Mixed Emotions

22 weeks today!

Squirt is moving a lot more and I am loving feeling her!
She is definately a little madam already as the minute anyone other than Paul tries to feel her she immeadiately stops kicking!

My Mum has finally managed to feel a really small kick but nothing like the strength of Squirts normal activities!
And last night we had friends over to see our new house.
For around 2 hours before they arrived Squirt was kicking non stop.
Then when they both tried to feel her she suddenly disappeared.
She did kick one of them but seemed to enjoy teasing the other one.
I have told her she had better be on her best behavious next time we have visitors!

It was so cool to have people touching my belly to feel Squirt.
They asked me if I minded, which I dont at all!
It is what I have dreamed of for so long, to have a baby belly and feel my baby move.
So having that dream become a reality it the most amazing expereince I have ever had!

Squirt is definately doing some serious growing.
I had to take my belly piercing out 2 days ago as it was starting to get sore where it was stretching and was also catching on all my clothes and getting very annoying!
When I took it out I noticed my belly button has got alot shallower, it is almost flat now!
It wasnt exactly deep to begin with but now its hardly in at all!

The scales have upset me this morning.
I gained 3 lbs in one week!
I know it has been Christmas week but even so!
Although aside from my belly getting bigger I cant see where that weight has gone so maybe it all fluid? (thats what Im telling myself anyway!)

Just 2 days ago I had a horrible and sad reminder of the other side of pregnancy.
The only side I knew for most of last year, until Squirt came along.

A girl I work with lost her baby at 20 weeks about 18 months ago.
Well about 6 weeks ago she told me she was pregnant again.
Obviously she was terrified but happy and so I was pleased for her, and hoped so hard that this little one would make it for her.

Well about 3 weeks ago I saw her sitting in her car, in tears after an early scan.
Her baby was about 2 weeks behind where it shouldve been. It all felt too familiar, too heartbreaking.
But her baby had once difference to my two precious angels.
It had a heartbeat.
So she had hope that her dates were just off and everything would be fine with her little one.

Two days ago was her follow up scan, to check baby was growing and was ok.
I went to text her after I knew she wouldve had the scan but I already had a messgae from her.
The minute I read the first line my heart sank and I felt sick.

Not again, its just not fair.
The same thing that happened to me had happened to her.
Her baby hadnt grown, it no longer had a heartbeat.
I felt like bursting into tears.
Partly because I felt so sad for her, but also because it brought back all that pain of losing Lumpy and then Pup.
That desperately lonely 'why me' feeling.
The hating everyone around you who is pregnant.
The worrying you might never be a Mummy.

And then another emotion hit me. Guilt.
I suddenly realised I am now one of those women who I hated when I lost my angels.
I am pregnant and happy.
Although I wouldnt say we are close friends we do talk about her daughter she lost and my two angels, and we had been talking alot about her new pregnancy.
Now I dont know what to say.

Well thats not strictly true.
I know what to say, but will she want to hear it from me?
Will she be able to stand there and look at me and my bump and not want to scratch my eyes out with jealousy and hatred.
Because that is how terrible I felt about others who were pregnant when I no longer was.
It is the hardest thing to see, a bump, a happy pregnant women.
And I am going to have to make her see it everyday she comes to work.

I am sending her a card because that helped me.
And it means she doesnt have to see me straight away.

But when I think about it, In a way I dont think it is me that she will struggle with.
She knows about my angels.
I was due a long way ahead of her.
But another girl we work with found out about being pregnant just after her, and it wasnt planned.
I think she will find that the hardest. Well if she is anything like me she will anyway.

Pregnancies closest to mine hit the hardest.
Ladies who were pregnant before I had been, or had suffered a previous loss didnt give me that same stomach wrenching pain.
I know its irrational but its grief.
Grief by its very nature is irrational and selfish.
It is the only way to survive.

And with all these thoughts I stumbled across the realisation that in under 3 weeks time I shouldve been giving birth to my second angel, Pup.
Somewhere between losing Pup and getting pregnant with Squirt I had stopped counting my non existant weeks of pregnancy.
At first I thought it meant I didnt care.
But then I realised it was enabling me to live again.
I hadnt forgotten Pup, I had just stopped torturing myself once a week.

It still hurts that Im not about to give birth.
But in a different way.
Because now I have Squirt.
I have my precious baby girl growing inside me, and kicking, and rolling.
And although it sounds strange I cant see how it couldve happened any other way now.

Its not that I am glad I lost my angels because I am far from that.
But Being pregnant with Squirt feels so right and makes me so happy that I cant see how I ever would have been pregnant with any other baby.
She is my baby girl, my daughter, my rainbow.
She is my hope after despair.
She is made all the more sweeter by me having two angels before her.
I love her so so much already.