Mom Pregnant with Rainbow Baby Goes Back and Officially Names All 9 Babies She Lost (Exclusive)
"In order to really try and focus on loving the baby while we have them, I had to go back and spend time with our other ones," Madison tells PEOPLE
Madison, known on TikTok as @mylifeasmadisonx, has opened up about secondary infertility and pregnancy loss
Madison experienced pregnancy loss nine times while trying to add a second baby to her family
Now expecting her rainbow baby, Madison tells PEOPLE about the support she's gotten from social media and how she's trying to pay it forward
A stay-at-home mom is bravely opening up about her experience with secondary infertility and recurrent pregnancy losses.
Madison, known on TikTok as @mylifeasmadisonx, has had a complex fertility journey. After welcoming a daughter with her husband in 2021, the couple faced a difficult road to growing their family.
"We had our first miscarriage when [our daughter] was 6 months old. I'd had COVID just before that and they thought it was probably because of that and told me not to worry about it," Madison tells PEOPLE. "Then, we went on to have three chemical losses the following year. My doctor did run some bloodwork and everything was normal."
After conferring with her OB/GYN, Madison tried losing weight and focusing on her health for six months before trying to conceive again.
"[I was] losing weight, taking supplements, eliminating toxic products in our lives, eliminating fragrances. We got to a point where we both felt really good and healthy. We were at a healthy BMI. We decided, 'Let's try again.' "
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She got pregnant again, but went on to miscarry at eight weeks.
"That one was really hard because we were so hopeful and so excited. And that was the first time that I had bought something for one of our pregnancies. It was just a cute little outfit, I was so excited to tell everyone," Madison recalls.
The couple experienced another chemical loss during the holiday season, with Madison recalling feeling "fed up." So they sought out a fertility clinic for more answers. There they suggested IVF, a road Madison and her husband hadn't wanted to take.
After extensive testing, no issues were found with Madison or her husband. At that point, IVF was brought up again. The couple declined IVF in favor of a "medicated cycle," which delivered Madison " a really strong boost of hormones." They succeeded in getting pregnant, but learned it was another chemical pregnancy.
"That one was probably the most devastating out of all of them because we were seeing the fertility clinic. We were so excited. We thought we'd finally figured it out. There was no way we were going to miscarry because we were under the care of all these doctors and it didn't work out," she says, noting the miscarriage occurred "during our vacation for our daughter's birthday."
Madison was surprised to get pregnant during her next cycle, but learned soon after that it was an ectopic pregnancy. The couple tried another medicated cycle, which resulted in another chemical pregnancy. At that point, Madison and her husband "felt like giving up," she recalls.
"By the time this happened in May 2023, we were so devastated. We didn't know what to do. We reached out to a couple of foster care agencies, a couple of adoption agencies and a couple different fertility clinics just to hear about their IVF programs. We were just we were looking everywhere to figure out what we could do next because it just felt like we couldn't move forward," she shares.
The couple took some time to process their emotions. "We decided that we weren't ready to be done without an answer. We had to figure it out. We just needed to know."
"We went through immunology testing. They didn't think it was an immune problem because I already had a healthy daughter. We scheduled my husband do a DNA fragmentation testing. His tests came back kind of high, which could have been part of it," she says. "Then our immune testing came back a week after finding out we were pregnant again, for the 11th time. That was terrifying. I remember texting my husband like, 'What kind of cruel joke is this? What's going on? How do we keep getting pregnant?' "
Putting all the information together, Madison learned she has "unfavorable maternal-fetal HLA compatibility." Human leukocyte antigens (HLA) are critical to the maternal-fetal immune system, which "allows a mother to accept a genetically distinct fetus without an aggressive immune response," per Frontiers in Immunology.
Madison and her husband felt relief at having answers that could help them make more informed decisions.
"I think that he puts on a brave face for me a lot, but it's very hard for him. I know we sat down on the couch and cried after our last miscarriage in May because we were just so defeated," Madison says of her husband.
"He's like, 'I don't want to give up, but I don't want to keep putting you through it,' because he knows that it's been really hard on my body. He's like, 'If you can't keep going, I won't push it. It's whatever you feel is right for your body.' He's been so comforting to me. It's the hardest thing that either of us have ever been through. And we've made it through it together, even though it's not something we ever pictured going through."
Madison was next placed on a combination of medications they hoped would help the pregnancy move forward. Ultimately, the immune diagnosis helped put them on the right path: She's currently 21 weeks pregnant with her rainbow baby.
"So far, baby has looked good and I haven't had any issues. We've been talking about it online since March, but more lately, because there's such a community on TikTok around fertility."
"It's really just so comforting hearing from others who understand I'm not some crazy person who is too scared to be happy," she continues. "This is just how everybody's feeling and it helps me not feel so guilty about being scared every day."
As she takes things day by day, Madison is grateful for the grace her daughter has shown her as she's navigated the highs and lows of pregnancy and loss.
"Every day, she's making me snacks and says, 'Here you can eat this for the baby,' and she's hugging and kissing my belly. She sings songs and says, 'I'm gonna sing this for your baby now.' And she's trying to name them and has a whole pile of toys she's ready to share with them," Madison shares. "She even made a spot in her bed for the baby to sleep in. She's beyond excited and not as terrified as me, so I'm really hoping this one works out because she'd be the most devastated this time. I'm just so excited to see her. I know she's going to be the best big sister."
As she prepares to forge ahead in this pregnancy, it was important for the mom to look back at the babies she didn't get to bring home. In one TikTok video, she opens up about naming each of the nine after not having done so previously.
"I had a lot of guilt not naming them because it made me feel like I wasn't taking them into consideration. It's hard to explain, but we were just sad. It felt like, looking back, that I missed out on actually considering them in the moment," she explains.
"Now that we're pregnant again, I can't even look at baby names. People ask if it's a girl or a boy and I can't even consider that they're real. But I have all these baby names that we were looking at for our previous babies and I can't use them. They were saved for someone else and it feels wrong even to have them on my list," Madison continues.
She admits some people were confused by this decision, pointing out she couldn't have known the sex of each baby at the times she miscarried.
"It never mattered to me," Madison says. "What mattered to me was giving them names that we loved for them and love in general, and just making sure that we knew they were loved and wanted. To try to feel like this pregnancy is real and try to connect them and break out of this dissociation that we've been feeling towards our pregnancies. I felt like we needed to sit down, talk about them, name them."
In doing so, Madison also looked at what her due dates would have been.
"It was hard to sit there and pull all of these papers and realize when my babies would have been born and who they could have been, thinking about what life would be like. I don't know that we'll ever not be sad or not be affected by this," she explains. "I think that's just part of us now, but in order to really try and focus on loving the baby while we have them, I had to go back and spend time with our other ones."
Madison hopes that anyone in a similar situation will have the strength and persistence needed to "advocate for ourselves" and persevere through the tremendously difficult journey.
"If we didn't push and push and push, we wouldn't be where we are right now. I'm so grateful that I finally have answers. Knowing that we could have had them earlier really hurts because we had so many losses."
The expectant mom really values Facebook and TikTok for helping educate her throughout this journey.
"A lot of people are happy to offer information. There's so much more help than you can get from just a doctor. Everyone on social media was the one who pointed me in the direction of reproductive immunologists. I have found that having people to talk to who have been through, not only similar situations but those who have these resources that have been incredibly helpful because there's not anybody in my immediate life who is going through something similar. It's hard finding people to talk to about these things because they are so incredibly lonely," she says.
Madison says that while she does have the support of her close family, when it comes to friends, "people who haven't gone through this aren't necessarily sensitive to it."
"Especially with secondary infertility, people are like, 'Oh, just keep trying,' or, 'Well at least you have a kid.' They're not saying those things necessarily meaning to be rude or hurtful, but you don't know if you haven't gone through it or aren't going through it. People are unsure what to say and it's hard for them, so they'll say something rather than not say anything at all."
Madison also admits she's gotten some tough questions that have upset her in the process of sharing her story, too.
"One of the harder things that people have asked me is, 'Isn't just your daughter enough?' And she is enough. I think that we want more children inspired by her, not in spite of her, because we love being her parents so much. We just want to add to that love, and it just that's one of the ones that really hurts."
Aside from that, the response she's gotten in sharing her story "has been mostly positive," she says.
"The most joyful part of this is being excited about how my daughter is already in big sister mode. We took her to the ultrasound last time we went, and she's just staring at the monitor like, 'Wow that's my baby,' Her joy has made it more real and kind of opened my eyes to the fact that there might actually be a baby at the end of this road for us."
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