Rainbow Baby

Jenn Hepton is a certified grief and life coach who has walked through much hardship on her journey to a rainbow baby.

After a difficult fertility diagnosis she became pregnant with twins and unfortunately went on to develop severe complications, which ultimately led to the incredibly difficult decision to terminate for medical reasons as recommended by several doctors. In her next pregnancy she and her husband decided to pursue donor eggs to conceive. Devastatingly that pregnancy ended in the stillbirth of their daughter, Loey.

Jenn talks about their eventual decision to pursue surrogacy, what it was like to meet their rainbow baby, Milo, and how she is consciously parenting after loss. Most recently, her journey to another baby via surrogacy has been put on pause due to COVID-19, as is the case for many others seeking fertility treatments during this time.

Overall Jenn’s story is one of hope. I gained so much from our conversation and I hope you do as well.

Jenn talks about:

-her personal definition of a rainbow baby

-conceiving with an egg donor

-the decision to move toward surrogacy and tips for choosing a surrogate

-living an empowered life after loss

-choosing joy during pregnancy after loss

-how she began grief and life coaching

-moving towards post traumatic growth after loss

-coping with anxiety and grief at the birth of a rainbow baby

-conscious parenting after loss

-being forced to postpone her second surrogacy journey due to COVID-19

-practices for feeling safe through uncertainty

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Connect with Jenn at lossintransition.com and A Conscious Motherhood where she is offering a new course LIFE AFTER BABY LOSS : A 3 week experience of support. The course will launch on Mother's Day FREE for that entire day using the code FREE4YOU

Follow Jenn on Instagram @loeys.hugs

To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss, whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

Lots of “firsts” in this episode. I revisit my regular OB for the first time during this pregnancy and also have my first visit with a perinatal specialist.

I talk about my first time getting asked the question, “Is this your first baby?,” revisiting the same ultrasound room where I last had a scan with the baby I miscarried a year before, and talking with the specialist about birth plans such as VBAC vs a repeat c-section.

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To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss, whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

A documentation of weeks 8 and 9 of my pregnancy including our weekly ultrasound results and graduating from our fertility clinic.

I talk about getting diagnosed with a subchorionic hematoma, how I’ve continued to cope with anxiety related to pregnancy after loss and COVID-19, and my feelings about how pregnancy and the pandemic are being represented in the media right now.

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To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss, whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

A recap of weeks 4-7 of my pregnancy, which includes cultivating peace and coping with anxiety leading up to our first ultrasound and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These first few weeks also included attending the first baby shower I’ve been to since Ellis was stillborn and what that experience was like. I also address some comments people have made about my pregnancy and how I respond to them. I share my tips for managing anxiety and some of the books and resources I’ve been utilizing.

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To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss, whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

A documentation of my two week wait after our second frozen embryo transfer. I talk about what the transfer was like and give a day by day account of my experience leading up to our pregnancy testing.

I give my perspective on how I was able to cultivate peace and hope during this time, how to deal with symptom spotting, staying away from google, my experience of pregnancy test anxiety, and more.

As a heads up, I do share symptoms I had during my two week wait and also reveal the results of our pregnancy test. I hope this episode is helpful to any of you out there who are currently in a two week wait or will be soon.

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Support this podcast by purchasing my “day by day” rainbow lapel pins!

To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss, whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

Shannon Pike shares honestly and articulately about her relationship to pain, joy, fear, and anxiety after the stillbirth of her first daughter Marie and the miscarriage of her twins, and how she was able to stay present while pregnant with her rainbow baby.

Shannon talks about:

—her personal definition of a rainbow baby

—hope and anxiety when things in life get really hard

—the importance of kick counting for every pregnant woman

—whether or not to use an at-home doppler during pregnancy after loss

—how to visualize laboring a rainbow baby after a traumatic stillbirth

—returning to the same doctor and hospital after loss

—creating a birth plan and including your lost baby

—her postpartum experience 

Through her journey, Shannon ultimately realizes that she can’t put all her hope in another baby and instead needs to cultivate hope unattached to outcome. Shannon’s experience of spiritual growth through darkness has been such a light to me and I know it will be for you, too.

Mentioned in the episode…

—Information about kick counting during pregnancy including a free downloadable app at countthekicks.org

—Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair by Miriam Greenspan

Connect with Shannon on Instagram @shannonmpike

To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss, whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss, whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

This episode is part two of my conversation with Jess Lowry and if you haven’t listened to the first part of her story in episode nine, I highly recommend you do so before listening to this one.

Jess shared her incredible story of finding hope through the darkness of infertility, recurrent miscarriage, stillbirth, near divorce, and an attempt to end her own life. Amazingly she persevered and eventually gave birth to two healthy boys.

Jess is the family minister at the church where I grew up in San Antonio, Texas and our stories collided when she showed up for me at the hospital the night Ellis was stillborn and ended up baptizing him. Since then, we’ve developed a deep friendship as she began to share her story of with me.

This episode tells the story of Jess’ adopted rainbow baby, Shiloh. Jess and her family were called to adoption several years ago, which took them on a long journey of waiting, roadblocks, and heartache. This is another incredible story that exemplifies the power of choosing love.

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To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.

In this episode Hunter and I talk about our IVF egg retrieval and what it was like to go through the stimulation phase of our IVF cycle. Over the last two weeks I’ve given myself a total of 56 injections, gone to six acupuncture sessions, and had four blood draws, so I’ve felt a little like a voo doo doll.

I’m so grateful to say that everything went really smoothly for us and I felt good, physically and emotionally, through the entire process. Listen in to hear how many eggs we had retrieved and what’s next for us.

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Visit taylorashleybates.com for show notes and a full transcript of this episode.

Find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

This episode is my conversation with Jess Lowry, who’s the family minister at the church where I grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Our stories collided when Jess showed up for me at the hospital the night Ellis was stillborn and ended up baptizing him. Since then, Jess and I’ve developed a deep friendship as she began to share her own story of pregnancy loss with me, which includes seven miscarriages, the stillbirth of her first rainbow baby Ava, and three more rainbow babies, including an adopted little girl.

Jess’ story is full of tenacity and vulnerability and she tells difficult details that she’s never shared publicly in hopes that it will help those of you out there who are hurting to feel less alone in your pain. Jess talks about hitting rock bottom after struggling with infertility and miscarriage and finding herself on the brink of divorce and also attempting suicide.

Jess’ story is so powerful to me because it would be easy for an outsider to assume that she has a “perfect” life, which we all know doesn’t really exist, but instead Jess reveals that her life has actually been shaped in surprising ways by the dark and heavy parts of her path that most of us prefer to hide.

Jess continues to be an inspiration to me and has helped me to better understand how God continues to be present with me through the darkness of pregnancy loss and grief. I hope her story is a guiding light for you as well.

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To connect with me visit taylorashleybates.com and find me on Instagram @taylorashleybates

And please share this podcast with anyone you know who is walking through life after pregnancy loss whether they are trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or parenting after loss.