I didn’t intend to make this week’s blog posts all about miscarriage but I was inspired to share my experiences as it’s Baby Loss Awareness Week. On Monday I finally posted something I wrote in February 2014 about what happens to your body after you miscarry and reading it again after all that time reminded me how terrified I was when I was pregnant with Jenson. Sure, the first trimester is scary for most women but I was, understandably, a lot more anxious the second time around, right up until I heard his first cry. In fact, I didn’t want to share these experiences in my Bump Watch posts as I (stupidly/superstitiously) thought I’d somehow jinx it. So here are the little anxieties that I never posted at the time…
1. Every time I went to the toilet I half-expected to see blood for the first few months or more. It took a long time before I finally stopped checking but the paranoia never went away, even once I reached the point where he would have survived outside the womb should he have wanted to pop out early.
2. I was extra anal about what I would eat and drink until very close to my due date when I started craving Coca Cola. No pate, soft cheese, alcohol, caffeine, steak… I tend to over-indulge in some of these now to make up for it. Not alcohol – I can barely make it through two drinks and get buzzed after a few sips!
3. One day at work I was really light-headed and worried about my blood pressure/the baby’s safety. I don’t drive and work a couple of hours away from my doctors surgery and really wanted to get it checked out. Of course, baby hormones meant I was super-emotional and it was a rough few hours until a colleague was able to drop me down the road to a doctor who would look at my blood pressure for me. Sidebar: I was sooo impressed by the service at Penryn Surgery!
4. As I’m sure most first-time mums will tell you, regardless of how many unsuccessful pregnancies they’ve had before, if any, those seconds before you see your baby at the 12-week scan last forever. Experience taught me that I wouldn’t necessarily know if something was wrong but once I saw that baby (an actual baby-shaped baby!) and his heartbeat I was so relieved. I hadn’t made it this far before!
5. Even after being somewhat reassured at the first scan, I was still anxious before the 20-week scan and at every single midwife appointment when we heard the heartbeat. Even when I went for a check-up on my due date I felt like something could still go wrong.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHljYFtPmDU]
6. The first time you feel your baby move is incredible but can also properly intensify any paranoia. Not felt him/her move for a few hours? It’s always easy to assume the worst but the instructor from my pregnancy yoga classes had some great advice – down a cold glass of water. S/he’ll soon start wriggling!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qzevdwrezw]
7. When does it stop being ‘too soon’ to start buying things for the baby? We bought a secondhand moses basket not long after we found out I was pregnant the first time round because it was a bloody bargain. The second time round we bought a couple of gender neutral items after the 12-week scan and the first gender-specific item right after the 20-week scan. I was so excited! We actually bought the travel system at around 18 weeks because I fell in love with the Cosatto Fable travel system and wanted it before Mothercare stopped stocking it. It felt a bit like tempting fate but it was time to move on and be more hopeful!
8. I was so excited with my first pregnancy that I couldn’t help confiding in a few people about the little person growing inside me. Which makes it super-hard when you have to tell people that you won’t actually be having a baby yet. So when I was lucky enough to get pregnant again I was a bit more reluctant – and it’s bloody hard to keep it a secret when you’ve got awful morning sickness! Most people picked up on the fact that I was sipping water and nibbling on rich tea biscuits at my desk before my ‘official announcement’ but were polite enough not to say anything. To my face…
9. We went to Bristol when I was 14 weeks pregnant and I bought a five-year memory book from Oliver Bonas to record the baby’s first few years. I thought about starting it before he was born and tracking my pregnancy too but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish it and it would be a waste of a diary. Now I kinda wish I wrote about the pregnancy in it too rather than starting it on the day he was born but I have my weekly blog updates to look back on.
10. Morning sickness, acid reflux, pelvic dysfunction, swollen feet, restless nights… Just like the first time round, I knew I didn’t want to put my body through pregnancy again. But I was also worried that I’d be going through it all for nothing again but would have to give it another shot because I so desperately wanted to have a child.
Fortunately it all worked out and Jenson really is the perfect child. Now that he’s here I can go a day or more without thinking about my miscarriage and it’s actually a comfort that I was pregnant again before my original due date (not that I knew it at the time). If the first baby had survived, Jenson wouldn’t be here and I can’t imagine my life without him.