Cant find photos in icloud???

Right so about a month ago I decided to do a massive clear out on my iphone 6. I bought extra storage on icloud backed up all my data and started deleting every unnecessary thing off my phone. I deleted close to 3000 pictures off my phone but I believed they were still stored in my icloud library. Now I decided to have a look from my imac and they are not there. Just simply not there. Icloud is only up to date with what I have on my iphone right now which is only about 500 pictures. Where are the rest?? What happened?? Cause when I was done deleting everything I logged into Icloud to check on it and all my pictures and everything were fine. Please help this is really scaring me, I had a lot of memories and this makes me want to cry