"That which does not kills us makes us stronger" - Friedrich Nietzsche
Firstly my apologises for being absent for a while, if you have been a regular reader of my blog (if there is actually anyone out there who is!) then you might be wondering why I have dropped off the end of the blogging world for the last month?
I have been on a journey, a difficult one and now it's the right time, I feel, to not only share but hopefully move on by just getting it down and setting it free.
Some of you may or may not know that over the last couple of years
I have been struggling to conceive and had been diagnosed with secondary infertility, we had been told we could have IVF facilitated by the NHS this year but would have to pay for it ourselves so on the 1st of January we were shocked and delighted to have a definite positive on a pregnancy test, we had done it naturally and believed that it would be the perfect start to an exciting new year.
Two weeks later I started spotting a little, not much but my GP got me in for a scan at the end of the week at our local Early Pregnancy Unit as all the fertility testing we had last year showed my right tube is blocked and wanted to be sure it wasn't ectopic. We went for a scan on the 18th January which showed an empty sac but it was still early so it was decided that my hcg levels would be tested. Over a period of 4 days I had blood tests that showed they were rising but very slowly and on the 22nd we got a call at 8pm that night asking us to come in and see the head consultant the next day as they were very worried about me.
So the next morning I had more scans done by the consultant himself and he believed he could see the pregnancy in the left overly/tube. He diagnosed ectopic and I was booked in for an emergency laparoscopy the next day, he also insisted I be admitted that night incase something happened. We were gutted, he promised that if it was in my tube he would do his best to save it as he knew my right was blocked but at this point my chances of conceiving again were looking virtually impossible....
The next day I went down to theatre immediately and was in bits, I couldn't stop crying at the thought that I was about to lose a very important piece of me and had a lovely anaesthetist who calmly got me to think happy thoughts as I drifted off to sleep...
I woke up after my op very groggy and asked the nurse where they had cut me and she told me just at the belly button and on my c-section scar so I thought a least I don't have a new scar to add to the collection but still didn't know what had exactly happened. An hour later my consultant came to see me and told me there was good news and bad news..
The good news?
It wasn't ectopic!
The bad news?
He didn't know where the pregnancy was!
Ummmm, excuse me?
He then went on to tell me that it was actually most likely in my womb and although the blood test had indicated ectopic it could just be one of those ladies who have low levels and I would need to go back 10 days later for another scan to see if baby was definitely in my womb. Well you can imagine the look on my OH face when he came in to see me and expecting me to say the worst and then in fact tell him I was still pregnant! I was allowed home later that day and spent a week or so recovering, my mum came to stay to help look after us with some help from MIL as well. At this point so many things were going through our head as we tried to take in what had happened, we felt joy at the prospect of still having a baby but fear that as I had had anaesthetic at 7 weeks what it would do to baby and the pregnancy, on top of all this LC behaviour understandably went downhill and we experienced some her biggest and baddest tantrums yet, thank goodness granny and grandma were on hand to help!
The wait until the next scan seemed to take forever and I decided to go back to work a week after the op just to have a distraction. February 5th soon rolled round and off we went feeling very nervous and tense about what we would find, at this point I was 8+5 so if there was anything there we should see it by now. The sonographer had a look and showed us a sac with a small white bob in it, she said she could see movement and thought it was a heartbeat but measured the pregnancy at 5+4 and asked if we got our dates wrong, we explained that this was impossible as we were sure when I OV and I had actually got a positive on a cheap test on December 29th. We saw the midwife again and it was agreed we would come back in another 10 days for another scan to see if baby had grown significantly enough.
So then another week of waiting and feeling nervous, anxious and very unsure about what we had really seen on our previous scan. On February 15th we had our final scan with a very lovely lady who knew what she was really doing and who had the horrible task of telling us that in fact there was no baby, just a sac with a mass of cells, it looked as if it was a pregnancy that had gone wrong and in fact the information we had had the week before was completely wrong, in the end it was diagnosed as a missed miscarriage....
We then spent two hours in the hospital seeing various doctors and nurse who were amazing, we were prepared for bad news to be honest and I already knew that I wanted to have surgery to remove the pregnancy. They talked us through it, took swabs and bloods and booked me in for the procedure the following Wednesday on February 20th where I would be one day off being 11 weeks pregnant.
We spent the weekend doing lots of things with LC, we took her to the zoo and the beach, we wanted to do something positive and try to create some happy memories amongst all the stress and sadness we were all feeling, our little family trips were a good distraction and LC got some much deserved attention from her mum and dad.
Last Wednesday my lovely OH and myself went to hospital to finally close this horrible chapter of our lives. I had amazing care again from all the hospital staff and the procedure was quick, although the wait for a bed took forever.I had my second anaesthetic with in a month and had some trouble with my blood pressure after but nothing that tea and toast couldn't fix. It was a strange day, I felt sad that my pregnancy was ending this way after all this time of trying, if it had of been healthy I would of been due the day before LC's 3rd birthday and we had all these exciting plans about having our children close together and now that was gone. But we both also felt relief, the last month had just been one long drawn out, exhausting period of lives that we hope to never repeat, I was still having lots of pregnancy symptoms right to the end and I felt like it was for nothing and I just wanted it all gone.
Through it all my OH was as usual my knight in shinning armour going to the ends of the earth to make sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed. We have had amazing support from family and friends too which has meant the world. I have also had to go through a redundancy and consultation period with the organisation I work for which has seen me re-applying and interviewing for my job while all this pregnancy stuff has been going on but fortunately I found out last week that come April 1st I have a lovely new job to start with my current place of work which will be a positive change, they too have been so supportive through all of this.
It has taken its toll a bit on our lovely LC too who has found it a strange time with lots of comings and goings, different people looking after her a lot of time away from mummy but we have tried to keep things normal as possible, her nursery have been amazing and my clever and stubborn little Madame has insisted through all of this that she start potty training and has refused to wear a nappy all week and is in fact doing very well with using the big girl toilet, I am one proud mama!
Now we can finally move on, we have been told we can try again as soon as we are ready and the consultant we saw last week said that all this trauma on my body could possibly be a good re-start to my body and will hopefully make conception easier in the future. We are trying to look at this time now as a second chance, we had already come to terms with losing a baby weeks ago so this last part of our journey was not as awful as it could have been and I am feeling hopeful. A week before we found out about the miscarriage a dear friend of ours had a baby girl and we were excited to meet her this weekend, she gives us hope because a couple of years ago our dear friend lost her second baby at 20 weeks and now she has a happy ending and we know soon we will also get our happy ending.
Today I am back at my blog, to be honest over the weeks I wasn't really sure if I wanted to come back. I had a lot of self doubt about what I was trying to achieve with this space and lost my reasons for writing here and my belief that it was worth while, I seriously considered giving it up...
But something inside me just kept coming back here, ideas in my head about where I wanted to go with my blog and what I wanted to achieve, I realised that for me this is my space in the world to express myself and be who I want to be, it doesn't matter what everyone else around me is doing because I'm doing this for me and if others enjoy it along the way well that's just a bonus! So here is to second chances and hope lighting the way...
