Lessons from Quinn

Having experienced a pregnancy loss, we came into Quinn’s pregnancy with a lot of anxiety but determined to soak up every moment in getting to know her. Loss can do that. It forces you into the details, causing you to flip back and forth between hyper fixating on what you could have done to cause it and trying to ingrain every special moment to memory. For Quinn, we tried to lean into the latter.

When we found out we were pregnant again, a fear rose up in us anticipating the first ultrasound since that is when we learned of our first loss. If we could hear her heartbeat, then our anxiety would abate. The sound came and our fear left. This was real; we were having a baby.

In order for us to fully celebrate and know our little one, we wanted to know the sex. To make the moment less medical, we decided to go to a private ultrasound that was much more comfortable and less triggering due to our previous ultrasound experiences. At 15 weeks, we found out our baby was a girl. Names have always been important to us, so we were very particular in naming her. Quinn Lucille means “counselor of light.” She was helping us walk out of the darkness of miscarriage and pointing us to the joys in life. What we didn’t know is she had more to …