Hope and honesty

For the past couple of days I have been overcome with waves of tearfulness, ‘why me?’ self pity, calm and strangely of hope.

I write this blog because I feel the need to talk about my experiences- almost like personal therapy! but also because I have been hoping that it will help those who stumble upon it to see that even in the face of tough and sometimes seemingly unsurmountable fertility difficulties it is possible to have the courage to keep trying and maybe, maybe at some point achieve a family. But sometimes I worry that the recounting of my experiences may seem negative.  I try to write about the positive moments, but want to be honest about the challenges and realities of the process too without depressing or terrifying readers, so it should be known that on the days that I don’t write, I am essentially enjoying life and laughing lots with my husband, with my friends and family but I choose only to document my fertility journey.

I couldn’t really work out why, when I know in my rational mind that my little girl is going to pass away in utero in the next few days, that I am still hoping that some miraculous intervention occurs and she somehow counters all expectations and lives. But I think that maybe, those of us who have fertility dilemnas and persist in striving for the holy grail of a family against the odds, are eternal optimists who are driven by hope. So perhaps my reluctance to give up on my little girl, who is still kicking away, and my disbelief or maybe even denial that I am going to lose her, is completely natural.

I think that also, unlike with my little boy who arrived at the same gestation in 2008, the fact that I cant physically see her, see the reality of her size and witness her struggle, and the fact that I know that today at least she is still alive,  makes it seem bizarre, surreal, and somehow wrong to be having bouts of spontaneous sobbing, and to be already grieving for a baby that is currently alive.

Equally, I have invested so much in her, I have been on bedrest, taken four months off work, have willed her to live through the bleeds and scares that this pregnancy has thrown at me, pumped myself full of medication to try to preserve her and like most pregnant women do, (I suspect) have talked to her, sung to her, and shared my daydreams of our future with her – I have imagined our walks in the wood together, seen her feeding our chickens, splashing in puddles and flying kites on the hill in my minds eye.

Maybe there is little wonder then that I don’t want to believe that I am going to lose her.

I am also feeling scared. For the past five weeks I am very aware that I have been focussing almost 100% on her. Hoping that she will make it through. Now I am wondering, could I lose my little boy as well? Could my little girl dying make me go into premature labour with my little boy? If he carries on growing and I deliver him later, what will delivery be like, delivering one baby who is alive and one who is dead? Will I bond with him, knowing that there is somehow a gap in my expectations, that is her? Will I be grieving for her and trying to be full of joy for him? Will I have to register a birth and a death, and how do we co-ordinate and cope with her cremation when I have a new born baby? How do I make sure that the experiences of the past six years don’t catch up with me and knock me for six with post natal depression? If he makes it, then how do I make sure that I am able to enjoy the baby that I have longed for?

I can’t know the answer to any of these questions. All that I can do, yet again, is cling to hope and keep writing honestly about my experiences.