The best laid plans...

A girl I work with has had a baby and today the obligatory pictures have been circulated by email, the baby all chubby and serene and mummy looking fresh faced and blissfully content.

Some women make it look perfectly easy don't they? I was determined to be one of those, to stride through pregnancy and not let it slow me down, then I would give birth heroically without the assistance of drugs and breastfeed my tiny infant within moments of them arriving in the world. I would be the epitome of the earth mother. It's the most natural thing on earth isn't it? And for me with my pagan leanings, well, obviously it would come naturally.

Er, wrong!

And so today I've found myself remembering my own pregnancy and birth experience, I never realised you could genuinely feel jealousy over someone else's birth experience, after all it's the final outcome that really counts isn't it? Of course it is, but whenever I read of beautiful home births, or natural deliveries, those magical first few moments finally meeting your child, well it just makes me sad.

I sometimes wish I could have a little counselling to help me come to terms with mine, but then I feel like such a wuss for thinking that way. Women have been doing this forever, you just have to get on with it don't you? Come on, pull yourself together hun! And I have a healthy baby so I know I just need to shut up and move on, there are people out there far worse off than me. I feel like I'm being totally ungrateful. I know I am.

But I feel the need to get it off my chest, just this once, let me get it all out as succinctly as I can and then it really is time to stop whinging and being the victim because there is far too much to celebrate now.

So here goes, my bitter tirade...

Whereas my work colleague spent the last few weeks of her pregnancy sat at the poolside in the South of France, then received attentions of private french health care during the birth, I spent the last few weeks of mine by my nannan's deathbed listening to her crying because she wouldn't get to meet my baby. That was in her moments of lucidity, when the morphine took hold she thought she was in labour and that she was losing the baby. Harrowing, that's the only way to describe it. And in the background to this both my job and my home were in serious jeopardy due to the financial crisis, and the strain this was putting on my marriage, well you can imagine... Not quite the vision of pregnancy I'd had prior to the event where I would be surrounded by an aura of calm from daily meditation, yoga and swimming!

I always believed that meeting my baby for the first time would be the most magical time of my life, and actually perhaps it was. But like the pregnancy, nothing went according to plan. Firstly by that time I'd already spent around 10 hours believing I was about to lose my son, listening to his heart rate dropping while the medics pushed for a natural birth, checking his oxygen levels on regular occasions until eventually the situation became dire enough that I was whipped into theatre for an emergency cesarean. All that time in my head I was preparing myself to say goodbye and not hello. His first cry really was amazing. That was magic. I certainly did have that moment. But I think after that I went into shock, I felt ill due to blood loss (a litre and a half), I felt scared of falling in love with him in case they found something wrong with him and I'd lose him still. I automatically went through all the right motions, skin on skin, patiently trying to master the art of breastfeeding in front of a revolving door of well meaning family and friends. Inside I was sort of blank. Scared of my baby, scared of how much he needed me, scared something bad was going to happen to him... overwhelming fear.

I remember the doctor who delivered him told me to accept a blood transfusion if I was offered one, because I was a mother now and had a baby to look after, meaning no one was going to look after me. How very true! Hospitals are so short staffed that once visiting hours are over you pretty much are on your own. That blood transfusion was offered as I was leaving three days later - after last minute blood tests showed my levels had dropped even further. I said no and walked out. I needed my husband's help with the baby, if I stayed another night that would be another night with no sleep, with no one to share the responsibility with, I knew I would recover better at home with the chance of just a little sleep. In hindsight that was a mistake, I felt like a marionette that had had its strings cut I was so lifeless those first few weeks.

Back to those photos, my colleague looked so amazingly well in those pictures I found myself pondering whether in France they deliver your baby, then do your hair and nails too. Me, I was left sitting in a pool of my own blood for at least 12 hours.

Some of the staff were amazing, some less so. I'd gone into hospital with every intention of breastfeeding my baby, bottle feeding was just not an option. I was practically militant on the breastfeeding issue. So how did I end up leaving hospital with a bag full of formula bottles? Well, combine anaemia with a hungry ten pound baby who is so distressed he can't latch on, add in the pressure of being told he must be fed every two hours because his size could be due to gestational diabetes and that could be dangerous, and later that he must be fed regularly because he had jaundice - but he still won't latch on properly, still milk hasn't come in... ultimately I didn't feel like I had a choice. And I'm no quitter either, I tried and tried until I bled, I spoke to the breastfeeding support workers who did the rounds and buzzed so often for help from the midwives they got sick of me. I knew the "nipple to nose" advice inside out, but that unfortunately was the only advice they seemed capable of giving. Beyond it being nice having someone to talk to, for our particular problem they didn't seem able to help.

But me and my hungry little fella fought back. Yes he left hospital a bottle fed baby, but once back at home we practiced and practiced until we got it right. The formula decreased, the breastfeeding increased... and increased, and increased... He would feed for hours and hours on end, with my husband back at work I barely ate, barely drank, obviously I barely slept (all of these things I now know exacerbated the problem) I didn't leave the house, I certainly never went to the baby massage classes I presumed I would go to. The breastfeeding support workers came along with their "nose to nipple" advice (yeh, we've got that down now thank you!), the health visitor said it was a growth spurt and would last maybe 48 hours (ignoring the fact it had already lasted weeks). No one seemed to have heard of a baby who liked to spend practically all of his waking hours feeding.

Anyway, we adjusted. By 3 months we'd done away totally with the formula and settled into a routine of one hour on, one hour off, then back on for the entire evening. I didn't deliberately set out to do the attachment parenting thing, but he was pretty much permanently attached anyway. And actually I was ok with this. I worked on my supply by ensuring I ate properly, drank loads of water, did relaxation exercises. We were winning! Then a block duct led to thrush, which due to misdiagnosis, misinformation and the wrong prescription led to mastitis and after a month of crying through each feed (which is a lot of feeding for my boy) it almost destroyed the breastfeeding, decimated my supply and put him back on the bottle. I set about trying to build it up again, but he would scream at me in hunger and frustration, claw at my chest and grunt as he had done before. And I just couldn't put him through all that again, just so I could pat myself on the back and say my child was breastfed, when even at best he needed to spend most of the day feeding just to get his fill. Barely anyone saw his face until he was four months old! And I was utterly miserable, my sanity was seriously fraying around the edges. Was breastfeeding really the best for him?

I decided to stop. But my god I was heartbroken, utterly devastated. I felt like I'd failed. My beliefs were seriously called into question too; I'd trusted fully in my body to know how to produce and deliver a baby, yet left to Mother Nature he would certainly be dead and I probably would be too. And now I'd failed to breastfeed. Maybe I wasn't supposed to become a mother?

Actually we didn't fully stop breastfeeding until he was around 7 months old. I kept on feeding him at night until he started sleeping through and then we stopped altogether. And with a combination of breast and bottle my little fella was contented at last. In fact he came on leaps and bounds. I feel sad we didn't fully breastfeed, but it was the right thing to do and no one can tell me otherwise. And I don't really know where this leaves my beliefs, but I have learned some valuable lessons in humility and not judging others along the way.

Phew, I'm shattered now. One thing is true though, it really is the end result that counts. We had a rocky start but we've come such a long way. And perhaps the fact I'm no longer so idealistic is a valuable life lesson to learn. Because writing all this, it does make me see how bitter I feel about the whole thing and I shouldn't because I have a wonderful little boy, my marriage is still intact and I even managed to hang onto my job and home. For now we're on an even keel, until the next challenge comes along!

My nannan would have adored him though. I miss her terribly.

Bringing us up to date...

I didn't realise when I wrote on here last that I was already pregnant. In fact I ignored all the signs for as long as I could, not wanting to raise hopes or fears. I didn't test for two months, didn't tell my husband for two months, did my best not to even think about it. When I started feeling sick I told myself it was probably a stomach bug, when I missed a period I told myself "hormones can do funny things." It was only when I suddenly went off tea that I realised this was serious.

 Being pregnant is supposedly a joyous occasion, but when you've already lost one it can simply be terrifying - living permanently on gusset watch looking for signs of a miscarriage, trying your best not to hope in case those hopes are dashed again, trying your best just to get on with life and see what happens. I wanted to get to the magic 12 weeks before even acknowledging it to myself. I didn't make it that far. At 9 weeks, merely days after testing, the gusset watch showed up my worst fears, just like last time, the tiniest amount of old brown blood. The blood in my veins turned to acid and the terror burned through my body. Not again! I found myself back in the same room at the hospital as the year before, going through the same procedure again, all my barriers up creating a fortress against the inevitable pain coming my way... Except this time on the monitor there was this little bean like creature and I swear he was waving at me, his little heart beating away. The symptoms had been exactly the same as before, but the cause was totally different - this time they found a bruise in my womb, but the baby was perfectly fine.

 Not that my fears ended there, I was still convinced something would go wrong, still paranoid and scared throughout the entire pregnancy. Then during labour when his heartbeat fell with every contraction I was convinced my worst fears were coming true. But one emergency c-section later and my 10 pound baby boy was born. Red and angry, and boy did he seem angry!

 I was in shock, somehow amongst all the eventualities I had mentally prepared myself for, actually having a baby didn't seem to be one of them. I was totally unprepared. He's now almost a year old and it has been one hell of a ride. This has been the steepest learning curve of my life but I'm just about getting to grips with it now and he's thriving - I'm not sure how with me as a mother, but somehow he is.

A trip to the past and a rough sketch of the future

I wish people would stop telling me that the baby I lost wasn't meant to be and that when the time is right and I'm meant to have a baby it will happen. That makes it sound as if things aren't totally random, or someone out there has a plan for me. I don't see any evidence of this. If the baby thing never happens, therefore was never meant to be, then what did I do to deserve this? Who made that decision and can I please appeal? I see plenty of people who don't seem to want babies popping them out left, right and centre, and no greater good comes of it - so why were their babies meant to be and not mine?

People react in the strangest ways when you lose a baby, I know most people don't know what to say and I understand that, but some people get it completely wrong. Worst of all was one person who practically interrogated me about it when I was sat at home waiting for the operation to "removed retained products from pregnancy" (or wording to such effect). While I was struggling to live with what was happening to me, she began firing away a barrage of questions that I was desperately avoiding asking myself - as if she had to understand and make me understand the whole truth of the situation I was in: 'Did I know whether it was a boy or girl', 'Would there be a body?' 'Would I see the baby?'... 'So your little son or your little daughter has died inside of you? And they're still inside of you?' she kept saying over and over again. No one else asked me such questions, it baffles me why she thought she had a right to know these things, why she felt the need to know every little painful detail. She seemed to think she was helping me and yet she left me utterly devastated, throwing myself onto sofas and beds in true soap opera style, sobbing my heart out at the top of my voice.

My second "favourite" was the woman on the reception at the antenatal clinic. I had to ring around a number of places to cancel various appointments after it happened. It was horrible having to repeat the words over and over again. But the midwife was lovely and understanding and the hospital were kind.

The woman on reception at the antenatal clinic simply hung up on me.

And no, we weren't cut off in error, she rather abruptly said "Oh, ok," and hung up. I didn't need her to send me a bunch of flowers, I didn't even need her to tell me she felt sorry. A simple "Thank you for letting us know, I will cancel your appointment," would have done me just nicely.

It would have been my due date in two weeks time, so these things are all coming back to me now. I haven't managed to put the baby dream out of my head as successfully as I wanted to. Each month around ovulation time I go a little crazy, then the week before I'm due on my brain torments me cruelly: 'Ooh, what's that twinge in your stomach? Maybe you're pregnant?' 'Wow, you're breasts are really sore this month, that probably means you're pregnant!" Well, I've had a multitude of symptoms that my brain has tried to suggest to me could mean I'm pregnant, and I'm not. So I've come to realise that reading anything into it is pointless.

So no, I haven't been as successful as I'd hoped to be in moving on, but I do feel more balanced. It's no longer all I can think about. I took two weeks off work around Christmas this year, then found myself stuck inside the house because it snowed really badly. With my husband at work, home alone I had a lot of time to think. And one thing I realised was that I'd been chasing this baby dream so much that I'd given up so much else of myself - I'd stopped taking care of my appearance, the weight had started to creep on, I'd stopped writing, I'd neglected my friends. All these things that I swore I'd never do if I became a mother, I was already doing before I'd even got pregnant! I know motherhood changes women in ways that, right now, I cannot even imagine. But I still don't want to lose myself. If I had a daughter what kind of message would I be giving? 'You can be anything you want to be, follow your dreams - well, at least until you become a mother, then forget it, you're finished!'

I've been chasing this dream so singlemindedly, but have I ever stopped to think what this dream actually looks like? Do I want motherhood at the expense of all else? It really drove the message home that I had to start concentrating on other areas of my life again. I want my world to be one I can bring a child into, one that will be fulfilling and wonderful for them to be a part of. I don't seem to have any control over the getting pregnant side (although of course I am doing everything it takes to get pregnant), but I do have control over shaping my world. So I'm focussing on the things I do have some control over now.

Anyway, it would have been my due date in two weeks and I'm trying to think of it now as a fresh start. I'm better equipped now to move on. I won't ever forget and I don't want to. But it's time for a new chapter.

The Starting Point

Not so long ago I got kicked off a train, this train was speeding me along towards my future – and then I got kicked off and that very future I had packed for, was planning for, dreamed about, was suddenly gone. I’ve been running alongside trains ever since, desperate to jump back on board and be on my way again, maybe a little later than planned but as soon as possible. But I keep missing the sodding train at every station, I wind up collapsed on the tracks, exhausted and desperate before picking myself up and setting off running again.

In non-psychobabble, I had a miscarriage and I’ve been trying to get pregnant again ever since. I was only two months gone, it was early days, but just long enough to fall in love and change my whole image of what my future would be. Only by then the “baby” had already died, had in fact only made it to week 5. I say “baby” because it was little more than a bundle of cells at that point, (yes I’ve tried – and failed - to lessen the heartbreak by thinking of this scientifically; my baby didn’t die, something that might have gone on to become my baby didn’t develop. I’ve barely even had a miscarriage at all really – not compared to what some poor women go through when it happens later on. In fact if nature had behaved the way it’s supposed to behave I might have never known, I might have just thought it was a late period!) But my body for some reason didn’t “flush the chain and abort” when things went wrong – that was how my doctor told me these things happen, I don’t know how much longer it would have gone on if I hadn’t harassed my doctor over the tiniest amount of brown discharge weeks later and found out.

So this wonderful “future” I dreamed up in those few short weeks is on hold and I’m living in limbo trying to get pregnant again as quickly as possible so I can get back on that train, get back to where I’m supposed to be going. It’s been four months now – just writing that confirms to me that it really is still early days, it doesn’t feel like it. I get more desperate every month, the depression hits harder each time I’m not pregnant. This month I started feeling that if it never happened for me (and it may not), then the future was so empty and bleak and lonely I couldn’t even bare thinking about it. And it was that hint of an almost suicidal thought that made me decide I’ve got to let the dream go. That’s not to say I want to stop trying, I don’t. But I want to stop chasing that train so hard, I want to stop and enjoy what I have here and now, I want to realise that it’s not now or never and it doesn’t matter even if it takes a few years! And if it doesn’t happen at all, well, having a baby isn’t the be all and end all – I’ve forced myself to envision a childless future and filled it with all manner of wonderful things to prove to myself life is still worth living (as well as telling myself off for being so pathetic, I have friends who can’t have children, am I suggesting they top themselves right now because their lives are pointless and meaningless?)

Which is why I want to start writing this; to keep my thoughts in check, to give myself a good talking to when needed, to encourage me to make the most of what I have. Just maybe it might make me see how ludicrous some of my thoughts and actions actually are and help me look at myself more objectively.

So anyway, here’s to living in the now – somewhere you’re not supposed to be, never thought you be, but you’re here now so deal with it!