Note for a friend

It was the best of times and the worst of times getting pregnant after my first miscarriage. It was the best, because it gave me hope that in spite of medical statistics about women over 40, i was still capable of conceiving by myself. It was the worst because each time I conceived, i held my breath, hoping and praying that this time it would be different. This time, there would be no bleeding at 5 or 6 or 10 weeks, ending in a miscarriage. Unfortunately, 5 times, it did end in a miscarriage. I can’t begin to tell you how much I second guessed myself, wondered if it was my fault somehow. Was it the antihistamines i took? Was it the antibiotics? Had i trained too hard at the gym? So many questions and no answers. Everytime i went to the hospital, they tried to reassure me, that first trimester miscarriages usually mean there was something wrong and not to worry, but to try again.

Finally, i was referred to the recurrent miscarriage clinic and they told me i had ‘sticky’ blood, which meant the blood flow to the baby wasn’t enough. I was relieved to hear that, but angry that i had to have 3 miscarriages before anyone thought to do that test on me.
I used to wonder if it wouldn’t be better not to get pregnant at all, rather than keep miscarrying, but on reflection, i don’t think that would have been any easier to deal with. I looked at every pregnant woman on the street, wondering how old she was and what she was doing to stay pregnant. I devoured stories of mothers in their forties and held onto them as a lifeline.

In the end, it was a day like any other when i got pregnant again. I held my breath as i passed all the previous checkpoints and felt sure that I would exhale once i hit the 3 month mark. I didn’t! Then i started worrying about the baby dying inside me, because i knew 2 women that it had happened to. But, in the end, my precious one arrived on the 10 August 2010. She is truly special and having her erased all of the pain that had gone before.

I’m not going to tell you that it will all be ok in the end, because I don’t know that. I’m not going to tell you that maybe it was for the best, because the baby might have been disabled, because I don’t know that either. What i will tell you is the pain does get better and you will be able to look back, without feeling the pain like a knife to the heart. I will tell you that you are stronger than you think and you will find a way to deal with this. And finally, I will tell you that you will come out on the other side of this- changed in ways you never imagined, but in ways that will move you forward.

Funmi

The final STREEEEEEETCH

The last trimester, the final frontier, and boy oh boy I didn’t think it was possible to be this big. I felt like a hippo, a big fat, lumbering hippo, and lots of other people thought so too. Every time I’d see friends I’d get ‘OH MY GOD, YOU’RE HUGE’, I was now a master of gritting my teeth, smiling and mentally punching them in their skinny ass faces.

It was summer and a warm one, I was pretty uncomfortable. I had a terrible case of odema, water retention of the highest order. My usually skinny legs and ankles were like the tree trunks and pitted when pressed, it was really nasty. My lovely friend Lauren gave me a pedicure for a present, the poor beautician really had her work cut out for her, but I would recommend this to every pregnant woman, especially once you can no longer reach your own toes.

I was starting to really stress out about the birth. This baby was clearly a giant and I was scared. I’d decided that knowledge is power and I armed myself with all the information I could about birth. I even watched a load of real life deliveries on YouTube, the one with the episiotomy almost made me vomit, and I think I wept on numerous occasions, this wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.  Maybe I should have gone in blind but that’s not really how I do things. So I read up on the net, got myself a little library and found out about everything. I was hyponobirthing, I was positively visualising the birth I wanted and doing my pelvic floors like a woman possessed.

Daily I would massage Palmers cocobutter cream into my bump, luckily I hadn’t got any stretchmarks, and by 36 weeks my midwife told me that I wouldn’t get them now, my baby wouldn’t grow that much more over the next little while, it was just laying down fat, he was almost done….but around 38 weeks my smooth belly started to crack like an egg, spidery purpley blue cracks all on the lower half of my giant bump but do you know what…I didn’t even mind, I really thought I would, but it was OK, the baby needed some more room, and he’d be out soon. I started to relax. I was a woman doing what by body was designed to do. Everything would be OK.

A few weeks back I’d been introduced to a very pregnant friend of a friend, Kath and her husband Luke, they were also young and they were having twins! I feel the need to mention Kath here partly because  she is bloody amazing (twins, hello?) and partly because I’d not joined NCT (more on that later) and I hadn’t met other pregnant couples. She was the only person I knew having babies at the same time as me. Little did we realise but she was about to become a seriously important person in my life and I’m very happy to say that she still is, Luke and the twins too.

Maternity leave came not a moment too soon and I left work at the beginning of my 38th week. It was about then I starting to think past the labour and delivery and about actually having a real life baby depending upon me for everything. Cue another freak out followed by furious fact finding. I bought more books (Gina Ford, Tracey Hogg to name a couple) and trawled the internet. What the hell does one do with a baby? I also realised he could come ANY MINUTE, so I pegged it out to Dalston and bought the most horrible Moses basket BUT he’s need a bed immediately, no time to loose.

One great tip I got from the only friends we had with an actual baby was to set up a John Lewis or Mothercare list. It’s just like a wedding list but for all your baby gear. Gurpreet had given birth to Owain, possibly the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, 1/2 Indian, 1/2 Welsh, gorgeous big brown eyes, and his Mummy was my only source of ‘tell it like it is’ advice, comfort and reassurance. They suggested that although it does seem a little ungracious, people DO want to get you presents and instead of getting 400 ‘new born’ outfits you’ll never use because they grow so fast and a million stuffed animals ask people to get stuff you need. That is just what we did; Our Maclaren, the car seat, the sling, the towels, the bedding, the baby gym, the baby monitor and more. Our wonderful, generous friends and family had helped us more than they knew. Everything arrived the Monday after I went on Maternity leave, it kept me occupied for 3 whole days and we could relax, everything was taken care of and just in the nick of time right?

Um, wrong, my due date came and went, 30th July, my sister’s birthday. I managed to heave my enormous self down to a local restaurant to celebrate but had to leave before pudding, too uncomfortable, by now baby was pressing hard on my lungs so I had to take it easy. By this time lovely  Lauren had arranged for us to borrow a beautiful rattan basket, one she had used when she was a baby, and various other offers of moses baskets came flooding in…damn it, could have saved myself £50. What I’m trying to say is, don’t waste your money on a moses basket, they are 10 a penny and your baby wont be in there very long; charity shop, freecycle, mates just not the crappy baby shop in the Kingsland shopping Centre!

By now I was getting restless so we looked into how to jimmy him along. There are some great things to try like hot curries -yum, long walks – nice, pineapple – to eat, sex-  bit tricky but go on then and castor oil – I didn’t, I think it does work but it’s really not a great way to kick off. I think mostly these things just keep you occupied while you’re waiting ……and it’s the longest wait I’ve ever experienced, the days dragged, time stood still, it was agonising…and he sure took his sweet time about it too.

HM

And so the story begins….

I always knew I wanted children, I just wanted to have some fun first, and have a few things in place. In December 2007, roughly 6 months after our wedding (at least we’d got that bit ‘right’) and the day after a massive bender of a weekend everything changed in a moment.

The friendly practice nurse, whom I was to come to know pretty well over the next 3 years, announced that I was not going to have my smear test today because I was in fact pregnant. Good lord, how did that happen? It’s true, my new husband and I had been enjoying ourselves quite a lot recently, there had been the odd* drunken night out which usually always lead to a gung-ho attitude to contraception (condoms were our method of choice back then, sometimes) but we’d never had a ‘scare’ in the 7 years we’d been doing things this way, we thought we were beating Mother Nature at her own game….and look what’s gone and happened.

So, after the initial shock wore off and the colour returned to my face, I rang my other half at work and blurted it out, he was remarkably cool about it all and said not to worry and we’d discuss it in detail later, but there was no doubt, we’d have the baby, we’d work it out, and it would all be fine…..

Over the next little while we came to terms with what was going on. We decided to tell my sister, who was also our housemate, in fact I phoned her immediately after I had spoken to my partner.  We also had my Aussie cousin staying with his girlfriend, so they probably needed to know. We decided to put the flat on the market and look for a place for our family. We cancelled my 30th birthday trip to Goa in January, no point if i couldn’t party right? and what if I got Delhi belly, I was still in the danger zone then (before 12 weeks is when you’re most likely to miscarry).

As it turns out, if you like to party, and then stop drinking and other excesses, people twig pretty quick that you’re ‘up the duff’ so we didn’t bother hiding things from friends and family. I think it was when I told my very best friend I realised I was really very happy, this little surprise was what life was all about, being a mother, helping a child develop, making a family, however, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been forced into this, it was out of my control and I absolutely HATE being told what to do.

Work was another thing, I’d only had my job since September, and I loved it, it was the first professional job I’d actually liked. I wouldn’t qualify for the brilliant maternity package at THT, statutory all the way…um how would we pay the mortgage?

I felt like shit most of the time, tired, nauseous and very very irritable. Had a hard time trying to be upbeat with everyone congratulating me, we were heading into the festive season and I couldn’t celebrate with everyone, I just wanted to go to bed and eat chocolate. I started to really hate being around drunk people, especially my husband! Why was I the one having to change my life and everyone else was just carrying on like normal? We didn’t have ANY friends with babies, we had no idea what we were in for really, probably a good thing in retrospect, but at the time I felt like NO-ONE understood me, a bit like how I felt when I was a sulky petulant teenager!

There were some days where I felt really excited, then scared, then happy and ready and then some when I felt completely alone and frightened, especially when I thought about how babies come out…yikes! But I knew that when our baby was born I was going to love him more than anyone had ever loved before, he would become the centre of my universe, which is kinda why I would have liked to have planned things a bit better. I knew the next year was going to be a struggle, but I am practical and capable, and I knew we could do it.

Finally our scan day arrived and I was so excited/nervous, my belly had popped out and it was clear something was really happening.  This scan, this would be the proof, and we could all breathe a sigh of relief that there was a little heart beating in there, which there was, and little arms and legs flipping about, I think we both had tears in our eye, this was really happening…..

This is just the beginning of our story, roll on 3, almost 4 years and we now have 2 accidental children, whoops indeed, it’s been an eventful couple of years. Our boys, Leo and Harry are our world; funny, enthusiastic, energetic, hard work, fun, challenging, affectionate, infuriating and adorable. What would life be like without them? Empty, quiet, maybe a little bit lonely?

They have turned our lives upside down, it’s been a rocky road, we have had some very tough times and we have also experienced the very best of times, so would we change anything? Hell yeh!!! What about my career? or going traveling? It’s OK, I’ve come to terms with the things I’ve missed out on, but I would, if I could have put this whole show on pause for a couple of years if I’d had the choice back in December 2007.

HM

*read: entire weekends and often 5 nights a week, oh dear

Surprise!

I don’t know about you, but I did not plan to have a baby! It was a surprise, and not altogether welcome to begin with! Don’t get me wrong, I would never change a thing now, but back then, there were many times I thought about what I could, would, should be doing instead. This is my story of my journey it’s here to be read to help others who may find themselves in the same situation, to give some hope and reassurance. I couldn’t find anything I could relate to while I was pregnant. It was all “congratulations, how exciting and wow what great news”. I wasn’t there yet, I got there, but it took some time. So here goes…

I had a plan to reach my dreams. This included completing two diplomas, on the weekends, whilst still working full-time. My course was, to change countries and begin my new life, ‘down-under’. Every weekend I was at school and every week day I was at work. However I was doing it for me and I was happy. Of course when you least expect it, love came into my life in a big way. I met the man of my dreams. He is everything I wanted and more and I had never felt more at home. Tick another thing off the list! My job was not making me happy so I left and went solo. My diplomas were coming to an end and all the pieces of the puzzle were coming together. We moved in together, a perfect flat in a perfect location, all we needed now was the dog or the baby…be careful what you wish for. We got the baby!

We had only just moved in together after being ‘together’ for just under a year, but that was okay we knew 6 weeks in that we were in it forever. Thank goodness my ‘partner in crime’ was excited and so happy for a baby, cause I was terrified and totally in shock. First question, what we will do about moving countries…answer “we will take the baby with us!”. Good answer! I knew instinctively that my body and soul wanted the baby cause I had just spent the last 2 weeks creatively visualising the gushing flow of my period and as soon as I found out I was pregnant I clamped the gates up really quickly!

I decided to get a pregnancy test just to make sure what I knew to be true- that I was just very stressed with my exams. In fact two of my fellow students and I had laughed only that weekend about their scares, only to get their period after the exams we had all just taken. I had taken exams for two diplomas so I was just double stressed and just had to wait a few more days. My mentor laughed when I expressed my somewhat fear and said just get a test and know for sure. So I went into ‘Boots’ and saw the price of them and quickly bought the cheapest one laughing to myself that it was a waste of cash anyway. I then called him on the way home to say, I got one will let you know haha.

I should mention that we had spoken about it and of course he said, “wouldn’t it be cool?!”- No it wouldn’t and it isn’t so forget about it! He also said, “you know i’ll stand by you”- uh yeah!! Too right.

So at home I followed the instructions and waited, sick to my stomach but still very much sure that everything would be okay- it always was. Through the blurr I saw the writing on the wall. I was indeed pregnant. I actually couldn’t think at this point and called him at work and blurted out something along the lines of- okaysoiboughtatest, itwasthecheapesttest, i’mgoingouttogetanothertest, itcan’tpossiblyberight. With that hung up put my shoes on and went to the local chemist and bought the all singing all dancing test with the indicator as to just how bloody pregnant you were on it. They only come in packs of two- which would have been more helpful earlier! I only used one, it mockingly said 6 weeks +

I then got straight onto the internet and Googled “accuracy of pregnancy tests”. Apparently they are 99.9% accurate. There was a little part of me that was still hopeful! Every site said ‘contact your health provider’. I called him at work again -okaythisonesaysyestoo, itsayscallthedoctor, whatshallido, whatwillwedo, when are you home? Poor thing, he was at work. Not the dream announcement you normally see depicted on the TV, in the films and the adverts!! It struck me through looking through the internet that this was normally the ideal outcome for using a pregnancy test. Even all the sites were geared up for you being really happy about this happening. I felt alone and scared and somewhat guilty that I didn’t have the correct emotion connected to the correct outcome. How many women would love to be in my situation and why was I not jumping for joy. I was still in shock and these feelings would sneak up on me for most my pregnancy and indeed the first year of my daughter’s life!!

There was a part on me that went into automatic mode. The back cogs started whirring, this was exactly the right thing to happen. Everything happens for a reason. You have to do this to the very best of your ability. The other side, a whiney child, was still screaming why is this happening to me and now? I made my first doctor’s appointment. I said, I think I am pregnant. “Have you done a pregnancy test”, yes and it was positive, I did two. “okay, your appointment is next Tuesday, congratulations”. I’m not sure its good news just yet. “oh..sorry, I just meant…” Yeah thanks!

When he got home from work it was a flurry of questions; about getting married, about telling our parents, about moving countries, about all our summer plans and going to other people’s wedding plans (I had a wedding I was not going to miss!), about due dates, about Christmas. The list went on and on! Thankfully all answered in a calm and supported manner, and it all started to sink in! I knew it must be okay because the big question was never needed or even thought about, ‘are we going to keep it?’ There was never a doubt in both our minds, it was going to happen at some point it might as well happen now. In fact it was the perfect time.

My profession is also my passion and is perfectly matched to this situation. I always wanted my business to centre around women and a very large part of that is getting pregnant, staying pregnant and delivering a beautiful baby that grows up to have their own kids. What better way than to experience it myself. I had already had training and experience supporting many mothers through each part of that process so it was the logical progression. I had definitely thought about myself as a parent and was looking forward to it now I had found the man to share it with. So what was my problem? I had all the tools… I also had the time. I was self-employed and had left my really busy stressful part of my job to set up on my own. I had just received a big delivery of promotional material that I now didn’t have to stress about. I could take my time to build my business and let things happen. Luckily we could survive for a while on a single salary. Most people would kill to be in my shoes. But still my head still yelled- I didn’t ask for this.

It’s very hard for people who have not been in this situation, a surprise pregnancy,  to understand the seemingly ungrateful and somewhat childish behaviour I was displaying. As I said before, most people are over the moon. I had expressed congratulations to countless couples all very happy and excited. A baby is a gift, its nature showing you things are working as they should. I had no reason not to be happy and half of me was. But there was a big part of me that was scared and the only way I could express it was by saying I was resentful. People don’t like to hear that when you tell them you are pregnant. They don’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to say!

I have always been very independent and known my own mind. I have always been positive and optimistic and know that things will come my way. I have never had patience! I want to know ‘how’ to understand ‘why’. I struggle when someone tells me ‘how’ and ‘why’, I like to find out myself. So when something is forced on me I tend to react like a small child! I even sometimes even almost stamp my feet. But I have always been someone who tells it like it is. If I am happy I smile, if I am mad I will tell you why and if I don’t understand something I always ask. Even though I have been to drama school, I am a terrible liar. So when someone asks me ‘how does it feel’ I will tell them. There were a handful of people who felt the same way during their pregnancy that I found along the way, but mostly I felt a little alone and very guilty.

On the positive I decided if I was going to do this I was going to do it brilliantly. I had no doubt I was gonna have the coolest kid and the easiest pregnancy and birth. I told myself from the beginning that I would breeze through it and my baby was gonna come quick and early. (My due date was first the 26^th Dec, then changed to the 1^st Jan) My baby would be here for Christmas. I was ready to have my first doctor’s appointment.

Loula