You are probably asking yourself “what is The Story of ASH”? Well to start, I’m ASH – Amanda Stoddart Hinkle.  I am a married mother of the most amazing rainbow baby Tanner Brock Hinkle.  He is the best pot of gold at the end of a rainbow I could have ever dreamed of.  Now you may be asking yourself “what’s a rainbow baby”? A rainbow baby is a baby that is born after the storm of miscarriage.  Tanner is my lucky number 7, born after 6 consecutive losses and this is our story.  

Some backstory…

So I suppose I should give you the backstory on how I ended up here, writing this blog.  I was born in 1979 and adopted at birth.  My parents had 2 biological children and had been trying to adopt for several years.  At that time it was DIFFICULT to adopt if you already had kids.  I don’t think they had lost all hope, but it was looking bleak. One day my birth mother (who worked at the same company as my Dad) walked into his office looking for advice on placing her unborn baby for adoption (he wasn’t practicing yet, but had passed the bar and was an attorney).  I guess you can say the rest is history. 

Being adopted in 1979 typically meant a closed adoption and lots of searching when you’re old enough. Luckily for me my parents had an open adoption and I was able to meet my birth mother when I was younger and I have a great relationship with her now. As I write this I’m preparing for a quick trip to Phoenix to see her in just a couple of weeks.  

Shaping my Story

Being adopted definitely shaped who I am today.  Every situation and circumstance I have encountered and endured has contributed to creating who I am today. My adoption story was unique since I grew up with a father who (after suffering a massive heart attack when I was 3) opened his own law office and specialized in adoptions. I don’t know the exact number, but I know he’s had a hand in thousands of adoptions. We used to talk about birth parents and relinquishment of rights at the dinner table every night.  Adoption was a beautiful thing that came from a place of love. 

As an adult I have come across lots of adult adoptees that don’t have positive feelings about their adoption, but mine was a picture perfect story for me when I was growing up.  However, there is still a great loss that comes with adoption.  I started my life with a major loss and have continued to suffer loss as the years have continued on.  But, like all of the other experiences in my life have shaped me, so has the loss.  

Trying to get pregnant – A rocky road

The last 8 years have been a bit of blur for us as a family.  My husband and I started our TTC journey when we had been married about 8 months.  The day before my 35th birthday.  I had always sort of thought I would have a little trouble getting pregnant because at that time I only had a couple of cycles a year.  Tough to conceive when you aren’t ovulating! For 2 ½ years we struggled to get pregnant. I tried all of the over the counter supplements I could read up on to try to jump start the ovulation and increase our odds of conceiving. 

Not what I expected – beginning of the loss

I finally got pregnant after 2 ½ years only to lose it later that week.  Shortly after that first loss we found out that my mom’s unexplained back pain was coming from a tumor that had caused a compression fracture in her spine.  We didn’t know it then but she had less than a year left with us.  As much as I cried for my mom in the depths of my sorrow during my losses, I’m forever grateful that she didn’t have to suffer through all of the miscarriages with me.  Being a mom now I understand so much more.  I know it would have destroyed her watching her baby go through that kind of heartache and sorrow.  

I went through a bit of a rough patch with my parents in my early 20’s and I remember my Mom telling me that she laid awake at night worrying about me. At the time I’m sure I rolled my eyes and assumed it was a guilt trip.  Tanner wasn’t very old when I suddenly realized one night it wasn’t her trying to guilt me, it was just her being a mother worrying about her child.  I remember wishing that I could tell her I finally understood.  I remember wishing I could say I was sorry. 

Losing my Mom – a wound that never heals

As much of a blessing as it was that she didn’t have to watch me suffer through 6 losses, it was probably the hardest part of losing my Mom when I did. I mourned for my (hopeful) future children. I mourned the fact that they weren’t going to get to know her in person. And I most definitely grieved the relationship they were going to miss out on because she wasn’t here anymore. It’s hard to explain, and probably hard to understand, but I found myself being a little jealous of my nieces and nephews on behalf of a child that wasn’t even a reality yet.  They will always carry Grandma Linda with them and I felt jealous that my children wouldn’t have those same memories. 

Luckily my son is blessed with two amazing grandmas that love him more than words can say and he will have countless memories with both of them. He also got a great bonus Grandma when my Dad remarried a couple of years ago.  Even in the depths of loss I am always reminded of the blessings that surround me.  

Recurrent Loss – A club you never want to join.

After the first loss and no luck getting pregnant again, we chose to do a few cycles with the help of Clomid and see what happened. We started our first medicated cycle 3 days before we lost my Mom in March 2016. I found out I was pregnant with what would become our 2nd loss a few days after her service in Colorado.  I lost that pregnancy about a week later and sunk deep into my depression.  Loss can shape you. Loss can make you or it can break you. In the depth of that loss there were times I thought it would break me.  There were many times I thought there may not be a rainbow baby for us at the end.

After several weeks of grief and depression I realized I needed to focus my energy on something other than my loss.  I began crafting greeting cards.  I’ve always been a crafter. I can’t draw a straight line, but I am pretty creative and very crafty so I can take other people’s cute graphics and create something super cool.  I spent hours crafting greeting cards with the plan and hope to sell them.  Crafting became the outlet for my grief.  As long as I was busy, I didn’t have to think about it.  Because not only was I dealing with all this loss, but I was starting to ask myself if it was ever going to happen. Was I ever going to be a mother?  

My first D&C – the opposite of a rainbow

I poured myself into my crafting and life marched forward.  In January 2017 we found out that I was pregnant again.  I actually made it to my first ultrasound still pregnant and got to see the baby’s heartbeat on the screen.  My husband and I cried tears of relief in the ultrasound room that day, unfortunately we’d be back in that room too soon crying tears of sorrow.  I was about 9 weeks pregnant when I woke up in the middle of the night with bad cramps and I knew something wasn’t right.  I made it to the bathroom only to discover that I had started bleeding pretty heavily. 

Later that day I was seen in the ER and was told the baby still had a heartbeat, but that must not have lasted long because at a follow up appointment 2 weeks later the heartbeat was gone.  Based on size they think it happened shortly after that ER visit.  My body wasn’t recognizing the loss and so I chose to have a D&C to have it be over. 

Facing the harsh reality – I may not get to be a mom

We had 2 more early losses (before ultrasound) over the next year.  In September 2018 I found out I was pregnant for the 6th time. That pregnancy played out almost exactly the same as the other one I lost after 9 weeks.  I was measuring behind from the beginning, had a major bleeding incident followed by constant spotting, and to say I was stressed was an understatement.  I spent basically that entire pregnancy on the verge of a panic attack waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

It dropped the week before Thanksgiving that year when there was no heartbeat at our 12 week appointment.  I was gutted. I got up from the ultrasound table and told my husband I was done.  Everything inside me was screaming that I couldn’t experience this kind of loss again. Two days later I had to have my second D&C. I felt broken and lost.  

Chasing a rainbow…

After my first lost I became familiar with the term Rainbow Baby. I found myself dreaming about a rainbow – a baby that I was going to get to take home. There were a lot of times that I waivered and wondered if it was actually going to happen, but I just always saw a baby at the end of it. People ask me how I kept going, but the reality is I couldn’t stop. I knew there was a beautiful rainbow somewhere in my story.

Ever since I was a litter girl the only thing I have wanted to be was a mother.  I always said I wanted 10 kids! By the time I met my now husband (my second) I was in my early 30s and I was a little more realistic. I thought two or three would be perfect for our family. Our last loss was due on my 40th birthday.  As I said, I was measuring behind so they changed my due date after my first ultrasound.  She walked into my 8 week appointment with a bundle of paperwork and on the top was an info sheet.  I saw that they had changed my due date to June 2nd 2019.  It’s hard to describe the feeling, but as soon as I saw the date I knew in my gut that this wasn’t going to be our take home rainbow baby after all.  

The roughest storm can produce the most beautiful rainbow

Fast forward to March 2019 when I told my husband that depending on my cycle I thought I might want to try one last time after my 40th birthday.  We didn’t have much time to wait and I wasn’t really sure I was ready to completely close that door.  A couple days later I noticed a couple of symptoms that I only get when I’m pregnant.  My cycle was still all over the place following the loss and D&C in November so I didn’t even know where in my cycle I was.  I took a pregnancy test and low and behold I was pregnant.

The teeniest, tiniest little pink line. I had a small group of women I had connected with on Baby Center when we first started trying.  By this point I had watched all of them give birth. Some more than once.  We cheered each other on and they were the first to know about each of my pregnancies.  They were my loudest cheerleaders at times. Times I couldn’t even talk about with the people closest to me in the world. They were a giant source of my strength as I pushed through the losses. 

Lucky number 7 on the way

I took a shaky picture of that tiny little line with my wedding ring for reference and posted it to our small Facebook group.  They all cheered and cried tears of joy with me. The next day I took a “good” test and it was darker than the day before. Then a positive digital test. In the first few days I decided that I wasn’t going to stress about this pregnancy. I had done everything right the 6 times before and it didn’t change the outcome.  No amount of worry was going to make any difference. I couldn’t control what happened.  But, from the start, it was DIFFERENT.

Cautiously Optimistic – A motto for pregnancy after loss

There was no bleeding, I measured on track from the start and quickly started measuring ahead, and most importantly I was relaxed.  My mother in law and I adopted the motto “cautiously optimistic”. Every milestone we passed allowed me to get a little more attached.  I had ALWAYS wanted girls, but after getting the pleasure of helping to raise two of our nieces I felt like I was ready for a boy.  I really feared that I was going to have gender disappointment. Which was so stupid and selfish given everything we went through. We chose to find out during the scan and were ecstatic to hear her say boy.

My blood pressure was high from the start and I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes around 28 weeks.  That was when I began weekly appointments since I quickly had to start taking insulin to control my fasting numbers, on top of my age and blood pressure – they were keeping a close eye. At 32 weeks I began twice weekly fetal monitoring appointments to make sure Tanner was doing okay with all my health issues.  He was a champ through all of it.  Our lucky number 7 really appeared to be our miracle rainbow baby.

Delivering a rainbow

I developed a bad headache at 37 weeks that they couldn’t get under control with meds and although my numbers were under the level for pre-eclampsia they had doubled in a week and they decided I wasn’t leaving the hospital without a baby! They induced me at 37 weeks 5 days and he was born 36 hours later. I had a pretty decent bleed when my water broke which was a very scary moment for me.  He again came through with flying colors and was the talk of the floor with his Apgar scores of 9 and 10 (apparently they RARELY give a 10 haha).  My rainbow baby had arrived safe and sound which was a miracle.

The rainbow is better than I imagined…

Being a mother is even better than I thought it would be.  He is the light of my life and I can’t remember what it was like without him.  I noticed he was falling behind with some milestones and it became painfully obvious when he failed to start talking.  By 18 months they were recommending autism evaluations and speech therapy.  I kept hoping that he would just start talking and catch up and everything would be normal. 

In March of this year he had his speech eval and the therapist said she thought he was autistic and referred us to the regional center for behavior therapy and autism evaluations.  Since then some sort of switch has been flipped because he is a different kid now.  He gets 14 hours of in-home behavioral therapy every week. His vocabulary has exploded, he is incredibly social, he’s imitating now, he’s engaging in pretend play, and all of the boxes we checked for concerning behaviors are slowly being erased.  

ASH Paper Designs – My passion project

My craft business has shifted today to focus on language learning and early childhood education tools.  Tanner loves to play with the flashcards I make him and he uses them every day in his therapy sessions.  Matching games and toddler busy books are some of his other favorites! I love creating cool educational tools and school supplies with adorable graphics I find from a number of amazing designers. I offer both digital downloads and fully assembled ready to ship products.  

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey and allowing me to tell you our story. I look forward to continuing to share our stories and our journey as a family.  I can’t wait to also share all of my tips and tricks as well as great toddler activities and preschool printables. Never stop chasing your rainbow!

ASH

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