charlotte at only 14 weeks along and Cecilia at 16 weeks. And then in September of 2021, we lost our daughter, Marin, due to placental abruption at 20 weeks. And both of these pregnancies, our three losses of these daughters, absolutely heartbreaking. Charlotte and Cecilia was the first time I had ever become pregnant after years of infertility treatments. And with Marin, Marin was a miracle. You know, we that was the only time we ever conceived naturally. It was unexpected. It was a welcomed surprise and miracle. And so it was absolutely devastating when we lost Marin as well. And it and it all hit different too, because we had Hunter and Noah at home and they were, you know, four and two. And all of our losses kind of came back to us and the grief just really, really sank in at that point. And I've known the anxiety that comes with a pregnancy after loss, you know, even though I wasn't the one pregnant watching our surrogate be pregnant with our daughter Lorelei carried its own anxiety. And, you know, there's always that quiet fear of letting hope in. And if you've been there, you know the feeling, holding joy and fear in the same heartbeat. And if you brought home a baby after loss, you know that motherhood after infertility is its own balancing act, truly. It's love mixed with guilt, gratitude beside grief, and reminders of what and who you are missing. And there is a kind of loss that often goes unspoken that I wanted to touch on today because I know many of you listening have gone through or are currently going through infertility treatments. And so the loss I want to talk about as well is the loss of embryos during fertility treatments. For many of us who've gone through IVF, those embryos aren't just cells. They are our babies and our hearts. They represent hope and birthdays and the lives we imagined. And you've worked hard for those embryos. When a transfer fails or an embryo doesn't survive, it's a grief that can feel invisible. There's no ultrasound photo, no ritual of goodbye, but the love is every bit as real. So this month, I want to name that too. Your heart knew those babies. You loved them, you hoped for them, you dreamed of a life of those for those embryos. And truly, that that love doesn't disappear when science says the cycle didn't work. Here's something incredible that science does tell us. It's when a woman is pregnant, cells from her baby remain in her body forever. I, when I discovered this fact and the research behind it, I was so comforted, and I hope you will be too. So the cells that from your baby that remain in your body forever, they're called fetal microchimeric cells and they travel to blood-dense organs like the heart. And this happens regardless of pregnancy outcome. So even after miscarriage or infant loss, those cells stay with us. And what's even more amazing is they can migrate into future pregnancies. That means your next baby carries pieces of their sibling within them. So when we say we carry our babies in our hearts, we truly biologically do. Okay. Your body remembers, your heart remembers, and your children, all of them, remain connected to you and to each other. I kind of nerded out about that fact, but I hope it brings you the same kind of comfort it brought me because we truly, I mean, science says along with our faith and our and our hope and our hearts, like science says that we carry every baby with us going forward. So healing doesn't mean forgetting. It means finding ways to let love and loss live side by side. My healing began through connection by speaking my story out loud and hearing others say, be too. This started for me back in 20, I'll say 17, when I started opening up about my miscarriages on Instagram. You know, it for me, it all kind of I was kind of given this little nudge to share whether I was ready to or not, because we had posted on social media just two weeks before we lost our daughters that we were expecting. You know, I hit that magical 12-week mark. It was my first time being pregnant. I thought I was following all the quote unquote rules of when to announce and all of that. And it was just two weeks later that devastatingly, we lost one of our twins. And then yet again, two weeks later, lost our other baby. And that was hard. That was hard to publicly share that grief and loss. But I'm glad that I did because it was at that point when I shared what happened that I had so many messages coming in of others saying me too. Women who have been in my life and my circles for so long that I had no idea had experienced a miscarriage. And if you don't know the statistic, one in four pregnancies ended in miscarriage. So I guarantee you know somebody in your life that has experienced a loss as well, whether you know about it or not. And so all of this opening up through connection, it allowed me, and then after Marin, losing Marin, also devastating, had obviously shared with everyone. And we even waited longer to share with our boys. I think it was only, I think I was either like 16 or 18 weeks pregnant when we told our sons only to abruptly lose Marin two weeks later, 20 weeks along. And so we found ourselves in another place of really publicly and with our friends and family and just sharing her excitement and grief all in a whirlwind. And it took some time with all of my losses before I really was ready to open up and talk about it. But, you know, a year following the loss of Marin is when I had the courage and really the the want and need and drive to start the podcast. It's something that had been in, been on my mind for a while. You know, my husband and I talked about starting a podcast years before to document our infertility journey, more so for ourselves, but to also just share with others kind of how it was going. And truthfully, we were so overwhelmed by the whole process of IUIs and IVF and testing and loss and just, and then our first son, our first child on earth being born prematurely and in the NICU. I mean, it was just a lot. So we never started it. And it was after I had, you know, took time to reflect and grieve that I after Mirin that I was like, you know what, this is the best time. I need this for myself. I need to say, talk about what happened out loud. I need to speak about my journey and our losses for myself. And I only hope that, you know, it can help me deal with my grief, but also touch others and help them through theirs. So that's when I started the Motherhood Intended podcast. And it has been a ripple effect ever since. Once we go into 2026, January 2026 will be the three-year anniversary of the podcast. And all of this is why I've also created your fertility village. I am so proud and excited to open up my heart to all of you and to welcome you into the village. It's a supportive community for women who are navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, and honestly everything in between. Inside this group, we hold monthly group calls, share resources, and remind one another that motherhood and the journey to motherhood in all its forms deserve to be honored. So if this episode resonates with you and you are have experienced a loss or are going through infertility, or maybe you're parenting after a loss or in pregnancy after loss, all of these things really you deserve a village for this. They always say that it takes a village to raise children. And I am a firm believer of that, but I also believe that it can take a village to have children too. And if you are anywhere in between trying to become a mom and in the thick of motherhood, the fertility village is for you. So if this resonates with you, I would love to invite you in as a founding member. Right now, it's literally just$7 a month, one cup of coffee, a rate that you'll lock in for life. And this is a space where you'll always be seen, heard, and understood. So you can join through the link in the show notes, and I would love to have you there. So before we close, I want to remind you that whether your baby lived for a moment, a heartbeat, or a dream, they mattered. You matter. Your story matters. So maybe tonight, light a candle, whisper their name, or simply place your hand over your heart and know they're right there with you always. And if you're local to the Chicago suburbs, I would love to see you this Saturday, October 11th at the Share Walk to Remember in Naperville. It is a beautiful event, honoring the babies we carry in our hearts and supporting families walking through grief. If you're not nearby but want to help, you can also donate to the Share program, which provides comfort and resources to grieving families. And I'll link both options in the show notes. It really is a wonderful event. I think this is our family's third or fourth year attending. One year I had the honor of being the speaker and sharing my story to everyone. Motherhood Intended Podcast is a supporter of this event. It always brings so much comfort to my family, and it's a great opportunity to invite others in your life to walk in honor of the babies gone too soon. So we always have our family and invite friends to join us. Would love to see you if you're nearby. And if not, if your heart is kind of being tugged to donate to other families who are experiencing grief and this would allow them to have resources and comfort. So I'll just I'll put the link in the show notes. But thank you for listening, for showing up as always, and for being a part of this community. I'm so grateful you're here and I'm so grateful you hit play on this episode. If you know somebody who might be in the midst of grief or experience have recently experienced a loss, feel free to send along this episode. Hopefully it will bring them some comfort as well. Until next time, I'm sending you love, strength, and the gentle reminder that you are never alone on this journey.