See you on the flip side..

… where I’ll be holding my kicking, screaming, crying baby boy (hopefully).

Thanks so much to you all for your support through this pregnancy, we got there and are looking forward to welcoming our baby tomorrow!  I CANNOT wait.

Waiting for a baby

How has this become my life?  How come I know such sadness of child birth before I know such joy?  Why did my first baby die?  Why can’t someone explain why they think this second pregnancy is different from my first and that the outcome will be different this time?  Why didn’t they pick up on the fact something was wrong last time if they can say that this pregnancy is so much different – it doesn’t feel different to me other than the bump being a little bigger which is common with a second pregnancy anyway.

I sit here waiting for my second baby to be born and I am so excited, I can’t wait to meet him.  But I hate that he comes in the wake of such sadness, that he already has so much expectation and waiting and yearning put upon him.  He already carries the burden of his parents need for him. 

I’m part of a coffee group (formed after I attended antenatal classes again as blogged about previously) so I have support when I have a newborn in my arms to care for as I have no family in the city where I live.  None of them know my history and now as their babies start to arrive I am so envious, I just really want my baby to arrive – soon!

I’m also not helping myself by watching a TV series called “One Born Every Minute” showing labour and birth at the Leeds Hospital in England.  Every episode I watch, I cry.  I can’t wait till it is my turn to be in that position, to be in labour pains with the imminent arrival of my son not too far away.  I am not afraid of that pain, I welcome it, I look forward to it because it means he will be here shortly.

But we are getting there.  I never thought I would get to full term but here I am.  Finally.   Maybe next week it will be my turn to have a warm, squirming baby placed on my chest, screaming and gawping at the world, ready to live and be loved.

Baby Boy in T minus…

So much has happened in the last month, but the biggest thing is that I am one month closer to having my baby boy.

How surreal that feels.  I look back on this pregnancy and while it feels like it has taken forever, it also feels like it has disappeared so quickly too!  It is technically 5 weeks till our due date, but hopefully less till we meet our baby.  And now they are dragging!

I’m ready, but I’m not ready.  I’ve been so focused on the pregnancy and getting to the end of it, I haven’t spent much time thinking about once the baby arrives, actually caring for and looking after a newborn.  Last time, with Amelia, I felt prepared and ready (as much as possible), this time I don’t feel ready at all.  I can’t comprehend it, a baby in my arms that is breathing.  I’m scared, what if I’m not ready for this at all, what if I’m no good at being a mum, what if I lack the natural ability and patience and care that is needed? 

I try to image the moment I am handed my baby and how great that will feel, but I just can’t believe it as a reality.  I try to image labour and birth when there is a baby’s heartbeat to focus on and worry about and how different it may be from my last labour and birth, the one where I already knew my daughter had died.  Will it be similar in any aspect, or will it be completely contrasted? 

I am starting to get more nervous about my babies movements too.  We’ve ramped up the monitoring from this week.  We don’t seem to do NST’s here in New Zealand (not sure what these involve but have seen a few BLM’s mention them) but we are going in for regular CTG (cardiotocography) monitoring that watches heart beat rates, movements and uterus contractions over a 20 minute period.  This has meant going back into the ward at the hospital where we found out Amelia had died and were then induced.  While its been more than a little hard at times I am glad that I have done this now rather than the first time going back being when we are induced in a few weeks with baby number 2.

Today I lied for the first time too.  A shopkeeper asked if this was our first baby.  A moment of hesitation and then “yes”, it was just easier at that moment rather than to have to explain when the next questions inevitably come.  But I’m still looking for an outfit that proudly declares “little brother” – something this new baby will always be!

A Trigger

So in a bid to try and feel normal I’ve signed up to attend Antenatal Classes again.  The idea being that once my baby is born it will be nice to be part of a group of mothers who are parenting newborn babies at the same time as me.  

It feels a bit strange going to these classes again as feel like we are cheating.  We know all the answers to the questions, we’ve already been through full term pregnancy, labour and birth.  To be amongst a room of first time mothers who think they know all the answers is strange when we actually do. 

I have told the lady taking the classes of our situation but haven’t told the other parents-to-be.  We’ve only been to one class and missed the second one.  I don’t know if it is fair to tell the other parents and present them with my burden before their births.  However I sense most will be how I was with my pregnancy with Amelia and mentally think to themselves "that won't happen to me".  It will definitely be something I tell them should we get to proceed to a normal coffee group post delivery of my boy, but should I tell them now if it comes up in conversation at the classes?

Any how, this original post started out about “a trigger”.  In the first antenatal class we watched the video of a water birth.  I watched the video without flinching, yip, labour and birth, been there done that.  And then the trigger.  The baby came out alive and crying and was handed to the mum.  Queue me leaving the room in a rush to get to the bathroom to have a wee cry.  Damn, I just didn’t even think how I would handle that.  I managed to compose myself to rejoin the class but I left Jared in the room fretting how he would diplomatically get out of the room if I wasn't able to come back in!

That really did heighten for me how much I really can’t wait for the moment I will be handed my crying, breathing baby and can’t even imagine how AMAZING that will be. 

The inevitable question

I now look undeniably pregnant, not like I’ve just eaten a few too many cakes and pies!  And with this un-deniability comes the inevitable question “Is this your first?”. 

I work in a large office so there are many people I don’t know and who either never knew I was pregnant, or had seen me pregnant and don’t know what happened.   This week at work I had three days back to back where I had to answer this question or something similar.

Day 1 – the lady in kitchen. 

“When are you due?”, “November”, “What date?”, “The end” (I don’t tell people due dates because find it very irrelevant especially when an induction will be done early!) “Do you want a boy or a girl?” “We are having a boy this time” “Is this your first?” “No, it’s my second.” “So you have a little girl at home?” “No, she passed away.” “oh” and then she quickly scuttled off, obviously feeling awkward and not knowing what to say.

Day 2 – the marketing manager from a sister company who I’d played netball with a handful of times before I got pregnant with Amelia. 

“So when are you due?” “November” “You recently had a baby …” (obvious confusion in her question, did you have a baby, are you still pregnant…), “Ah, she was stillborn” – I see the telling scarlet colour creep in around her face.  I notice I feel warmer in the face too! 

Day 3 – someone I don’t think I’ve ever seen or noticed in the office before but now work with in my new job. 

“So how far along are you?” “6 months” (as soon as the conversation turns to pregnancy, about 3 other ladies stopped and joined in) “You were pregnant before, that’s quite close together.” “Ah, yes, my daughter passed away." and then I add to diffuse the awkwardness "So this is our new little hope.” I give them a smile then potter on my way.

I’ve been struck by how uncomfortable people clearly are when I mention what has happened. This has led me to the question – do I deny her to make it easier for others?

I am conflicted.  I don’t want to make people feel badly but I don’t want to deny my daughter her existence.  I am happy to talk about what happened.  I have come to terms with this and no matter if I do or don’t talk about it will continue to feel her absence in my life.  I also feel to some degree stillbirth is not talked about, people don’t realise that it happens as frequently as it does (1 in 120/130 in NZ), more common than SUDI.

So due to these reasons, I will continue to make people feel awkward.  This is something that happened, it is a fact.  Unfortunately life isn’t all peaches and cream so I will continue to share my daughter’s existence with the world.

My First Freak-out

Last Wednesday I had my first proper freakout.  My boy stopped kicking me reducing me to a shivering, quivering crying mess.  My boy has been a good wee kicker, a nice routine especially in the evening.  But this night, he just didn’t give me a nudge in the tummy like normal.

I’d been browsing the net after a busy day at work not really noticing when Jared asked if our boy had been kicking well today.  Then I realised I hadn’t felt him since I’d been home…  eek, worry starts to creep in.  Then off to bed when he definitely gives me a few quick kicks before sleep.  Still nothing.  I, we, lay there waiting for the movement. 

It’s amazing how quickly my mind flicked through everything I’d need to do practically if I didn’t get that kick, if that heart had stopped beating – go to hospital and confirm, ring work, deliver my baby, pack away all the blue I’d just filled the draws with so I’d now have one box of unworn pink and one of unworn blue newborn clothes!  All this while I was a shivering, quivering crying mess.

And then, my boy… he woke up and gave me a big kick in the tummy. 

My gosh how I LOVE that feeling.  How I cherish his movements, his confirmation that “hey mummy, I’m here and ok – I was just having a big sleep!”.  Darn it little boy – I love you soo much, no more giving me frights like that.

The next day at work I was telling a fellow male co-worker about my freak-out.  I know he was trying to be helpful but his down playing comment of “Oh Di, babies don’t kick all the time” really didn’t help.  Yes, tell me that once you have had a child die inside you and the sign that they had died was their lack of movement (pretty sure you wouldn’t if you had).  

I know you can’t understand but there is no way you can ever diminish my fear.  Don’t try to comprehend because I doubt you can.  The fear I have is real, based on experience.  I hope history does not repeat, but I know that it could and can. 

I love this child in my belly and am so glad that his kicks have returned to normal again over the last few nights.  So is his dad!!

The new kiddo

I’ve been slack at writing.  There’s so much to write about – lots rattling around in my brain, but its winter time in the Southern Hemisphere and I’ve been hibernating. 

I’ve been spending time with my growing bump, enjoying every kick that makes me know that the kid is there, rolling around getting comfy.

The new kiddo is tracking along well – measuring ahead at the last scan.  The new kid will be a little brother for Amelia.  

I love knowing he’s a he.  Connecting and bonding with my new little boy.  It still seems surreal that I might have a baby to care for outside of my tummy at the end of this pregnancy, forever hopeful but just unable to grasp the reality as strongly as I had already done with Amelia.  I’ve started the task for packing away all the girly pinks, peaches and purples and have started filling the draws with blues and greens – nothing new so far, I haven’t been brave enough to purchase, but a lot of hand-me-downs from his cousin Luke.

I’ve also had some aargh moments lately – getting frustrated still by happy people who are in their first pregnancy and just a bit frustrated I can’t just be like that too!  I get jealous of the people who already have babies and as Amelia’s first birthday approaches I think of other parents planning their babies’ first birthday celebrations.  I can’t imagine ever wanting to go to the parties and it makes be nervous that I’m going to be a bad mum to this new kid.  Will my unwillingness to go to these celebrations mean he misses out?  Will my own inadequacies, my own sadness at what his sister has missed or what I have missed out on with his sister, my own intolerances, my own fear – mean that he won’t have a normal childhood but instead one with an overprotective mother who can’t let him join his peers?  I hope not.  I hope once he is born my outlooks, my mindset will change.  I seem to do a lot of hoping lately!

The Fraud

I feel like a fraud.  Like I’m just pretending to be part of this club with which I now know so much, the “Being Pregnant Club”.  I feel like a dab hand at it, I know what to expect, the ins and outs, the ups and downs, and now the ‘what can go wrong’.  But while I sit here in this groundhog day of being perpetually pregnant, others graduate before me.  I feel like the dunce at the back of the classroom – unable to move beyond this grade and onto the next.

I don’t feel like I belong. I’m nervous to start wearing maternity clothes.  I can’t tell if it’s because I don’t feel I deserve to with a second pregnancy and yet no baby, or because it means accepting that this pregnancy is slowly burgeoning, become more and more real. 

I don’t want to step inside a baby store and buy the things that I was initially looking forward to, a new cot and stroller rather than the second hand ones we had ready for Amelia.  The idea of being amongst those happy, pregnant people – again I feel like I don’t belong, I am not one of them, I am not blissfully happy and excited, I am not of the belief I will get a baby to take home.  There are still so many months to go, still too many things that could go wrong.

I am annoyed when people tell me of friends and family that are pregnant for the first time and expect me to feel some kinship or excitement that they are pregnant while I am.  That so-and-so had their first antenatal class last week and are most nervous because 10 people are due before them and they don’t want to hear all those birth stories before they get there.  I could tell them one they surely don’t want to hear!

It’s a strange feeling, because while I feel like a fraud, I still am hopeful.  I am not constantly anxious like I thought I would be.  I worry and question and feel guilty I’m not doing enough for the baby – but this, I can imagine, is what any mother feels – a feeling that will hopefully last well into when this baby is an adult and having children of their own. 

You see, I still have hope I will bring this baby home – I still look forward to that day that I will hold this baby in my arms and hope to hear their cry herald through the air announcing their arrival, awake and alive into this world.

Getting there...

It has been a long time getting to this point, but we’re here, the last week of trimester one.  It seems to have taken a lot longer than the 3 months it has been!

I’ve finally found the courage to let people know, slowly.  I sometimes think it is quite nice to have the little secret to myself and wonder how long it will be before someone asks if I’m pregnant or just need to loose some weight.  The bump has started to pop out of my loose fitting dresses.  I like the bump, I don’t feel pregnant apart from tiredness and a bit hungrier so it reminds me it is real!  It’s definitely popping much sooner second time around!

But I’m in no hurry to spread the word and am just taking my time.  Especially at work where there are so many people and it can become overwhelming – people always have a lot of questions and advice or words they think are comforting “it will work out this time”. 

But if I’ve learnt anything, it’s that there are no guarantees.  I am filled with hope that this time it will, but I am aware that things don’t always work out.  I am not pessimistic, but a realist.  As I said, I still have hope; I am still making plans for the future that involve us having a baby, I’m just aware that things sometimes don’t go to plan.

Wishing Time Away

The waiting is so hard.  Wishing time to go fast but not wanting to will away my life or the moments of this pregnancy.  I am not even out of the first trimester, it seems to be taking so long.  I’m trying to set myself mini-milestones but work is so quite at the moment so the days pass by so slowly.

This week at work has been quite ironic.  I work in retail and we’ve just launched a new brand in our stores of gorgeous infants’ wear.   I spent my day putting together marketing material for the launch, which meant looking at lots of photos of beautiful babies and reading about sweet little clothes.  It’s not hard, I love babies, I so desperately hope to have one, and I so want this little one thats growing to be THE ONE. 

I am still nervous, every ache or pain or twinge makes me immediately think its all gone wrong and the baby’s not alive anymore.  And this is why I just want time to pass a little quicker so I can be in the second trimester and feel a little more secure, so I can get to the weeks when I can feel those jabs and kicks and movements, so I can be a little closer to holding a warm, breathing, blinking baby in my arms.

I’m already counting down and know that’s not good this early in the piece.  

What can I do to stop counting down? Stop wishing time to pass faster?  Just relax?  It's like waiting an extremely long time to unwrap a present that you really REALLY want!

Shock… in a good way for once

After finding out last Monday at my Obstetrician’s office that he suspected (and was pretty sure of) a missed miscarriage, I’d spent the rest of the week angry that I still felt nauseous and sick even though I was no longer pregnant.  I thought it a cruel joke.

On Friday I had the formal scan to confirm the miscarriage.  I went into that waiting room knowing the outcome I expected.  I watched happy people come out of rooms with smiles having just seen their babies flipping on the screen… and I was ok.  I had emotionally disconnected.  In no way did expect what happened next.

A flicking flash of light rapidly pulsing on the screen, a heartbeat, a baby.  Holy shit!

It turns out I am earlier than expected based on LMP but they match perfectly to my ovulation dates (I’d been BBT charting).  It’s still very early days (7 weeks) and I would not normally “out” myself this soon, you know, wait for that magic (or not so magic as we all know) 12 week safe marker.

But the support I received to my post when I sincerely believed I had miscarried was amazing.  I was broken on Tuesday, but the support you all gave me helped me pull myself together and remember I am not alone.  THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!

This week has really tested my limits of extremes and now I just don’t want to get my hopes up too high.  I’m too full of fear and anxious to get too excited again.  I’m just going to try and take one day at a time.

And then BAM, right back where I started

I was pregnant.  Now I am not – what am I when I still am carrying something that is no longer alive?  Anti-pregnant, a coffin?

We found out yesterday that our new hope had not developed and was not viable at 6-7 weeks gestation. 

Yesterday I was in shock driven practical frame of mind.

Today I am a mess.  I am angry.  I am pissed off.  I am sad.  I am confused.  I am just so fucking sick of dealing with this.  Pissed off that the world continues on around me when I hurt this much.

After Amelia died, all I wanted was to get pregnant again.  After this loss I am now scared to try again.  I know I will but I am just afraid to have to feel this again.  Knowing also that because it is a missed miscarriage that I have to wait for the spontaneous miscarriage to happen – how long will it take to happen and get back to a regular cycle again?  Do I push for a D&C?  There goes any chance to have a baby this year…

Can someone tell me how I get through this?  How I can move beyond this hurting and keep focusing on the future and functioning on a day-to-day basis?  At the moment I am struggling to see beyond this grief (again).  I am sick of this hurting, this pain, this shitiness that has become my life!

Apologies for a post filled with raw anger – just venting.

Am I ready to do it all again?

I am desperate and crave to be pregnant again.

This is all I can think about at the moment, consumed by it.  I am excited by the idea.  I am nervous about the idea.

Will having another baby take some of this pain away?  Or will it never go away? 

Will people realise that I’m not replacing her?  Will there be enough space, time, distance that people will see our children as separate entities? I am not replacing her.  I love her.  She can never be replaced.

Can I bear the pain and disappointment every month if we haven’t been successful?  It was hard enough the first time when it took us 12 months.

What if I miscarry?  Can I suffer this pain of loss again and the inevitable time this will set us back in holding a kicking, screaming baby in our arms?

Will the excitement of being pregnant again be overcome by fear and anxiety? I have no safe mark, I carried 3 days shy of full term.  Will this be the longest 40 weeks of my life?  Originally we thought it was a clotting disorder, now ‘they’ are saying it was a cord accident.  What’s to say that this won’t happen again.  It was a matter of days between having a scan at 38w with everything being fine and her dying.

Is my body ready, has it recovered enough to be a good home for a new baby for another 9 months?  It’s only been 3 months since Amelia was born - ‘they’ recommend waiting at least 6 months to get pregnant again.  Not only for your body to recover after carrying a full term pregnancy, but to grieve fully for my Amelia.

I’ve grieved, I still grieve and I don’t think I will stop, ever.  To some degree I don’t think I will fully grieve until I have a new baby and know exactly what I have missed out on with Amelia – all those firsts that Amelia will never have.  I already know that I am not replacing Amelia but I do know I am trying to fill some of the hurting and my empty arms.