Beyond the Pink Lines

Honestly, I don’t know what this blog is going to bring. I just know that James and I have been through a lot, and our story matters.

This first post brings a lot of mixed emotions as I write it. While I have accepted the loss of all of our children, the memories of losing them are still fresh in my mind, and the pain is still very real.

I also want to make it clear that I am going to reference all of our pregnancies and losses as “ours,” not just “mine.” The reason is simple: James is their daddy, and I couldn’t have gotten pregnant without him. A dad’s voice, opinions, and feelings matter. Loss doesn’t just affect the mom; it affects the dad, too.

At some point, I plan to write a post or two from his perspective because I am not on this journey alone. His feelings and emotions matter just as much as mine.

With that being said, this post is in memory of the first two little ones who made us parents: Landyn James and Marli Danielle Turnbull.

This is their story.

March 1, 2017, at 3:46 a.m. This date and time changed our lives and will stick with me forever. This is the exact moment I got my first-ever positive pregnancy test.

James and I were a very new couple. Like, very new.

We met in September 2016 on a dating app. We spent the next few months getting to know each other exclusively but didn’t put a title on it because, at the time, I was in the process of a divorce. My divorce was finalized on November 1, 2016, and James and I started officially dating on November 2, 2016. Just a few months into our relationship, we found ourselves pregnant.

I remember wondering if I was pregnant because, in the week leading up to the positive test, I wanted nothing more than buffalo chicken EVERYTHING! Then I would get sick shortly afterward.

If we’re being totally honest, it shouldn’t have been such a shock that we got pregnant. We weren’t exactly consistent with birth control, and we were a new couple, so the spark was still fresh and exciting, as it is in the early stages of most relationships. (Not to mention we were both in our early 20s, crazy about each other, and very much enjoying the honeymoon phase of our relationship. Looking back, getting pregnant probably shouldn’t have been quite the shock that it was.)

Anyway, I took a test. I was half asleep, but when I saw the result, I knew there were two lines. Of course, I didn’t believe it, so I took the test into our room and woke James up.

I asked, “Uhh… are there two lines?”

Half asleep and illuminated only by the glow of the TV, he looked at it and said, “Yup,” then rolled over and went right back to sleep.

I couldn’t blame him and wasn’t upset by his reaction. It was the crack of dawn, and he was in a deep sleep.

Once the sun came up and we were both fully awake, we started processing the information.

James’s real reaction was something along the lines of, “Okay, this is our reality. We’re both adults. Let’s do this.”

Abortion wasn’t an option for us. Ready or not, we were stepping into the role of parents. We were responsible enough to have sex, so we were responsible enough to care for a life.

We knew we needed to get the pregnancy confirmed, so after work that day we planned to visit a resource center that offered free pregnancy testing. At the time, I didn’t have insurance, so I didn’t have a primary care doctor. I knew I needed to get established with an OB.

The resource center was advertised as a faith-based organization, so we felt comfortable going there. Unfortunately, our experience was nothing like we expected.

When we checked in and I told them I had already gotten a positive test, they had me fill out paperwork. However, when they called me back, they wouldn’t allow James to come with me, not even into the consultation room.

I provided a urine sample, and while it was processing, the woman I met with asked if I knew what I wanted to do “if” the test was positive.

I told her that James and I planned on raising the baby.

Even after I made that clear, she continued pushing adoption. She brought it up repeatedly and handed me multiple brochures about different types of adoption—open, closed, and everything in between. It felt like she wasn’t hearing a word I was saying.

I was already frustrated when a nurse suddenly popped her head into the room, said, “Negative,” and walked right back out.

The woman conducting my consultation looked at me and said, “Well, it’s negative, so you don’t have anything to decide.”

I was stunned.

I explained that I had already gotten a positive test. I knew false negatives happened far more often than false positives, and I even showed her a picture of the test with two very obvious lines.

She remained dismissive.

“It’s probably just an evaporation line,” she said. “Follow up with your PCP.”

Then she walked me back to the lobby and told me to “have a good day.”

Have a good day?

How exactly was I supposed to have a good day?

Within eight hours, I had gone from seeing two clear lines and believing I was pregnant to being told I wasn’t. And if it truly was a false positive, what was wrong medically that could have caused it?

My emotions were all over the place. I was confused, angry, scared, and honestly just wanted to leave.

When James and I got back to the car, I told him everything that had happened.

He was upset.

He told me the staff kept looking at him as if he was the problem. He felt judged, ignored, and like he didn’t have a voice in any of it. Instead of being treated like an expectant father, he felt like he was being viewed as the reason I was there in the first place.

I told him that not only did the staff’s reaction not sit right with me, but I genuinely felt they were wrong.

I believed we were pregnant.

At that point, we stopped at the store and bought a digital test. I planned to take it the next morning with my first morning urine because I knew HCG levels are highest then, especially in very early pregnancy.

The next morning, I took both a regular test and the digital test.

Both were positive.

At that point, we decided one of two things had to be true: either the resource center was wrong, or something was seriously wrong.

To be extra sure my hormone levels would be high enough for testing at a doctor’s office, we decided to wait one more day and visit a local community health center that also offered free pregnancy testing.

We already knew we were pregnant. We just wanted official confirmation before we started telling family.

I held my urine all night, which was way harder than it sounds. If you know, you know.

The next morning, the health center confirmed the pregnancy. They helped me get established with an OB, apply for pregnancy Medicaid assistance, and connected us with resources we would need throughout the coming months.

Our estimated due date, based on my last menstrual period, was November 8, 2017.

That’s when reality really hit.

We were having a baby.

And suddenly, everything felt very, very real.

We started telling family. Most reactions were a mixture of surprise, excitement, and maybe a little disappointment.

When we told my dad, he strongly encouraged marriage. I come from a very conservative, traditional Christian family, and since James and I weren’t married yet, that was important to him.

Honestly, we agreed.

We had already talked about getting married long before finding out I was pregnant. We knew we wanted to spend our lives together. Marriage was always part of the plan—it was just more of a five-year plan.

We jokingly say that the pregnancy expedited the process because we ended up getting married that May. (I’ll go more into our marriage timeline in a future post.)

At that point, James and I were simply excited.

We were getting married. We were starting a family.

We talked about everything—from nursery themes and paint colors to baby showers and parenting styles. We also had serious conversations about finances and our living situation because, at the time, we were living with his mom.

Earlier that year, James had been dealing with kidney stones and had missed work without paid time off. To get back on his feet financially, he had temporarily moved back in with his mom.

As for me? Well… I spent the night one evening and never really left.

(Shout-out to Lisa for taking me in like a stray.)

Somewhere along the way, we also landed on names.

While it was never medically confirmed that we were having twins, we both had a deep sense of peace and a gut feeling that we were. Twins also run in my family, which only fueled that feeling.

At the time, we were watching Glee, and we fell in love with the name Marli after one of the characters on the show.

James only has one sibling, his sister Brandi, and they have always been very close. We wanted to honor her by naming our first daughter after her, so we chose Danielle as Marli’s middle name since it’s Brandi’s middle name.

When it came to boy names, we quickly realized we had always loved the name Landyn. It was one of those rare moments where we both agreed immediately.

James is a family name, and he wanted to continue that tradition, so we chose James as Landyn’s middle name.

To us, they were already Landyn James and Marli Danielle.

They already had names.
They already had a place in our hearts.
They were already our babies.

Our world came crashing down on March 7th.

I started bleeding and cramping.

I knew something wasn’t right.

We went to the emergency room, and after hours of waiting, we were finally taken back to a room. They ran ultrasounds, blood tests, and pelvic exams.

I was terrified the entire time.

My mind never stopped racing. One minute I was scared, the next I was angry, then helpless, then desperately holding onto whatever hope I could find.

Through all of it, James was my rock.

He held my hand the entire time, even as tears ran down his own face. He never made the moment about himself. He stayed focused on me.

He kissed my forehead, kept calming music playing, and constantly reminded me that we didn’t know anything yet.

“You’re pregnant until the doctors tell us otherwise.”

That became our lifeline.

While we waited for answers, James also texted our family and close friends, asking them to pray. He knew I couldn’t handle updating everyone, so he took that burden on himself.

Eventually, the doctor came in.

I’ll never forget that moment.

The second I saw the look on his face, I knew.

Our hearts shattered when he said the words:

“I’m sorry, but it looks like you’ve miscarried.”

Even now, those words still haunt me.

Everything changed in that moment.

The doctor explained that while my HCG levels were consistent with pregnancy, my cervix was open. Both the abdominal and transvaginal ultrasounds showed no yolk sac, fetal pole, or embryo developing.

They reassured us that my ovaries and fallopian tubes looked normal and that they could rule out an ectopic pregnancy.

Then he told us to follow up with a doctor and said a nurse would come in to begin discharge paperwork when we were ready.

When we were ready.

As if anyone is ever ready to hear that their babies are gone.

The life we had already started planning disappeared in an instant.

No explanation.
No warning.
No goodbye.

One moment we were talking about nurseries and baby showers.

The next, we were planning how to survive the grief.

We just held each other and cried.

I felt numb.

Broken.

Like a failure.

I wanted my babies back.

I wanted someone to tell me there had been a mistake.

I wanted to wake up from what felt like a nightmare.

Instead, James held me and repeatedly reminded me that he loved me.

When it came time to tell everyone, he volunteered to take on that heartbreaking responsibility too.

We only knew about Landyn and Marli for one short week.

One week.

Yet in that week, they completely changed us.

We dreamed about what our future would look like. We wondered whose eyes they would have, whose personality they would inherit, and what kind of people they would become.

We imagined all the firsts.

First smiles.
First steps.
First words.

We imagined all the chaos, joy, sleepless nights, and beautiful moments that come with raising children.

We loved them from the moment we saw those two lines.

And we will love them for the rest of our lives.