Happy Birthday and Wedding Anniversary Husband!

Today's post will be a little different. Today marks my husband's 29th birthday and our 2nd wedding anniversary. It also marks the date (give or take a week or so) that Bean would have been turning one. And if all had gone well with Passenger I would have been packing up my work things ready to nest down to await her arrival next month. 

How different things are in reality. 

I think a lot about what ifs and what I'd be doing right now, what would Bean have looked like. Was he actually a boy? We never found out. The same questions arise with Passenger, I should be so fat and waddling around right now.

Instead things are different but one thing remains the same. Rob and I are stronger than ever before. We have been through such grief but we still laugh at the stupid things. Yesterday I surprised him with a go karting day with some of his friends from home and work. Unfortunately I was unable to participate but it was great watching them all whizz round the track and once they were all done the smiles on everyone's faces as they took their helmets off was fantastic to see. Rob is VERY competitive with his two best mates and came second to one of them (ouch!) but it was still a great day and Rob did get the fastest lap (he'd be very upset if I didn't mention that in the post!). 

Afterwards everyone piled into their cars and came to ours for drinks and pizza and it was a brilliant night. No one realised I wasn't drinking (I don't think) so no awkward questions. By the end of the night the mates from his old school were watching stupid videos on YouTube that they had made of each other around 12 years ago, I haven't laughed so much in so long.

This morning I woke up with a huge headache and it's been plaguing me all day, how come I have this to deal with this with zero alcohol and he was staggering around and he gets up fresh as a daisy this morning?! Not fair. 

We've had the whole of this week off work and been doing stuff on the house again, we have completely finished the garden and made some real positive steps to really transforming our place. We've signed up for new windows and had a quote to replace our plumbing and boiler. It's taken me a long time to feel at home in this new town after everything that's happened since we moved here but now I really feel it's starting to become our own.

So even though our reality is different to what I thought it would or should be I wouldn't change who was beside me through the whole rollercoaster for anything. We have another chance to bring a baby into this world and are waiting patiently for our scan appointment to come around. I will be 10 weeks tomorrow and I just hope so hard that we can bring this little one home. I can't wait to get a bump, I didn't get that far with our angels. 

And Rob, just like your moonpig card said - I love you even more than Catfish and House of Cards. And I mean that. You know how much I love those shows 😉

You are my rock, and wherever you are, I'm right there with you.

Haven't We Been Punished Enough?

Hey Angel-mamas and Papas, I hope you've all had a good week. Mine has been fairly uneventful, the working week has felt like an age but for this next week I'm off on annual leave to do more work on the house and garden. I've been busy this weekend stripping yet more dated wall paper and started on the baby's potential room this morning. Unfortunately I have experienced more spotting this weekend but I'm trying to stay calm as the midwife did say to expect more bleeding to occur due to the subchorionic haemorrhage discovered a couple of weeks ago. However, I have noticed a pattern when I have spotted, apart from the very first time the other episodes have been at the weekend near the end of a pregnancy week (I am 9w tomorrow) and I have been doing wall paper stripping within the same day as well. Although it doesn't happen every week and not every time I do any decorating. It's concerning but I am trying my best not to get paranoid but I can't help my mind drifting back to the two times where we've been here before and it's always ended in heartbreak. As I've mentioned in a previous post, we are entitled to an early scan between 9-11 weeks so I could try and get an appointment for this week to make sure everything is ok. I am tempted to do this and before I was adamant I would take every chance to have a scan but to be honest I'm frightened. I don't know if I'm mentally prepared for bad news. I guess I'll see how things go.

My last post documented our first scan with Passenger, her EDD was mid-late August and we only had to wait another week to see her again and although we were hugely relieved and excited we were still very cautious that we weren't at 12 weeks. I kept the news away from my managers at work and carried on as normal, wish each day away until we could go back to the hospital.

Finally the day came, it was early February 2017 and we stepped back into the ante-natal unit. Typically we saw one of my sister-in-law's friends waiting by the reception, she had just found out she was having twins. It was irritating that we had bumped into someone when we were trying to be so cautious about our news getting out beyond our close family and friends. I had only just delivered the good news to my brother and his daughter who is 7, she was thrilled for us and very excited to have a new little cousin. 

We got into the scanning room and I couldn't wait to see Passenger bouncing around in the screen again. The sonographer looked more experienced than the girl who scanned us the week before and started searching for Passenger. Silence. I hate that silence. We waited expectantly. Then I heard some words that shattered my life all over again. "I have some bad news." She said. Tears streamed from me all over again and all I could say was "Not again, not again, not again." The sonographer panicked, and I exalt her asking what I meant by my words. Rob must have explained our past because I certainly didn't. She ran out of the room for a second opinion and the room became a blur to me I couldn't see or hear anything. I couldn't feel Rob next to me. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't believe this was happening to me again. 

Before long the lady came back in with another woman and they prodded and poked me again with the scanning instrument. I tried me best to bite back my tears and keep still but it was very difficult to. We finally saw Passenger on the screen for the last time and what had happened was explained to us. Passenger had been diagnosed with anencephaly, a neural tube disorder (NTD) where the brain and skull fail to form. She had flipped over in my womb and the sonographer showed me her beautiful head. There on the side we didn't see last week was a balloon-like appendage bloating from her head. I could see it, my gorgeous baby. She was still bouncing around and had a lovely strong heartbeat but life for her was impossible. Prognosis for babies with anencephaly is extremely poor or zero chance of survival, they are referred to as "not compatible with life". I cannot explain the shock and sadness I felt when my baby was described in that way, such a cold, clinical statement for a very much loved human being. 

I wept aloud in the scanning room and the staff at the hospital can't have liked it much because they once again bundled me into an unused room while an on-call consultant was called to give us our options. I knew the fucking options but this time it was different, Passenger was alive, she had a heartbeat and this presented a huge moral dilemma. 

We waited for ages in this room and I wanted to smash everything up. I was beyond angry. Why the fuck did this happen? Hadn't we been punished enough? What was wrong with us? Or me? There has to be a reason why. We had already decided after Bean that we would straight to surgery if anything else happened to us that was the only certain thing in my mind.

The consultant arrived and explained what we already knew. Passenger was not compatible with life and we had to terminate. He gave me the impression that the termination needed to happen as soon as possible as Passenger might make me ill. In the end this was not true but I did feel he wanted us to get the termination very quickly. I want to stress at this point that we did make the decision ourselves but his urgent persuasion did scramble my brain more than it already was. 

He explained that anencephaly happens when the neural tube failed to close within the first four weeks after conception. The risk of NTDs are increased by the lack of folic acid in the mother's diet. Therefore, I was asked if I was taking my pregnancy vitamins which I was, in fact I was taking pregnacare and extra folic acid tablets within the first four weeks of Passengers life because they were spare! Another possibility was Passenger had a chromosomal abnormality causing this devastating effect. 

I understood all of the terminology in one part of my mind and understood nothing in the other. I just remember feeling incredibly angry. I reacted so differently to when we lost Bean, at that point I felt myself plummet into darkness. But this time I felt I needed to fight, I paced around the room with my back straight and tall, the anger was so raw.

The consultation took hours and we had no signal on either of our phones to even give news to our anxious families. It was obvious something had gone wrong as they had not heard from either of us, I can't imagine their nervous concern, wondering what the hell had happened. Eventually I was booked into surgery for the second time in two days time. We were sent home. I don't remember anything more, my brain full of everything and nothing.

Thanks guys for reading this sensitive post. I have become better at accessing the memories without being pulled back into those painful emotions but I was unable to protect myself today. That day was utterly heartbreaking.

Stay strong Angel Mamas and Papas

Adele xx

Meeting Passenger

Hey everyone, I hope you've all had a good week. Mine has been up and down (but what's new there?!) I had another scare at the back end of the week, having developed some sciatica/pelvic girdle pain it became very sharp and radiated into my back. I panicked again and rang the EPU, I tried to keep my cool while leaving my message but as I mentioned Bean and Passenger my voice broke and the voicemail ended very teary. Amazingly the EPU never returned my call. Luckily the pain settled down throughout the rest of the day and I've taken the weekend very easily and had no repeat of the sharp pains but I am deeply disappointed with the EPU.

The last part of Passenger's story left off at the positive pregnancy test, we were terrified as a couple and instantly decided to not tell anyone about the pregnancy as we were worried we had jinxed Bean by telling people. Not even our parents were told and it was so difficult not to talk about symptoms or mention anything to them. I felt more morning sickness with Passenger than with Bean although I was never physically sick I had to time my breakfasts meticulously, always having to eat within an hour of waking up otherwise I'd struggle. Dry cereal is all I could stomach on a morning but I would eat more throughout the day to keep myself topped up. Another important difference was that I had felt no pain like I had done with Bean. I had felt discomfort and "shifting" in my left butt cheek that came and went but none of the pain that had me rolling on the floor with Bean. The other main difference between Bean and Passenger was that I was still able to run with Passenger, I wasn't so drained or exhausted. I found all of these differences a good thing just because the symptoms were different to the unsuccessful pregnancy from the year before. I embraced the differences and although I was anxious about what the outcome of this pregnancy would be I felt positive overall and felt the worst was in the past and Passenger would be our rainbow baby.

Christmas approached and we prepared for my parents to spend the holiday with us for the first time. It was to be the first year my mum wasn't cooking Christmas dinner since forever and I was so excited for her to put her feet up and relax for once. I had fibbed a little and said that I was still on antidepressants and it was advised not to drink alcohol while taking them so they were none the wiser even though I was convinced they knew what was up. Christmas was brilliant, such a contrast to the year before, it was such a happy time and very relaxed. New Year's Eve was a little more tricky, we had arranged to go round our friends and even as I reeled off the tablet excuse I could see that they didn't believe us, but because they are awesome friends they did not press us for anymore information. 

Twelve weeks seems such a massive amount of time when you know you can't talk about something. Something that you have wanted your whole adult life, something that was previously taken away from you for no reason. Something that you have cried yourself to sleep over and has dramatically altered you as a person. I don't know how we lasted until the first scan without saying anything. I think my running helped me through the stress and worry, it always helps me unwind and understand my feelings and thoughts. No matter how hard it is for me to get outside and run I know I will feel so much better for it afterwards. It also helped that I was still very much enjoying my job, life was definitely heading in the right direction.

Eventually, after many awkward trips to the pub and not drinking, we had our first scan at the end of January 2017. I had never been so nervous, the waiting always seems so much longer, my heart thumped in my chest as I wondered what they would find. I should have been 12 weeks but what did I know really? Passenger could have been measuring at 6 weeks like Bean, she might not even be there at all.

We finally got called into the scanning room. One part of me was terrified, the other part was quietly optimistic. The silence when the sonographer is searching for the baby is the worst, longest silence ever and I still can't cope with it even now. Then she flicks a switch and Passenger appears on the screen in front of us, she looks like a proper baby not like a little Bean at all. She bounces around the screen and I can't believe I can't feel her already considering how much she is moving. We see her giving us a little thumbs up and we watch in awe. Rob's face is a picture and I have never been so proud of us, we have been through so much and come out the other side stronger. Passenger was the product of all that hard work. And she appreciated everything we had done to bring her here, she would be our rainbow baby and we would tell her of her big brother Bean who was floating above this earth watching over her always.

The sonographer said I was measuring at 10w5d, unfortunately that was too early for the proper dating scan and screening procedures so we were booked in again for a week later. We managed to get a scan picture of Passenger that day.

Immediately after the scan we celebrated with a Pizza Hut (as you do!) and started telling close friends and family the good news. There was no surprise that our friends already knew our news from the way I had been acting the last few weeks around Christmas time. Family were a little more surprised. My parents had no clue and they were thrilled to find out when I FaceTimed them that evening, opening the call with me holding the scan picture in front of the camera. 

I will never forget seeing Passenger somersaulting on that screen, Rob said it was happiest moment of his life. The best part was that we would only have to wait another week until we saw Passenger again.

Thanks for reading Angel Mamas and Papas,

Stay strong,

Adele xx

Gut Instict

Hey Angel Mammas and Papas, I'm sorry this post is a little late I hope you will forgive me. As you know from last week we got our third positive pregnancy test and I had experienced some spotting. I had more spotting yesterday and a little pain and I was immediately panicked again. I had nightmares last night where a scan would show an empty sac and we would be going through our third loss, I even had a nightmare that I was attacked with a broken bottle near Rob's work, I awoke extremely stressed and very anxious, unable to relax or eat. We decided to stay off work today and see if we could get a scan at the EPU, luckily they called me back really quickly and agreed to give me a scan. I was told to do a pregnancy test before setting off and it was a blazing positive which showed up within seconds of peeing on the stick. Rob was excited about seeing The Pie but I couldn't shake the feeling that I had in my gut that something was wrong. Finally we got into the ultrasound room and they decided to do an abdominal scan, the silence when the sonographer is trying to find the foetus is unbearable, all I can do is hold my breath and hold onto Rob as tight as I can. Then she confirms the heartbeat is there and says it's ok to breathe now, the relief exhales out of me and I shed a few tears. We see the flicker of The Pie's heart and it is beautiful, Robs face is beaming and my mind is just full of everything, I try to take in every detail. The Pie in on my right side, he still looks like a little tadpole measuring 9.4mm - 7 Weeks gestation. However, some fluid was found below and separate to the gestational sac which is the likely cause of the spotting. The official diagnosis is a subchorionic haemorrhage - the pooling of blood between the chorion (embryonic membrane) and the endometrium. In other words, the placenta has slightly detached from the original site of implantation. Mine measures at 19x11x13mm and is the likely cause of my spotting and will likely cause more spotting in the future, the nurses said it was nothing to worry about but as always to keep an eye on any spotting or bleeding that might occur and to call them if I cam concerned. 

You probably know by now that I have to research everything, I think it has something to do with my scientific background so of course I have researched subchorionic haemorrhage (or hematoma) since the diagnosis. First is it important to note that there a few different types, dependent on where they have formed in the uterus. The first is the most common form which is the same type as what I have. The second are located behind the placenta and do not contact the gestational sac and are referred to as Retroplacental hematomas. The third are the most rare and are found in the amnion there are known as subamniotic or preplacental hematomas. The presence of one can increase the risk of miscarriage by up to 7 per cent. Some women need progesterone or dydrogesterone supplements to prevent miscarriage from happening when one is found. This has concerned me slightly as there was nothing mentioned related to any treatment that I may need. I'm hoping that the hematomas is small enough to not pose any problems, however I will bring it up at my midwife appointment tomorrow just to be sure nothing has been missed. 

Some women are also told not to exercise and in rare cases told to get bed rest. I am glad I have decided (with the help of Rob aka Dr Hubz) to stop running since finding out we were pregnant. Who knows if it would have really made a difference but it shows my gut and my body were telling me not to do strenuous exercise. I know I can trust my gut feelings to get checked out as well, luckily it wasn't the worst case scenario but I knew something wasn't quite right and now it's been flagged. It pays to be persistent as a week or so ago when I first experienced the spotting I was sent on my way with no examination. I am so relieved that there was a heartbeat and I still can't quite believe it. We can only hope The Pie will stick around for another 7 months or so. 

My plan now is to try and get my stress and anxiety levels in check. Feeling sick with worry cannot be good for me or The Pie so I'm going to start meditating again and trying some very gentle yoga. I am also due to see my counsellor in the next couple of weeks so my mental health will hopefully become better and less erratic. 

Thank you for being there for me Angel Mammas and Papas I don't know what I would do without this amazing community xx

Brighter Days on the Horizon

Wowzers what a week it has been, a massive high and a terrifying low. If you follow me on Instagram @our.pale.days you will already know that we have had our third positive pregnancy test! We really weren't expecting anything to come of it, I have had long cycles since our second loss, the last being 47 days, Wednesday would have been day 47 and I'd seen a change in my cervical fluid to thick and creamy rather than dry awaiting my period so I thought why not do a test. My husband and I were both off work on Wednesday so if it was negative (which we fully expected it to be) at least we would be with each other for the day. I used a Tesco cheapie and it came up instantly, I didn't have time to get nervous or shaky. I came back to Rob and showed him the test, I don't think he could believe it either. I felt remarkably calm considering our past, it hadn't sunk in. We went to town and got a digital test with the weeks indicator as well as all the max pregnancy vitamins and did another test, it showed up at 3+ weeks since conception equating to 5+ weeks along in the pregnancy. Using the date of the start of my last period (13th May) I'm apparently 7w1d. We decided to tell our closest friends and family, if this pregnancy goes wrong we would turn to them for support anyway so it didn't make sense for them to be kept in the dark. We spent the rest of the day in a state of blissful shock.

The next day we were back at work, when I arrived I went to the loo and my heart hit the floor. Brown spotting. I rang Rob straight away in tears, he could barely understand what the hell I was saying. I was losing our third baby, the baby we'd only known about for 24 hours. Although I work in a hospital I didn't know what to do, I'd had no pain or any indication anything was wrong but I'd had spotting with Bean and that was the beginning of the end. Rob told me to be strong, whatever happens we'd get through it so I cleaned my face and went into the lab. My colleague greeted me and I immediately broke down, he was amazing, he ran into the office and told our Team Lead that he couldn't go into detail but he had to take me to A&E and off we went. In the end we went to the early pregnancy unit in the hospital and they were really nice although it was a bit awkward for them when they realised my (gay) colleague wasn't the baby's father! They tested my urine for blood of which there was none but refused to give me a scan saying it could create more of a risk to the baby and potentially wouldn't give many answers as I'm not far along enough for a heartbeat yet. I explained my past and they understood my concerns then the nurse's tongue slipped she said "you are concerned about this loss." THIS loss? It was only said in passing but I know what she said. This loss. She was implying I had lost or was going to lose this baby even though no scans had been done. I've had no spotting since that one time on that Thursday morning but the nurse's words still rattle around in my head. I wish I'd asked her about it, caught her out on it but I didn't. 

Since that scare we have come to the acceptance that this pregnancy will either be ok or not ok, and it's fate has already been sealed. So much happens in those first few weeks when it's too early to test that are so fundamental to the baby's development that there's not much the parents can actually do. Because of our past we are entitled to an earlier scan at 9-11 weeks and more scans and tests throughout the pregnancy so the earliest we can scan is in two weeks time. We can only wait and see.

Our news may be upsetting and triggering for some readers and I'm sorry if it upsets you, it's ok to be upset. Only recently I unfollowed multiple people on my feed because they were pregnant, they were simply in another stage of their life and it was too painful for me. However, this blog is Bean and Passenger's legacy and I want to keep it that way and although I will update you on this pregnancy's progress it will not be my main focus. So as normal I am going to carry on telling our stories.

In my last post I was just about to start my new job in the genetics department in the hospital. I started in early September 2016 and my life was turned around, I had no idea how much my old job was impacting on my mental wellbeing and things immediately started picking up I started feeling like I had a purpose again. I felt I was achieving something on a day to day basis, I picked up running again and that did no end of good to my mood. Yes I was on antidepressants  by this point but I don't believe they were the soul reason for my change in thought processes. After so many months of feeling just so low and dark and gone I felt myself coming back, or the person I could be after our loss was emerging. What was more was that Rob could see a change in me as well, because let's face it, he hadn't had a wife for most of our marriage. Things were heading in the right direction, apart from my bloody cycles! They were still so freaking long! I had blood test after blood test after blood test, eventually it showed I WAS ovulating just a lot later than normal. I had so many bloods the nurse recognised me as soon as I came through the door. After the tests were done the Doctor just said nothing was actually wrong with me and the stress of the loss was the reason for my crazy cycles. I always thought stress was a cop-out term for doctors to use when they couldn't figure out the real cause and it took me a long long time to accept that stress really can have a devastating effect on the human body especially hormones. 

I settled into my new job perfectly, the people around me were fantastic and I connected with them straight away. Me and Rob were really starting to go back to the team we were before rather than him carrying me constantly. Then the time came, we were ready to try again, like really try. Although we'd never really gone back to protection during the 9-10months of our grief I was either too scared or too depressed to be intimate very often. But now I felt like I'd really turned a corner, so it was on let's get that babydancin'! I'm pretty sure Rob was happy about the decision too 😉.

Christmas was fast approaching and I went to my work's Do, unfortunately I'd turned up late and had to sit with the clinical scientists and directors, pretty scary stuff for a newbie! However, there was a little bit of gossip doing the rounds so when I got a chance I snuck over to the table with my friends on and tantalised them with the gossip. Before I could even tell them a colleague (the one who helped me on Thursday in fact) jumped in and said "you're pregnant!?". I was clearly drinking that night and I laughed it off saying no I wasn't while in my mind I was saying I wish I wish! The rest of the night was cool (turns out everyone knew my amazing gossip anyway!) and things went on as normal. I had been tracking my cycles since forever, once you know what to look for you can't help but see the signs and I'd definitely had fertile cervical fluid at at day 15, this was a big deal, ovulating at that time of the month would lead to a 30 day cycle - back to normal! Even though we were trying regularly I wasn't overly bothered about becoming pregnant straight away, we'd just decided to actively start trying again but I was more concerned about my cycles getting back to normal and seeing fertile cf at this point was really exciting! 

The Christmas break came around and as the final Friday afternoon wore on at work I felt some awful indigestion pains and terrible bloating, I was doubled over and struggled to walk. I gritted my teeth through the afternoon not getting a lot done, I mentioned the pain to my friend at work and also mentioned that I would be due on in the next couple of days, she said to consider the other possibility, my hope flared but I kept myself in check, maybe I could take a test tomorrow then at least I would know? I shuffled my way to Rob's work in increasing pain and discomfort, normally I go up to his office and say hi to his work mates but I just couldn't that day. I sat in the car and cried so hard, I didn't know where it was coming from! Yes I was in pain and it was pretty bad pain but that much crying?! What was I doing?! Rob came down to a very red eyed and snotty nosed wife and I blubbed all the way home. 

The next morning I decided to test, especially after my episode in the car the night before. My hand shook as I held the absorbent tip in the cup of pee and counted. I became cold and shaky as I held the stick waiting for the result. Rob held me as the time ticked by and the result became clear - positive, pregnant. I was pregnant again, what a wonderful and terrifying early Christmas present.

Thanks for reading and being on this journey with me. I wanted to end this post with a quote that got me and Rob through this week, it's from a book I'm reading at the moment called Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. 

"They claimed that each person was born with a certain amount of ill luck. And so, when an unfortunate event happened, they thought themselves blessed - thereafter, their lives could only get better."

Stay strong angel mammas and papas xxx