Wednesday 29 June 2011

Who Am I?

Its nearly 2 weeks since Pup was taken away from me.
Most of the time I think that I might just be doing ok.
But Im not really. I think Ive told so many people Im ok that Im starting to believe it myself.

I am so far from ok.
I am lost, I am scared, I am alone, I am hurting, I am sad, I am angry, I am confused.
Most of all I am devastated.

I spend alot of time analysing how I am feeling at the moment.
And just today I realised something.
Not only do I desperately miss Lumpy and Pup, and I really really miss them even though I only knew them for a short time. But I also miss the old me.

So much about my life is different to before December, before I was pregnant.
Up until December I went running with Maisie about 4 times a week. I havent been running since April and even then it was only a token effort, not a proper run.
Up until December I couldnt wait to play my next football game and got frustrated if I had to work. Now I dont even know if I want to sign up next season.
Up until December I cycled to work more often than not. I have only cycled to work twice this year.

Those things may not seem very important to some people but to me they are everything.
Exercise was a massive part of my life and has made me who I am.
I will give it up in a heartbeat if I get pregnant again but that is the problem.
I have given it up for 6 months and Im still no closer to being a Mum.

I gave it up to be a Mum.
I was happy to trade running for walking around with a pushchair.
I was happy to trade football for playing with my baby.
I was happy to trade cycling to work for days in at home with my family.

But now I have nothing.
I have stopped doing everything I love because I want to be a Mum but I cant even have that.
So I am left feeling frustrated and lost.

But I am not bitter about having given up so much that is important to me.
I wanted to give it up.
What I am bitter about is having my chance at being a Mum ripped away from me.
I gave up things that might not be best for my baby and what did I get in return? Absolutely nothing.

Aswell as feeling like Ive lost a part of my identity with giving up exercise, what is really hurting me is losing an identity I never really got given.
Just for a few weeks each time, I was going to be a Mummy and P was going to be a Daddy.
But that has been snatched away from us. Nobody sees us as a Mummy or a Daddy.
The most important of identities, the one that I value so highly that I was willing to give up everything else is something I have no control over.
I cant work hard at it like I can with running or football.
Hard work wont make me more likely to be seen as a Mummy.
No matter what I do I cant 'train' at being a Mummy.
The role that lands in so many womens laps with little or no effort still eludes me.
The one thing that I wish I could 'try harder' at is something that is beyond me.

And while I say I miss the old me, I dont really.
I miss the old me in the sense that back then I was happy with what I had.
I miss enjoying going running and I miss that rush of adrenaline when platying football.
But I know that now I wont get those feelings when running or playing football.
I will still feel this emptiness inside me.
Now although I realise how lucky I am to have P and Maisie I want a family.

I can get back into running and go back to playing football with very little effort. I can pretty much pick up where I left off as Im still pretty active.
The one thing I want more than anything in the world I cant do that with.
When I get pregnant again it wont be with Lumpy or Pup, and I cant continue with where I lost either one of them.
I am forced to go back to the beginning.

And I dont know how many times I can cope with that.

Friday 17 June 2011

Realisation

I went for my d&c today.
I hope I will never again be sitting in that surgical prep room waiting for that operation.
Once was too much, twice was just plain unfair, a third time just doesnt bear thinking about.

I feel different this time, not physically but emotionally.
Last time I felt desperately sad and lost.
This time I thought I was doing ok because I havent been crying all the time.
Its like I dont have the energy to feel anything, like I cant be bothered to feel the pain.

But just now I reaslised I am not doing ok.
I have lost that hope again. I have lost the reason for excitement and happiness.
I have nothing to look forward to.

And its not that I have a rubbish life.
I have two weddings to go to in the next month and a half.
I have plans to go away with P in September.
And thats when it hits me. That is why I have that horrible numbness and lack of feeling.

Because we are not going away in September for fun.
We are going away because neither of us can bear to be at work or even at home on Lumpys EDD.
I should still be pregnant, and not just 9 weeks pregnant, but 28 weeks pregnant.
I should be watching my ever growing bump and feeling Lumpy move.
I should be looking forward to giving birth to my beautiful baby.

But I am not.
I am recovering from another d&c because I lost another baby and I never even got over losing my first.
I am again trying to come to terms with my future without a baby in it.
I was jsut starting to live again after losing Lumpy when I got Pregnant again.
Maybe it was too soon, I dont know, but I needed to be pregnant again.
I needed to know that I would have a baby in my future soon.

I still have that need.
But I also have a fear.
A fear that next time will end just like this time, and the first time.
In tears and disbelieve.

I can no longer see any hope for happiness when I imagine being Pregnant.
All I can see is a positive pregnancy test follwed by a few weeks of worrying.
All I can see is a scan followed by weeks of pain and tears.
All I can see is a d&c followed by days of frustration at my slow recovery.
I feel like I am stuck forever in a cycle of trying to concieve, getting pregnant and having a missed miscarriage and I dont know how to break it.

I cant not try again, because that wont help me have a baby.

Friday 10 June 2011

History repeating itself

So 2 days ago me and P braved the gut wrenching nerves and went for the early ultrasound.
The one that would tell us if I had suffered the same cruel missed miscarriage as last time, or if in fact I was actually still pregnant and Pup had a heartbeat.

I wish I could say it was different this time.
I wish I could be putting Pups heart rate down on this page and saying how she moved around and looked alive.
But I cant.
Because I cant change what has happened.

Pup died around 3 weeks ago.
In fact Pup may have never grown at all, we dont really know.
The radiographer told me I had a 8 week gestational sac and a yolk sac but nothing more. I was 8 weeks pregnant so we should have seen more.
It appears Pup is what the medical profession call a Blighted Ovum meaning we didnt even get to see a fetal pole this time.
Initally I thought this meant there had never been a baby at all, but after finding a very helpful book on recurrent miscarriages it appears the now accepted belief is that when no fetal pole is seen it is not because it didnt develop but because it has been reabsorbed by the body before it had a chance to be seen.

Whatever the medical reasoning behind it we have lost Pup just like we lost Lumpy and it hurts.
It hurts more than I thought it could after losing Lumpy, and in a strange way it feels different.
Not becaue I dont care. But because we have been here before and we know what will be happening.

We will go back to the hospital next Wednesday and have a rescan.
And they will tell us there is no change and that there is still no fetal pole.
Then I will have the d&c.
Then I will go home and try to feel better.
Then I will go back to work and feel depressed and hopeless and uninterested all over again.
Then we will start TTC again.

Looking at this all written down it sounds cruel and heartless as if Pup didnt matter to me.
That fact couldnt be further from the truth.
I have cried more tears in the last two days than I did in the first week of losing Lumpy.
Because last time I was numb, this time I am not.
There was no shock at the news, I was expecting it, because it had happened before.
There was no refusing to accept it.
There was just pain and grief and anger at the unfairness of it all.

Above all there is fear that this may happen again and Im not sure I could cope with that.
So instead of sinking into despair at the thought of it happening I have come up with all sorts of ideas of what me and P can do to try and save our as yet unconcieved baby.

We will visit my Gp and demand to be referred to a specialist.
If they wont agree to that we will ask them to do blood tests.
I will get the direct phone number of the hospital so I can arrange an early scan as soon as I know Im pregnant next time.
Because after our track record I have no doubt that I will get pregnant again, and probably quickly.
We have a 50% success rate- 2 pregnancies in 4 months of trying. It almost makes me feel like I deserved to lose my babies because I concieved them so easily. Which I know makes no sense but it doesnt stop me thinking it.

This is what has helped me to find a focus out of the fog of sadness and despair.
Its still there but I am not letting it consume me this time.

Monday 6 June 2011

I have my first scan for this pregnancy in 2 days time and any small bit of hope I had for Pup being Ok is starting to leave me.

I still feel Pregnant. I feel more pregnant than I ever did with Lumpy.
I feel more sick, more often.
I feel more bloated, all the time.
My boobs are sore and have grown quicker than before.

But now that I have a time and a date for the scan the only thing I can think of is that last terrible scan.
My scan will be on 8th June, my last scan was on 8th Feburary.
4 whole months in between them. But it feels like a whole lifetime.
So much has changed and will never be the same again.

All I can see when I try and imagine what the scan will be like is Lumpys lifeless litttle dot on the screen.
All I can hear when I try and imagine the u/s tech showing us our baby is her saying 'This doesnt look like a 12 weeks pregnancy, how many weeks are you supposed to be?'

I know its only natural to worry because of our experience with Lumpy but as well as worrying about the outcome of the scan I am worrying about what all this worrying is doing to Pup!

Why do we worry when it doesnt change anything. Worrying wont make Pup grow any stronger or bigger. It wont make Pup less likely to die. It wont make Pup healthier.
But still I do it.

Wednesday seems ages away and yet it is less than 48 hours.
It cant come soon enough and yet I dont want it to come at all.