Not The One is live on iBooks now. It goes live everywhere else December 8. My book baby is live and it’s funny because people have no idea what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to writing a book. The anxiety, the stress, the writing and rewriting…and most importantly…
The self doubt.
During the editing process of Not The One, I became depressed. Reyna Miracle is the darkest character I have ever written…and I didn’t just write her…I lived in her. In my book, my heart was in London at the fourth floor Pimlico flat she lived in. She pulled me into the darkness with her. And I nearly drowned.
There was one night when I was laying in bed and stricken with grief over my story. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I was sick to my stomach about messing it all up. I even angry-typed a horrid message into my phone. Prepare yourself…I was in a dark place:
The Dirty Truth:
There is so much self doubt in the writing process. Every book I release, I have a moment of heartache and pain and disappointment…and it is one thousand percent in myself. My aching heart tells me to stop doing what I’m doing. It screams, stop releasing mediocre crap! Just go back to reading and enjoying the fruits of someone else’s labor that will most certainly always be better than your own. And oh my god would that be a hell of a lot easier! And when you pour countless hours of your heart and soul, blood, sweat, and tears….real freaking tears…all into a blah story that’s just “eh” …. It hurts. It’s gut wrenching and you wish you could take it all back.
Every dull word. Every wasted minute. Every shred of hope.
That’s the life of a writer.
I told you…Reyna Miracle took me down the rabbit hole.
But then….THEN! You get the most magical review you’ve ever received. A review that literally stops your heart, stops your breath, stops the world from spinning…and just IS.
Goodreads review from Hopelessly Devoted to Books Blog: “This.Book.Broke.Me! This is the book that pushed Amy into a whole new league! She isn’t trading on a simple love story, this isn’t about her sense of humour, this is the book where she stepped out of the ”norm” she has done something here that, personally, i think is remarkable….Amy Daws has created an original idea! She’s written a story about a woman that saved herself. A woman on the brink of utter destruction. She’s the voice that pumps blood around Reyna’s body…but Reyna’s voice? This character is as real to me as my own son. I adore her. I sincerely doubt that any other author could’ve pulled this off and i salute you Madam Daws! And more importantly…i thank you. I thank you for spreading hope, i thank you for melting my heart a little and i thank you for staying true to Reyna’s voice…you’ve done us both proud! 5 Stars and my official book of the year…perhaps of all time.”
And just like that, you remember why you do this all the bloody hell over again…because…
Happy iBooks release week Not The One…dang you hurt…but the pain is worth this one magical review.
Amy Daws is a commercial producer and lives in South Dakota with her husband and daughter. The long-awaited birth of Lorelei is what inspired her passion for writing. Amy is a lover of all things British and her award-nominated romantic comedy series, The London Lovers Series, is centered around Americans in London. It’s emotional and self-deprecating with lots of humor sprinkled in. On most nights, you can find Amy and her family dancing to Strawberry Shortcake’s theme song or stuffing themselves inside children’s-sized playhouses because there is nothing they wouldn’t do for their little miracle.
So I had a blog post all ready to go this morning to memorialize my six precious angel babies in honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day…but then inspiration struck…
…in the shower.
My daughter is just chilling in the living room, watching Cinderella and eating Pops…cuz ye know, it’s Thursday, when suddenly inspiration PUMMELS me. It’s so bad that I have to step out of the shower with conditioner still in my hair, and talk all my ideas into my phone.
You see, right now I’m working on the next book in my romance series and I’m going deep on this one. Many ask me how I went from writing a memoir in recurrent pregnancy loss to adult contemporary romance, and if you’ve read A Broken Us, my first romance novel…you know that it all started with infertility. I wanted to bring the face of infertility into an epic love story that would give it a larger platform than memoir provides. It just snowballed from there.
Writing for me is so much more than a smutty love story. It’s about tapping into emotions and the way people think and feel and react. It’s about telling a story of how someone can get past all the crap in life to find love and a happily ever after. Because that’s what I found.
But not everyone is as lucky as me. I’m sitting here after losing six freaking babies and telling you that I KNOW I’m one of the lucky ones. I got my baby. I got my HEA. But what about those who haven’t? What about those still suffering through loss, still grieving, still aching, still waiting for their rainbow baby?
My advice is…
Find something that fulfills you and drives you and use those angel babies to inspire you to go after it. That’s what writing and publishing books has become for me. So now, when inspiration strikes and I get that magical AHA moment…I wonder know where it comes from.
My six angels.
October 15th is National Pregnancy and Miscarriage Loss Awareness Day. The entire month of October honors this but on the 15th at 7:00 in the evening, no matter what timezone you’re in, you’re supposed to light a candle honoring the precious babies you have lost. It’s supposed to create this gorgeous wave of light across the world. My family and I will definitely be doing that.
In the meantime, I want to share an excerpt from one of my angel baby’s whose story hasn’t been told yet. We lost Nevaeh Peace Daws on November 11, 2013 at 18 weeks pregnant. It was our most devastating loss to date and will be included in it’s entirety in Chasing Peace…which I hope to release later this year. Below is an excerpt of our precious baby that we said goodbye to, much too soon.
Unedited Excerpt By Amy Daws Copyright Amy Daws
“This is it, isn’t it?” I cried to the doctor. There was no holding back my emotions now. I knew better. I knew prolapsed membranes were about as bad as it could get right now.
The doctor looked at me apologetically and said he wanted to try and manage my pain so we could make it until morning so my personal doctor could decide what he wanted to do. He excused himself so he could go call my doctor and update him on my status.
The tech looked so sad and tired. She knew me. She knew my history. I was the only girl they ever did ultrasounds on with an abdominal cerclage. I knew all the techs by a first name basis, so they knew my story just as well.
After being taken back to my triage room, my labor progressed to where I was screaming and thrashing in pain. They doubled and even quadrupled my pain meds but nothing was working. Finally the doctor came back in and said we just couldn’t wait any longer…I couldn’t continue laboring like I was on that cerclage. It wasn’t safe because at any moment I could start bleeding out.
It was then he said, “We have to deliver the baby.”
I looked back at him broken hearted, “But the baby’s still alive! We’d be killing the baby right?” I was bawling now asking questions I already knew the answers to.
“The baby can’t survive without fluid in your uterus and yours is almost entirely prolapsed through the cervix right now. There’s no meds we can give you to stop the contractions because you’re too early gestationally. The meds don’t work this early on. If we don’t do something now, your uterus will rupture. That’s very serious.”
I looked at him and in that moment I was so hurt and so tired and so emotionally beaten, I just didn’t care anymore, “Ok fine, just get it out, and get it over with. I’m done, I’m so so done. I don’t want any more kids. We have one, that’s enough.” I pleaded with him desperately.
He suggested instead of a mini C-section like my emergency plan called for, he wanted to go in abdominally, snip the cerclage off, close up and then let the baby delivery vaginally. This way he wouldn’t have to cut in to my very small uterus.
In my right mind, I knew that wasn’t what we should have done because that would eliminate my cerclage that I worked so hard to get. This cerclage was supposed to be a permanent fixture in my body. It was supposed to remain in place for subsequent pregnancies. But I was in the midst of the worst pain of my life and just didn’t care.
Kevin must have felt the same way because he didn’t speak up to tell the doctor anything different. I think we both knew we were in way over our heads at this point with the kind of pain I was suffering from.
“I won’t have to deliver the baby when I wake up will I?” I asked him.
“No, I think once I take out the cerclage, the baby should engage in the birth canal on it’s own right away.” He answered.
“Ok, I don’t want to wake up and have to push the baby out, I want it out while I’m still asleep.” The doctor nodded thoughtfully at me.
Once I agreed to the surgery, four nurses rushed in and busied themselves around me prepping me for surgery. I was signing papers telling them they could give me a hysterectomy if need be. Meanwhile, the doctor was telling Kevin he was worried about whether or not he’d be able to find the cerclage or if it would be covered by scar tissue and difficult to locate. They were calling in extra blood from the blood bank and then, my water broke.
A huge gush of fluid and pressure came pouring out between my legs. It was like a dam had released, “Something big just came out!” I screamed.
A nurse came and lifted my gown and said, “It was just your water hon, your water just broke.” She said.
I began to feel some relief from the intense contractions I’d been having. The doctor came in and said this is actually a blessing because now we have no choice but to deliver. Before that, I guess our decision was, in a small way…terminating a healthy baby because of pregnancy complications. By my water breaking, it made it a necessity, not a choice.
I looked over at Kevin and he looked overwhelmed and scared shitless. It all was scary. I looked over to the doctor and said, “I don’t know you. You’re not my doctor, but I need to come back from this. I need you to know that I have an 18-month-old baby at home that needs me. She needs me! She is everything to me! This needs to all be ok.”
He assured me he would do everything in his power but there were a lot of unknown elements. The nurses then said it was time to go, so Kevin kissed me quickly and said he’d see me soon. As the medical team pushed the bed and me down the hall, I felt so very alone and so very sad. Kevin was instructed to wait in Labor and Delivery Triage. I can’t imagine the sight of watching your significant other get wheeled away to emergency surgery while you have to stay back, helpless and alone.
I was crying softly when one of the nurses reached under the blanket and grabbed my hand. She rubbed it soothingly as we passed through the maize of hallways and hospital corridors. It felt like we were moving at warp speed, but her strokes were soft and sincere. I remember her telling me over and over that it was going to be all right. She only stopped stroking my hand when we reached the O.R. and they needed to transfer me to the operating table.
Staring up at the ceiling, the medical team all busied themselves prepping me for surgery. Even with a huge team of people around me, it still felt like it was just me and my little baby in the room. I took a moment and rubbed my small belly. I whispered softly, “Good-bye my little fighter. I’m so so sorry this is happening to you. I wish I could have kept you, but I can’t.” I sobbed loudly and tears streamed down my temples and into my hairline.
The anesthesiologist came over with a washcloth and wiped away the moisture on my face. He didn’t say anything encouraging. He didn’t tell me I was going to be alright. He just wiped my tears. That silence screamed volumes. He knew. He knew what a horrible and rotten situation this was and since words failed him, he offered a simple touch instead. Eventually he put a mask over my face and told me to take ten deep breaths. Before I passed out, the last thing I remember was my own hand continually rubbing my small belly.
Amy Daws lives in South Dakota with her husband, and miracle daughter, Lorelei. The long-awaited birth of Lorelei is what inspired Amy’s first book, a memoir called Chasing Hope, and her passion for writing. Amy is a lover of all things British and her award-nominated romantic comedy series, The London Lovers Series, is centered around Americans in London. It’s emotional and self-deprecating with lots of humor sprinkled in.
On most nights, you can find Amy and her family dancing to Strawberry Shortcake’s theme song or stuffing themselves inside children’s-sized playhouses because there is nothing they wouldn’t do for their little miracle.
Typically my newsletters reside around book news…but today’s is a bit more personal.
Today my best friend in the whole world celebrates her 5-Year wedding anniversary. While she looks back and remembers all the beautiful friends and family gathered around her, laughing, drinking, celebrating… I remember standing in the stall of a hotel bathroom, wadding up my chiffon bridesmaid dress and injecting a 1 1/2 inch needle into my butt.The needle is thick too. It has to be because I was injecting progesterone in oil, a hormone that is often prescribed for women suffering from recurrent pregnancy loss. I nicked a vein, as you sometimes can, and when I pulled the needle out, a fountain of blood squirted out in it’s wake. Being prepared for this exact moment, I had a wad of toilet paper tucked into the waistband of my Spanx and was able to put pressure on the bleed right away.
I slapped on a bandaid, yanked up my spanx…and went back out into the party.
Game. Face. On.
A Game Face is a vital necessity when you’re living in the world of recurrent pregnancy loss and infertility. You see, three days prior to this…I was living in hell.
My husband, Kevin and I had just found out we were pregnant…with twins. Exciting times for most, but scary as hell for us. This was pregnancy number three for us. I had suffered two miscarriages prior to this day. Miscarriage one at 12 weeks, miscarriage 2 at 12 weeks 2 day. Miscarriage two began on the due date of Pregnancy 1.
Life was funny like that.
At barely six weeks pregnant, I was cramping so badly I swore I had internal bleeding. Several ultrasounds and an ER visit later, my doctor informed me that he wasn’t sure what was going on but that we should NOT attend this wedding five hours away in Kansas City.
“But it’s my best friend! I’m the maid of honor!” I cried to him, sitting inside a dingy ER exam room. I was literally bleeding all over myself at the time because for whatever reason, ER’s don’t ever want you wearing clothes beneath your hospital gowns.
He gave me those sad, sympathetic doctor eyes but remained firm on his position.
Kevin and I got in the car and before the door was shut I was yelling, “There is no way in hell I’m missing DJ’s wedding, Kevin. No way!” DJ has been my best friend since we were babies. I convinced her to stick a popcorn seed up her nose in Kindergarden and we’ve been thick as thieves ever since. Thankfully, Kevin completely understood. He’s is good like that.
So my doctor wrote me a prescription for pregnancy safe pain medicine, handed us my HUGE medical record, and wrote down a list of all the nearest hospitals in KC. We were preparing for the worst to happen while we were there.
I would likely miscarry.
Most people probably look at me and think…are you crazy? Stay home! Lay down! Keep your babies safe! But when you’re living in the world of recurrent pregnancy loss…life doesn’t stop. If I would have skipped out on every special event or evening out because I “might miscarry” or I “might be pregnant” … I would have been even more miserable than I already was.
And guys…I was pretty freaking miserable. It took us three years to get pregnant the first time and then I got the double whammy of being diagnosed a “habitual aborter”…at least, that’s what my medical records call recurrent miscarriage.
This is where the game face comes in.
It’s party time, remember? My best friend is marrying the love of her life! So we dance, and we laugh, and we fake drink the night away…because the last thing I want to do is tell everyone I’m pregnant with twins but probably going to lose them before I get home. That’s the life of a Habitual Aborter. You mask the bad with the good. You perfect your Game Face. Because there’s no handicaps in the world of infertility and miscarriage. Every stroke is yours. Every bogey is recorded. And there’s no best ball.
Thankfully, I made it through the wedding, but I later lost both those beautiful babies. It wasn’t in Kansas City though. Baby A passed away around 9 weeks and Baby B literally fell into my hands over a toilet bowl in labor and delivery at 14 weeks pregnant.
But here’s the funny thing…the real kicker…
Today, when my bestie posts a beautiful blog spread, celebrating her amazing day…it doesn’t make me sad at all. It doesn’t make me mourn the loss of those babies. It makes me feel closer to those precious lives I lost. It makes me feel like I shared one of the most beautiful memories with them. They were with me…inside of me…when I watched my best friend walk down the isle.
They were with me then…
They are with me now…
And they certainly….are with this little miracle that I ate fruit loops with in bed this morning.
My point is…regardless of the bad…regardless of the sad…regardless of the horrid memories we all walk around with…it’s all shaping us into who we are. You just have to put on your game face, and get back in there. Because shooting for that big WIN is what makes memories worth keeping.
Amy Daws lives in South Dakota with her husband, and miracle daughter, Lorelei. The long-awaited birth of Lorelei is what inspired Amy’s first book, a memoir called Chasing Hope, and her passion for writing. Amy is a lover of all things British and her award-nominated romantic comedy series, The London Lovers Series, is centered around Americans in London. It’s emotional and self-deprecating with lots of humor sprinkled in.
On most nights, you can find Amy and her family dancing to Strawberry Shortcake’s theme song or stuffing themselves inside children’s-sized playhouses because there is nothing they wouldn’t do for their little miracle.
I’m having trouble knowing where to begin this blog post because I’m overwhelmed with amazing things happening!
First of all…did you see my USA Today Feature on why I set my romance series in London?
It was AMAZING! So exciting to see my name next to ANYTHING USA Today related! Click here to read the full article!
Also, I’m working on a special project that has nothing to do with my London Lovers or my memoir series.
I can’t release details yet, but it will be coming soon!
Then…oh then…today of all days…a really incredibly special book anniversary snuck up on me.
My baby. My pride. My joy.
Chasing Hope
Never in a million years did I think I’d be anywhere that I am sitting today.
Writing a blog on my very own author website?
Are you serious?
I always wanted to be a sitcom writer as a child. I thought that sounded so cool. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to write a whole book! It seemed like too many pages…too many words…too overwhelming.
Then these tragedies started happening to me.
Life-changing sadness enveloped me and my husband and I was hurting. I was hurting for everything I’d lost and I was hurting for the hope that was fleeing from me every single day.
I had to do something.
So I wrote.
At first it was just the days of the “sad tragedies.”
So I would never forget….
Then it turned into more.
Then I started asking questions about publishing.
Then I found an editor.
Then I picked a day to release.
Then I introduced my angel babies to the world.
So they could be remembered always…not only in my heart…but on paper.
Happy 1-Year Anniversary Chasing Hope.
You started something for me.
Something I never thought I could do.
I’ve just released my fourth book now and I found so much more than HOPE when I published you.
I found my dream and I found my happy ending,
both in family and in my career.
I call that…a really good freaking year.
Looking back on 2014, I’m shocked and awed at all that I have accomplished.
Before you think this is going to be a brag session…please hear me out.
2013 ended on a very sad note for my family when I lost my sixth baby.
Nevaeh Peace was a true gift and I cherished being able to carry her inside me for those 18 weeks.
Holding her tiny body on my chest is a sensation that I will never forget and I still get tears in my eyes just thinking about it.
Prior to losing Nevaeh, I had started taking some notes about my losses. Writing had always felt therapeutic to me and getting out all my sad stories while sobbing over top of a keyboard is what helped me process. However, when I lost Nevaeh, I wanted to do more than “process.”
I wanted to memorialize.
So, Nevaeh inspired me to make 2014 MY year. She inspired me to turn a negative into a positive. A sadness into a happiness. And a depressing story…into one of HOPE. So birthed, Chasing Hope, and the beginning of a crazy, beautiful, and challenging journey of becoming an author.
Seeing my family’s story of heartbreak in a bound book was an incredible sense of achievement. And receiving emails, facebook messages, and letters from people who my story personally affected, was more than I ever hoped for.
So doing what I do best…I pushed for more. When I’m passionate about something, it consumes me until I finish. I’ve always been this way. Whether it’s reading all the Twilight books in one week, pouring over discussion forums on how to train our new puppy, or even researching recurrent pregnancy loss specialists and textbooks. I go all in.
So birthed… The London Lover Series.
I’ve always loved reading contemporary romance.
So when I had an idea that I thought sounded interesting, I decided to go for it.
I wrote A Broken Us in two weeks and now have another book in the series, Becoming Us, releasing January 13th.
Becoming an author and publishing nearly three books in 2014 is a complete surprise. But I’ve been welcomed into the writing community with open arms. Am I successful at it? HECK NO! Does it make me want to quit? Not a chance. And the reason for that is because I have this rockin’ family at home rooting me on. I know that I would not be able to write down one single word if it wasn’t for the incredible support of my family. My husband picks up the slack, listens to my rants, does my accounting, and tolerates this crazy writing obsession of mine. He’s the shiz. And my curly-haired, two-year-old, miracle baby is all the inspiration I need to keep chasing my dreams and never giving up.
I have a lot of new followers on my site these days, so I thought it was time I did a post about how I became a writer started writing. <—-I still cringe at calling myself an author or a writer because it still doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t seem believeable. But I have two published books out there, and three more on the way, so I best get over myself!
Here’s the deal. I lived in darkness with my husband for five long years.
For five long, sad, and somewhat miserable years, we went through a struggle together that no one truly knew the depths of. That bothered me. NO ONE KNEW! It felt like people didn’t really know the real me! Some are the suffer in silence types. Not me. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a loud-mouth, obnoxious, extroverted goof. Middle Child Syndrome through and through.
So, I wanted to change that. I started writing my experience. I thought at first, it would just be something nice to have on a shelf to always remember. Because even though it was sad and tragic, I didn’t want to forget. Then I thought…maybe I’ll let my mom read it. And then it was like, ‘Oh my Gosh, this story is so much more than just my experience. I have to put it out there!’
So, Chasing Hope snow-balled and I cannot begin to tell you what an incredible experience it has been sharing it. Chasing Hope is my family’s true story. If you want to laugh, cry, scream, giggle…you may want to pick it up and read it. I’m incredibly proud of it and it offers a glimpse into a world not many people know about. It will make you want to hug your babies, hug your family members, or just appreciate life more. It’s one of those books that you read and just feel better about life when you’ve finished.
And if memoirs aren’t your thing…Chasing Hope inspired me to branch out into adult contemporary romance. Writing fiction was a ton of fun for me. A Broken Us was an idea that was inspired by a very small part of Chasing Hope. Sort of a “what if” scenario that popped into my head. I’m incredibly proud of it and the reviews it has received! The next book of this series, Becoming Us, releases in January.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post! It’s been a whirlwind of a year, diving into the world of indie publishing. But I’ve met so many incredible people along the way.
And if you don’t follow me on social media…you should totes start. I speak way more candidly over there! 😉
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