Lost 2000 photos after back up/restore with new Iphone

I dont know what I did. I took the new phone with my new number. Gave my old phone to my daughter with her number. I tried to back up and then restore with both phones on the same day. That was my first time setting up Icloud. I think i backed up my old phone to itunes and icloud (both programs were downloaded onto my pc). Then I plugged the new iphone in and tried to restore.

I must have done it a few times because it just would not work. I didnt get much direction at At&T.

But I do know that when I was on Icloud at the end of the day, ALL my photos were there.

Once we knew they were all backed up, my daughter deleted them all off of the 5C.

She also created her own Icloud, but didnt back up or put anything on it.

Last week, I went to access my photos on Icloud but there were only recent ones from my phone, or my daughters phone (no idea how they got on there).

It showed 500 pics but none from the last 2 years. Not under recently deleted either.

I tried restoring my phone from the recent back up. No more pics.

What am I doing wrong? Please help...there are pics of my family on there - I thought the whole point of me saving them to icloud was to have a secure storage - I even pay extra for more room. Had I known there was a chance of losing them, I would have saved them to my pc.

Between her phone and my phone, they have to be somewhere right? Maybe use some 3rd party recovery app?