FFS

It might have been because I wasn't feeling too chipper this week. My chipper had indeed dipped. 

Nothing major, or inexplicable. A combination of badly-timed freelance deadlines, a husband on nights and worried about a regime change at work, my boy being a bit of a bollix, my girl being my girl, and me just feeling tired.

I'm citing all this in my defence, because I cried at The Archers, for f**k's sake. A storyline just got me this week. [I'm not going to even bother with a spoiler alert, because, well, it's The Archers]. No, it was nothing to do with Tom sodding Archer's pigs, or Jennifer frigging Aldridge's new kitchen - it was Ruth, having a miscarriage.

My pregnancy mishaps were a long time ago.  One of the 'dates' rolled by the other week, and it was OK, or at least it seemed like it was.

But it was when Ruth said about the blood. About there being too much blood, and her knowing, for sure, she'd lost her baby.  It made me remember the times I knew. My blood running cold at the same time as it ran hot from my body. 

It made me remember the worst time. The Friday night we were round our friend's house at a noisy, busy, house party. How I sat in her toilet staring down at what I thought I'd lost again, the blood all that was left of what I thought was my last chance for another child. How I spoke to her in the kitchen and told her I'd have to go, but it was OK, I'd pick up a couple of mates from the pub as previously arranged, because I didn't want to let them down, and anyway, everyone else had had a few drinks. How I got us home, got my daughter to bed, how I did all this in a sedate, methodical, state, like there was nothing wrong. And how it was then, and only then, that I fell apart.

I had to wait until Monday to have a scan. My Long Weekend. 

I was convinced this was like the other times. That there'd be no heartbeat. I didn't think I could bear the kindness of the radiographer, as she rubbed the gel on my belly and switched on the screen. 

And then there was this little thump. And the worst turned into another best. That little thump is the one that's been a little bollix this week. And I should point out that every time I complain about the little bollix on this blog, I am celebrating the fact the little bollix is here at all. The fact that he came back to life for me, that I was wrong when I 'knew' he was gone. He'd gone nowhere. He was here. He's here. 

No, I mean, he is here. Literally. He's just padded down the stairs, and it's 10 o'clock at night for f***'s sake! GET TO BED!

Video is Mara Carlyle - Baby Bloodheart

Up!

Babies have been on my mind recently.

If my husband is reading this, don’t panic, and anyway... *makes a ‘snip!’ motion with a pair of imaginary scissors*... remember?

There have been three triggers for my chain of thought. A set of triplets, if you like.

Firstly, some lovely news: my cousin has just given birth to her third, beautiful, bouncing, baby boy. (Incidentally, why do we always say bouncing? I mean, it’s not a good thing if a baby bounces when it comes out, is it? Bouncing tends to come after dropping, and that’s kind of horrific, and law-suity, surely?)

Secondly, I recently marked the passing of one of my ‘days’ (as documented in previous blog post ‘Dates’) when I have a little think about days that should have been birthdays but turned out not to be.

Thirdly, and finally, Up! was on the telly the other evening.

It's hard to describe the mesmerising, startling, and almost brutal genius of the montage near the start of this kids’ animated film. With no dialogue, and in a series of short, simple scenes, it documents a couple’s marriage from their wedding day to the death of the wife. In the middle, the camera sweeps achingly across from a scene where the couple are decorating a nursery, to a dimly lit, almost silhouetted shot of them framed by the door of a hospital room as they are being spoken to by a doctor. The husband has his hands on his wife’s shoulders, trying to squeeze comfort into her. Without knowing the details, you know, in a second, that they will never have their longed-for child.

I sat and watched it with my kids. Having been in hospital rooms like that more times than I thought I could bear, just being able to write that sentence is enough.

Video is Nick Drake - Northern Sky

Dates

Today is a special date.

A lot of women have them. More than you think, in fact. We don’t normally mention them. But you know me. Never knowingly undershared.

Fourteen years ago, March 21 was a good date. A momentous date. It was a day something amazing was going to happen. I was pregnant for the first time, and this was my due date.

I lost the baby at 9 weeks.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to go all mushy and sentimental. I’m not one for all that stuff about little angels in heaven, although if it helps other people, good luck to them.

Because my baby wasn’t really a baby. It was a collection of cells. A bundle of tissue. But our love and excitement was wrapped up in that DNA and losing it was a real shock. It was a physical blow. After the D & C, I felt hollow and sad and angry.

Pregnancy was never the same after that. It was always underscored with fear. 

I was terrified during the  initial stages of my pregnancy with my daughter.  Once the scan went OK, I managed to calm down and settle into a bovine state of gestation. Once she was born, and she was diagnosed with Prader-Willi Syndrome, the fear came back. Something had been wrong after all, you see. I was stupid to think it wouldn’t. This is what me and pregnancy was like. We didn’t mix well.

Events continued to prove me right. I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and lost a tube, and another miscarriage that involved going back again and again for ultrasound after ultrasound until they told me there was no heartbeat after all.

To this day I can’t bear those scenes on the telly and in films when they rub the jelly on the woman’s pregnant belly, and stare at the image, smiling and getting teary-eyed at the sight of their tiny baby.

Everything about it takes me back to the times I’ve spent in the Early Pregnancy Unit looking at the blackness and wishing I could see that tiny rhythmic blip of a heartbeat, my husband holding my hand and not knowing what to say or do to make it better.

So today, I’ll just spend a minute or two remembering and wondering what that little bundle of cells might have turned into. And I’ll do it again on November 21 and on December 26.

And maybe I will get mushy and sentimental after all and give my two children a few extra hugs and silently thank them for being tough enough to stick around.

Video is Echo & The Bunnymen - Nothing Ever Lasts Forever

Time

Today’s blog is something wot I have learned.

It’s about having kids. It’s not mind-blowing stuff, but it is the truth as I see it. If at any point this sounds like some kind of self-help mantra, give me a virtual slap, will you?

Anyway, it’s about when you decide to start a family. If you decide this is what you want, that is. And if it’s not just thrust upon you unexpectedly, thanks to too many Tequila slammers and your subsequent inability to open a condom packet.

You may well have very good reasons for putting off starting sproglet manufacturing. There are still lots of holidays to be taken, wild parties to have, and careers to forge, after all.

But you do need to consider something quite carefully. It isn’t always simple. In fact, a lot of the time it goes wrong. 

Miscarriages, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention. And that’s the problem: people don’t really talk about them. They’re the Voldemort of up-the-duffness. No one must utter the word, or mention it to someone thinking or planning to have a child. 

They happen. They’re one of life’s most miserable experiences, and tear away a part of yourself you can never properly repair.

You can’t forget. But you can move on. Just give yourself a chance by at least thinking a little more realistically about the time you might need. It took me 10 years of plucking up courage, false starts, disasters, emergencies, operations, and assorted brouhaha to brew up and tip out my second child. I’m mightily glad time was on my side.


Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as you wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think


Video is: The Specials - Enjoy Yourself