Baby Loss Awareness Week (9th-15thOctober 2018)
“Do you think you’ll have more children?” words I dread.
You see, of course we would like more children, we always envisaged a large family with children very close in age but our lives are to follow a different path to the one we had dreamed about.
Our story started on Christmas Eve 2016, when we found out we were expecting our second child, we announced it to our families that morning and spent Christmas in a perfect bubble of happiness and baby bliss knowing that we would be welcoming a new baby into our family 9 months later. We booked an 8 week scan, as we had done with Max, and went along excited that we were about to introduce Max to his little brother or sister. It wasn’t until the sonographer asked me to go and empty my bladder, as she’d have to perform an internal scan that it dawned on me that something could be wrong.
I was having a missed miscarriage, my body believed it was pregnant but there was no heartbeat, the baby had gone. I was immediately transferred to the early pregnancy unit at the local hospital and a week later went under anaesthetic to have surgical management of a miscarriage. I was devastated and I woke up from my surgery feeling empty, feeling like my perfect world was crashing down around me.
Since January 2017 we have gone on to have a total of 4 miscarriages (3 x missed and 1 x natural), one after the other. I never really gave my heart or body time to heal before I wanted to start trying again, desperate to make sure there would be a small age gap between Max and his younger sibling.
Miscarriage and baby loss is a lonely time, I don’t think you ever understand until you go through it and only then do you realise how isolating it is. Of course I’ve had amazing support from friends and family but life for them goes on, but not for you. You feel the loses every single day, you question the ‘what ifs’ and you still dream about the way your life ‘should’ve been’.
You still think about your due dates and about how old the babies would be now, you still imagine your life before and question why you’ve been dealt with such a shit hand. People want to be considerate of your feelings and feel if they talk about their pregnancy or baby too much around you that it will hurt your feelings, but we want to be involved, we don’t want to be isolated even more because of what we’ve gone through.
We have been lucky enough on our journey to have been referred to Professor Lesley Regan’s clinic at St Mary’s Hospital through baby charity Tommy’s, but sitting in the waiting room at my appointments, I realise how many different women old and young, from all walks of life, are going through the same thing as me day after day. Yet we don’t talk to each other, we hold our heads low as if we’re going through a shameful thing, as if it’s our fault our bodies are failing us.
I have got through the last two years by crying (a lot), some days I feel like I can barely function but some days I know that I’m going to be okay and what will be, will be. I’m sorry to anyone close to me that I have pushed away, it’s what I do and it’s how I’ve always coped. I have found that talking helps and if anyone going through something similar would like someone to talk to, then please message me.
Mama + Max is pleased to announce that we will donating 10% of the profit we make on each sale to Tommy’s. This will help to fund their work to find out why miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature birth happen, and help to find vital tests and treatments to prevent them.
I hope this isn’t our story and that we will be blessed with more children, but for now, I have my gorgeous son Max to watch in awe at as he grows up into a caring, loving, affectionate little man and a new baby in the website to look after.
For information about Tommy's, please visits www.tommys.org