Household disappeared

I created a sim family to go with a sim I made for a challenge, I spent hours agonizing over every little detail I could to make them feel as much like real family as I could (because character development stuff). By the time I'd finished it was two in the morning and I was exhausted, but nevertheless I made sure to save the household and save the game before I called it a night to avoid any unwanted incidents as I'd grown quite attached to my creations.

This proved entirely futile as when I loaded in today there was no trace of the family in the game or the gallery despite searching high and low. They're nowhere to be found and the game is treating it like I never made them, yet all the changes I made to the house after their creation still stuck.

I don't even know if I want advice on how to fruitlessly attempt recovering them. I guess most of the reason I'm even writing this is because I want to see if anyone else has is suffering the same thing at the moment (or else if anyone has any tips on how to cope because I'm struggling not to cry after spending 4+ hours on a household that is gone to the wind despite all my efforts).

In the meantime, I'm gonna go be depressed for a little while.