Moving Forward

This last year has certainly been a rollercoaster.  Lots of lows, a few highs, and I have thought so many times that I just want to get off.  To stop fighting and give up.

I'm glad I didn't.  The last couple of weeks have brought some amazing high points.  This time last year I was mourning 2 lost babies, I found out shortly after that my future in work was extremely uncertain and soon after my husband was made redundant.  Our house purchase looked like it was going to fall through and I just completely lost it.

12 months later, we're in our beautiful home.  We're so happy to be here.  Rosie is thriving at her new school.  I not only have a job but also a promotion and J has an amazing new job which comes with massive benefits.  We're so much more settled.

The only fly in our ointment is that I've had 3 more losses in the last 8 months.  My dream of a 2nd child is shattered.  Physically and mentally I feel like I am not sure I can take much more and the hope I have had dwindled to the tiniest slither.  At the end of May I attended the Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic in the city nearest our home.  The consultant was sympathetic but ultimately said there was nothing she could do.  She advised me to go back on Metformin and lose weight (a massive 70lbs or so) and possibly to attend a private clinic which tests for uNK cells.  I was devastated.  I'd waited months for this appointment and they didn't have a magic wand. 2 months on I'm still sad that they had no answers but have resolved to try and achieve the weight loss.  The Metformin I am on (1000mg daily) is evil.  I run to the toilet several times a day.  On the plus side though, I am losing weight.  10.5lbs in 3 weeks.  I just need to keep trying.  This is my last chance.  

A Lily for my Lily

A Lily for my Lily.  It's been heavily on my mind recently that I would have been due over the last couple of weeks with the baby I lost in November.  So here is my tribute to her.  A beautiful Calla Lily.  My favourite flower for my favourite what if.

Here we go again.

Cycle 18 brought a clear positive pregnancy test on CD 37, a fainter one on CD38 and a negative on CD39 (today).  Another chemical pregnancy.  I have no words...

Dear Lily...

To my precious lost one.

I think of you so much.  In these days leading up to what would have been your birth you are never far from my mind.  Tears come to my eyes so easily as I think of what I am missing.  You have changed me so much Lily.  I feel so fragile now, scarred and broken.  I can remember so clearly the rollercoaster of emotions, joy, fear, disbelief, utter pain and anguish.  The night of the scan when I had found out you were gone I screamed my pain and anger out, wailing and sobbing in a heap on the bathroom floor.  It was like a physical pain.  Perhaps it was then that my heart truly broke.  I saw you Lily, I saw your heat beating inside me.  You were real, you were alive and for as long as I live I will never forget you.  

Love always my beautiful angel.

Mummy xxx

Tired

Another week, more pregnancy announcements.  More scan pictures.  My colleague is leaving to go on maternity leave.  

I'm so tired of feeling like this of feeling such a peculiar mixture of hopeful and hopeless.  I just want my baby already.

I've put more weight on.  It's out of control and I don't know how to pull it back.  I know that I am unlikely to get pregnant at this weight but I can't seem to help myself.  I was 204lbs when I fell pregnant with Rosie and coincidentally exactly the same weight with Lily.  I need to lose around 30lbs to get back to that.  I will do it.  I have to do it.  If I don't, I may never get my rainbow baby...

Hello AF

Not the post I was wanting to be writing at all.

At 12 DPO I woke up, took my temp as I do when charting and knew that I wasn't pregnant.  My temp had drastically dropped.  I wasn't surprised.  Part of me feels like a one trick pony.  It's not going to happen for me.

AF arrived today, 16DPO so today is CD1 of cycle 18.  May will be 21 months of trying to conceive.  I'm sad but resigned not least because it means that there's no chance of me having a 2016 baby.  Funny I was crying a year ago about losing out on having a 2015 baby, little did I know what this last year would bring.

I am hugely aware of time passing, particularly how pregnant I would have been with Lily.  Leaving work on maternity leave, excitedly planning the next few weeks ahead and praying for a smooth delivery and a healthy baby.  My heart aches when I think about it.

I think that is one of the hardest things about loss.  The what if.  What would my life have been like now if I'd had Snowdrop - s/he would have been almost 8 months old.  Happy and active. Smiling and giggling.  Possibly crawling and teething.  Or Forget-Me-Not - 6 weeks old.  First injections.  Growing fast.  More alert each day.  My precious Lily, due in 6 weeks, 5 weeks from scheduled c-section, preparations in full swing.  Kicks and movements keeping me up at night.  Or finally my little Dandelion.  13 weeks.  Little arms and legs moving around.  Anxiously waiting to see him or her and find out gender.  They'll always be with me.  They'll always be my favourite 'what if's'...

10DPO - Big Fat Maybe?

So today I am 10DPO and I am pretty sure I am pregnant. I did test earlier and got a BFN but it's still early and I think it was a rather dilute sample.  I'll try again in the next few days.

Symptoms wise I have sore breasts and particularly unusually sore nipples, light cramping in my lower abdomen, high BBT (and my evening temp is around 37.5 which is over a degree higher than my normal evening temps - this was a symptom during my early pregnancy with Lily).  I am also very tired though not sleeping great and have a rather unsettled stomach.  

I'm excited that this could be a BFP but also very scared.  I'm not sure how I would be able to handle another loss.  I am hopeful but trying not to get my hopes up too high