THE GIRL BEHIND THE PAGES
Hi, I'm Jojo (nickname from family). đ¤
Welcome to Pretty Little Pages: A Main Character Lifeâa little corner of the internet where books, life, healing, and probably a bit of chaos all have a place.
If you had told younger me that one day I would create a blog centered around my love of books, I probably would have laughed. I was never the girl who loved reading growing up. Books didnât become important to me until much later, when I desperately needed somewhere to escape.
My love of reading was born during one of the darkest chapters of my life.
In 2022, I lost my baby during my second trimester.
There is so much wrapped inside that one sentenceâgrief, trauma, anger, love, and a kind of heartbreak I didnât know existed until I lived it. My story from that pregnancy through my next and final pregnancy is complicated and deeply personal. I wonât share every part of it here, because some pieces still belong only to me. But I do want to share some of my story.
Because if even one woman reads this while sitting in the middle of her own darkness and feels a little less alone, then sharing it is worth it.
After losing our baby, my husband and I thought we would never try again. Eventually, after giving ourselves time to grieve, we decided to take one more chance at becoming parents.
Then came the ultrasound. Twins. Not one baby. Two.
You would think I would have been overjoyedâand somewhere underneath all that fear, I was. But trauma has a way of stealing moments from you before you even get the chance to experience them.
I was terrified. I couldn't let myself become too excited. I couldn't stop wondering whether my body would carry them to term or whether I would once again experience the unimaginable pain of leaving labor and delivery empty-handed while other parents around me smiled, held their babies, and prepared to take them home. And just as a side note: I truly believe hospitals need to find more compassionate ways to care for mothers experiencing pregnancy and infant loss.
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A grieving mother should not have to endure the additional trauma of being surrounded by the sights and sounds of other families celebrating the very thing she has just lost.
Okay... back to my story before the squirrels start running around again. đżď¸
Because we were so afraid of experiencing that loss again, we protected ourselves in every way we knew how. We refused to plan a baby shower. We didn't buy a crib. We didn't tell many people. Our thinking was simple: if we had to grieve again, we wanted to do it privately, together.
But when I was almost nine weeks pregnant, everything changed. I was rushed to a larger hospital about thirty minutes away, where my PCP and OB-GYN practiced.
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I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was going to die. And terrifyingly, that feeling wasn't far from reality. I was critically ill with numerous pulmonary embolisms in both lungs. The clots were blocking blood flow through the arteries in my lungs, and the right side of my heart was under severe strain. Suddenly, my room was filled with specialistsâICU physicians, surgeons, interventional radiology, and more. Everything was happening so quickly.
Ultimately, at 13 weeks, a medical termination was necessary to save my life. We lost our twins. Â We lost a huge chunk of our hearts- and of who we were, both separately and together. And once again, we went home without our babies. I struggled with everything afterward. Who was I now? Would I ever be able to see a pregnant woman or be around children without breaking down? My uncontrollable anxiety, sorrow, anger, and post-partum depression. My answer today is different.
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I can acknowledge my babies. I can wonder who they might have been without immediately being swallowed by crushing anger.  That doesn't mean I "got over it." It means I learned how to carry them differently. And if you are grieving somethingâI hope you remember this: Do not let anyone tell you when to heal. There is no expiration date on grief. Healing is not linear.
Books became my escape. Reading stopped being only an escape; it became something I genuinely loved. Pretty Little Pages is about booksâbut I hope it becomes about so much more. I want this to be a soft place to land. For grief. For healing. For messy days. For finding yourself again after life didn't turn out anything like you imagined.
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Not having a perfect story, just deciding that even after the chapters that nearly broke you, your story isn't finished yet. So grab your book, your iced coffee, and whatever emotional-support snack we're currently pretending we didn't buy specifically for reading. I'm Amy, and I'm so happy you're here. đ¤ Welcome to Pretty Little Pages. Let's turn the page together.
