October Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

If you’ve been a long time supporter of Flower City Nuptials (thank you, btw), you may have noticed we have changed our name.  We have evolved into Flower City Ceremonies.  After completing my training of six months/175+ hours of coursework with the Celebrant Academy to become a certified master celebrant, I wanted to add to the offerings we had.  As my couples grow and change, I want to be able to provide for them other ways to celebrate the milestones in their lives.  Flower City Ceremonies still provides the amazing experience that has become synonymous with Flower City Nuptials and weddings but has now expanded to include other services like baby and child namings and welcomings.

Baby naming ceremonies are a celebration of a child's birth and a way to welcome them into the family and community. It's a chance to announce the child's name, share the meaning, and express the parents' hopes and dreams for their child.  But it can also involve children coming into your family in other ways.  This can be for people who are welcoming children from a blended family, and it can also be for people who grow their families through adoption.  

With October being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Month, I am going to get a little personal.  My husband and I got married later in life.  I was 36 and my husband was 38.  I had actually resigned myself to not getting married when my godmother encouraged me to try online dating one last time, and like many of the couples I officiate for, I met my husband online.

An early dating pic as we took in a baseball game.

Because I was older I knew that getting pregnant might pose a problem.  I had no idea how true this would be.  After a chemical pregnancy and a year of pills, shots, timed blood draws (I’m a fainter) and a gazillion doctor appointments, on an airplane to Vancouver for our first anniversary we found out I was pregnant.

When we got back and I went in for my first ultrasound with my reproductive endocrinologist my husband almost fainted: twins!  Those two little beans on a black and white screen were my dream coming to life.  I loved being pregnant. Yes, I was tired and became lactose intolerant, but I avoided cheese and loved every minute of growing my babies.

At eleven weeks, right before we were handed off from the specialist to my regular OBGYN, my ultrasound showed only one bean.  What happened?  Where did he or she go?  Was the surviving baby safe?  I was assured that sometimes this happens, and the other baby was okay.  Until he wasn’t.  We went for an early blood test to find out gender and received the news no expectant parent wants to hear.  After an amniocentesis confirming our worst nightmare, with heavy hearts, many tears, and so much grief we said goodbye to our son.

Rainbow babies, like their namesake, come after the storm; the incredible loss.  With additional attempts to get pregnant with no success after an ectopic pregnancy, we started the adoption process, which is part of Flower City Ceremonies’ origin story.  When you are pregnant, you know that in roughly nine months you will have a baby.  However, there is no due date when you are waiting to grow your family through adoption.  Over the next four years we filled out forms, had home visits, subjected ourselves to background checks, gathered bank statements, submitted doctors’ reports, and asked dear friends for letters of recommendation.  We had to name guardians in case we both died for a baby that didn’t yet exist.  All the while waiting for the day we would receive that call.  If you have ever had to wait for something you wanted more than anything else in the world, it is agonizing.  The one thing that gave me joy during this challenging time was when I officiated a wedding.  Two of my friends were getting married and said they wanted someone who wasn’t boring to officiate their wedding.  I said jokingly that I wasn’t boring.  Not jokingly they said I was hired.  A few months later I got an email on my school email account (in real life I teach high school English) saying their aunt saw the wedding I officiated, she recommended me, they were looking for an officiant, and they were wondering if I was available.  This is when I decided to start Flower City Nuptials because in all the sadness I had found my joy.  I got to hear how people met and fell in love.  I got to be with people on one of the happiest days of their lives.  I got to see beautiful venues, flowers, dresses, decor, and FOOD!  I met incredible people both as clients and other vendors.  Unbeknownst to them, they were all part of MY love story.

Owning Flower City Ceremonies, helped me to achieve my dream: to become a mom.  Flower City Ceremonies gave me something wonderful to focus on while my heart was healing and getting ready to love again.  It also helped me afford this pathway to grow my family which we might not otherwise have been able to do.  And like all the fairy tales, there was a happy ending.  My daughter came into our lives in 2017, and my son, the only good thing to come out of COVID and our missing piece, was in 2020.

Holding my daughter, Morgan, for the first time.

My heart becoming whole with my missing piece, Aaron.