Earlier this year, my husband and I fell pregnant. We were so excited to welcome the first addition to our family. We have been together 10+ years and have only recently started thinking seriously about having children.

On May 29th, at my 20-week anatomy scan appointment with an MFM, I was told I had an "incompetent cervix"—meaning I was due to go into premature labor at any point. My body could not handle the gravity of a growing child. So, they suggested surgery right away.

The procedure was called a TVC—a transvaginal cerclage. I would be put to sleep, and they'd go through my vagina to tie a stitch around my cervix to keep it closed, and hopefully, I would carry our child a little closer to term.

Unfortunately, that procedure failed, so they went with the next best thing, a TAC—a transabdominal cerclage. This time, they put me to sleep, made 5 small incisions on my abdomen, and placed the cerclage. The next day, I was sent home.

Unfortunately, the next morning, I found myself in excruciating pain—I didn't know it then, but I was having contractions. I waited as long as I could, thinking the pain was a complication from the surgery, before I called my surgeon and let him know what was going on. He asked me to go to the L&D unit immediately.

They performed an ultrasound once I was checked in several hours later and found my worst nightmare: I was in labor, and there wasn't anything they could do to fix it. They had to bring me back into surgery to remove the TAC so that I could deliver our baby girl naturally.

On June 2nd, at approximately 9:50 pm, I delivered our baby girl. At only 20 weeks gestation, she did not survive.

My husband and I cried, held her, and mourned the loss of what would have been our first child. We got photos of her with the clothing we had already started buying, along with photos of her and the baby blanket I had just finished making the week prior to our hospital stay.

Just before being discharged from the hospital, with a box of memories of our baby, my surgeon came to pay me a visit. He told me that, if we ever wanted to get pregnant again, I would need to get the TAC again—this time, before getting pregnant.

A few weeks later, once I was (physically) recovered from all the surgeries and the loss of my daughter, I went in to see my surgeon about a consultation for getting the TAC placed again. However, my doctor also found something else about my anatomy that was concerning: I have a septate uterus, meaning my uterus has a wall through the middle, splitting it into two cavities. My doctors recommend getting this wall removed, which is going to cost me upwards of $3,000 ($2481 for the surgery center/hospital itself, plus $541 for my doctor/surgeon). In addition to this, I've had to pay over $600 on medical tests (a saline sonogram and an HSG) to get my septate uterus diagnosis, which I've resorted to putting on credit cards.

This is where I come to my community. I would give anything to be pregnant again—but I cannot bear the thought of losing another child. My husband and I also just do not have the finances for this kind of procedure out-of-pocket.

Please consider helping me and my family so that we can try again, and hopefully carry a healthy baby full-term this time around.