International Pregnancy and Baby Loss Awareness Day

www.babyloss-awareness.org

 

Today is International Pregnancy and Baby Loss Awareness Day.

In the UK 17 babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth every day (ref: SANDs). In the UK stillbirth is defined as death of a baby before birth at 24 weeks gestation or above. In England and Wales 5 out of every 1000 babies are stillborn (just over 3000 a year) (ref: NHS Direct).

Last year I asked women from on-line groups I use on Facebook and SANDS if they herod like me to publish the first name of their baby and the date they died along with Orson's name and the date he died. I was overwhelmed by the amount of women who wanted their baby's name included in the list. Unfortunately I haven't been able to do this again this year, but you can click here to see last year's list.

She's here

I am thrilled to be able to let you know that A arrived safely around two weeks ago. I was 37+1 weeks pregnant. She was born by planned c-section and weighed 6lb 11oz. She is perfectly healthy and we were home from hospital when she was two days old.

I will write more when I can.

Hoping for a rainbow

So I suppose I am back to blogging again though I will apologise I don't think I will be too frequent at posting. We will have to see how it goes.



It has been a difficult few months. I am currently 31 weeks pregnant with a girl. The exact same gestation we lost Orson. My waters are still intact and the only physical problems I have had is some bleeding early in the second trimester and SPD. I never ever thought I would get this far in a pregnancy again.

I am probably not going to post much about this pregnancy. I am finding it very hard emotionally, every day I am terrified and writing about it here does not help. Physically too with the SPD it has been hard, sleep is often elusive because of the pain.

I have had lots of hospital appointments, cervical scans between 17 and 24 weeks and growth scans from 27 weeks. I have been on low dose aspirin and high dose folic acid throughout the pregnancy. So far everything is fine. They are continuing to monitor the baby's growth and my consultant has said that she will let me deliver at 37 weeks, so just 6 more weeks to go.

Please help Lila

Please join me in supporting Lila. Her mum is a friend of mine. Please share this link where ever you can:
Lila Tjader Support & Wellness Fund

Lila's mum is one of a small group of women who I met on-line two years ago when my waters broke early with Orson. During my 10 weeks of modified bedrest I would log on to a support group several times a day and chat with these women who were all going through exactly the same as me in dufferent parts of the world. After Orson died we stayed in touch and still chat on-line most days. Some of us lost babies but some like Lila survived.

Lila is now almost two years old and has cerebral palsy caused by her premature birth (her mum's waters broke around the same gestation as mine and Lila was born at around the same gestation as Orson). Her mother is trying to raise money to allow her to have hippotherapy (therapy with horses) to help strengthen her muscles so that she may one day sit, stand, and even walk unassisted. The therapy will hopefully have massive impact on her life.

You can also follow Lila on her Facebook page: Love for Lila Facebook Page

Thanks so much.
xx

Tomorrow he should be two

It will be two years tomorrow since Orson died. Although it has been a long time since I last posted here I have not forgotten about this blog and I couldn't let Orson's anniversary pass without a post.

I cannot believe it has been two years. So much has happened and so little has happened at the same time. To think we should be celebrating Orson's second birthday tomorrow is very sad. I miss him so much. Wish he was here with us.

I am not sure of our plans for tomorrow just yet but we will be remembering Orson in some way.

A break

I am really sorry I haven't posted in a while. And unfortunately it is going to be a little longer before you get any more posts from me. Do not worry everything is fine. I just need a break from blogging for a bit longer. I will post again. Not sure when just now, it could be in a week or or could be a few months.

Thanks for your patience.

Facebook is bad

A note to my readers

Before I start please can I apologise? If you are reading this it is possible you may think that I am referring to you in this post. Really sorry. Can I just say I don't aim to offend you but need to write about how I feel. And can I also add that if you are currently going through a pregnancy after a loss or infertility issues then it's highly unlikely to be you I am referring to in this post. So please don't be offended. xx

So now on with the post...

Facebook is fabulous and bad. It is a source of great comfort, joy, friendship and amusement but also pain and sadness for me.

I want to tell you about both the good and the bad but I have decided to split the post into two. Today I am afraid is all about the bad. I will concentrate on the good in my next post which knowing me might not be for a couple weeks!

Pain and sadness

How can Facebook possibly be a source of pain and sadness you might ask? Well to be fair to Facebook it is not Facebook itself that causes these feelings but instead it is a few of it's users, some of my Facebook friends to be more exact. Not most of them, just a few - the pregnant ones mostly. Not all of the ones in that category. Some don't bother me. The ones who do are the ones who like to incorporate their pregnancy into the vast majority of their status updates. Or who install apps on Facebook that automatically update all their friends weekly with the number of weeks they are in their pregnancy along with a detailed description of their unborn child's developmental status and usually a picture.

Some of my friends are ingenious in their ability to incorporate their pregnancies into their statuses. They manage to find ways to express their joy and excitement in the most mundane of posts. Here is an example (a fictional one):

"Amy Pond is looking 10 weeks further along than she actually is after eating a massive takeaway meal. So happy to be pregnant!"

Then you get the posts where the women are in their third trimester and like to share how they wish they were no longer pregnant:

"Amy Pond is so fed up. I feel fat and bloated and my feet hurt. Can't wait for this pregnancy to end."

Or how about the announcements? Women who aren't even past their first trimester announcing their pregnancies on Facebook. Don't they know the chance of miscarriage is high in the first trimester? Most women wait until they have just had their dating scan at 12 weeks when they assume everything will be fine and announce their pregnancy in interesting ways. Often they post a scan picture. Then of course you get later scan pictures too....

For a mother who has lost a baby these status updates can be difficult to cope with. Maybe not all women in that category get upset. Perhaps I need a more specific category of women to describe here, maybe you need to be someone feeling fragile who has not only lost a baby but also miscarried a few times and then struggles to get pregnant and is not pregnant when she sees the status updates? Me for example.

So for those of you who have no idea how I feel this is how you would feel if you were me, but be warned this next bit isn't pretty it is all about jealousy, grief, bitterness and just feeling sorry for yourself. If you were me:

1. When you see pregnancy statuses or pictures on Facebook yes you are happy for your friends but also you are sad. Their pregnancy reminds you of your dead baby. You remember how you felt at their stage in pregnancy and remember you are not currently pregnant and do not have a baby.

2. Comments on statuses make you feel sad and jealous - you doubt whether you will ever get pregnant again and even if you do you wouldn't put anything about it on Facebook (in my case even before Orson the first mention of any pregnancy or baby related posts by me was me saying I was home from hospital with M). So if you were me you would be thinking that you will never get to have comments like that from your Facebook friends. And you would be feeling sorry for yourself. Things go wrong. If you get pregnant you will never assume at any point during your pregnancy that everything will be okay and that you will get a living baby at the end of your pregnancy.

3. You get surprised that your friends who are aware of your loss do not stop to consider you when they update their status or upload scan photos. They know your baby died. You wonder why they don't they stop and consider that maybe they are making you sad when they repeatedly post about their pregnancy? Don't they care?

So there you go I have said it now. Sorry for the negativity I know it is childish and borne out of all the emotions we are not supposed to show or admit we feel but I honestly have heard so many women who have lost babies complain about this that I can promise you I am not alone in having these emotions.

Next time will be better, next time is all about how I cannot live without Facebook.

What if?

In a few days it will be the anniversary of my first miscarriage. And had my third pregnancy after Orson not ended in miscarriage I would probably have delivered in the last week or so.

I don't dwell on the miscarriages much. Although I got to 11 weeks both times I never accepted I was actually pregnant.

But this week as I hear of new births from women who were pregnant the same time as me I can't help but think, what if?

Only one

As you all know a possible future outcome for us is we never have another living child and M continues to grow up as an only child. I have been wondering about this. How would I feel if this happens? How would S feel? How would my parents feel? How would S's parents feel? And most importantly how would M feel?


I'm going to concentrate on the how would M feel question right now.

Obviously I think it is best for M to have a brother or sister. If I thought it was a bad idea we would never have started trying for another child. S has an older brother. I have a younger brother. As a child we would play together, we got on well. To me life seems very lonely as an only child. I know M can have friends to play with but he can't do that every evening and every day of school holidays or weekends. Will he be okay playing on his own? Will he be okay interacting with other children? His friends already have siblings and he is not yet four years old. Will he feel different being an only child?

There is so much more to consider. And truthfully I am not sure I am ready to think about it all yet. I still hope to have another child one day, but I think I will look into this more. If only to try and reassure myself that we will be okay if it happens. So you can exect more blog posts on this in the future.

In the mean time I wanted to share this interesting article about only children with you. It made me think.

I am interested in your views on this. If you are an only child do you think having no siblings has disadvantaged you in any way?

2012

Happy new year.

If years were exams (graded A-E) then I would grade the last few years like this:

2007 - B
The year I got pregnant with M.

2008 - A
M was born in January. A very good year.

2009 - B
Another good year. Enjoying life. I was pregnant with Orson at new year's eve.

2010 - Fail
After a horrible pregnancy Orson died in July. This year definitely warrants a fail.

2011 - E
Better than 2010 but not good enough. Started out well but with two miscarriages and no pregnancy at the end of the year after six months of trying it only just gets an E grade.

2012 - to be confirmed. Hoping for a A - C grade.