Sorry to hear that, you can recover the lost contacts through the iTunes backup files, it is very convenient for you, while you don't backed them up, you can also get them back via some iPad data recovery software, you can have a try of it.
Hi frederica872 and welcome to the forum. Thanks for your contribution, but as you are responding to posts well over two years old, it's unlikely the OP is still returning to check on an answer. With that I will close this thread.
Hope you enjoy the forum and feel free to contribute as much as you like
Andrew.
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