So, you’ve probably realised, I’m a bit shit at blogging. I think it’s because there’s something a little bit narcissistic about it in my head… why should I think that anybody cares at all about anything I’ve got to say? And so I put off writing anything.
Well for the third time in my life I’ve decided to actually start writing this again. Essentially it is a new blog but I cannot bring myself to get rid of anything I wrote previously. My older children are bigger now, they are currently 11 and 14. However, the experiences we had, and things we did are just as valid now as they were a decade ago, and maybe I will even find something in the depths of my history here that may offer some advice to my current self.
After so long away a lot has happened. After my missed miscarriage in 2018 I was lucky enough to fall pregnant again and my little monster, Teddy, was born in early 2019. The pregnancy was horrific in many ways, my liver started behaving very badly from 8 weeks and I needed an emergency scan. My liver was fine but turns out I had a big ol’ gallstone and an AML … who knew.
My liver function tests continued to get worse throughout my pregnancy and I was diagnosed with Obstetric Cholestasis by 20 weeks and called a medical anomaly (as it is normally a third trimester thing, not something from 8 weeks pregnant). My hypothyroidism was poorly controlled throughout my pregnancy and I had to see an endocrinologist every few weeks. I also had the most severe Hyperemesis Gravidarum they had ever experienced at the hospital and due to my inability to keep even water down, I lost 3 dress sizes during pregnancy and needed to be hospitalised for fluids every 7-10 days. Sadly, no medication worked for me either.
After Teddy’s birth he became quite ill, quite quickly. He was very grunty and my temperature was very low and was not helping him to regulate his temperature. I was so cold they wrapped me in foil, removed my baby from skin-to-skin contact and asked his father to remove his top to do skin-to-skin and hopefully warm him up. Nothing worked. Up on the ward the neonatologist came to check on us again and took Ted away to the resusitaire. That was the last I saw of him for another 4 hours. A nurse came in and explained Teddy had taken a turn for the worse and had to be rushed down to NICU and once he had stabilised we would be able to go down. Those hours were the longest of my life until that point. We were so lucky after 10 days we got to go home and he was fine apart from CMPA.
Teddy was a shining beacon in the dark. However, I did, for the first time in my motherhood experience, suffer from post-natal depression and this revealed itself mostly as OCD. My huge fear of anything happening to him was probably influenced by everything that had happened. It was very difficult and I did have therapy, but it was all worth it for my little bear.
When Teddy was 19 months old I discovered I was pregnant again. Once again I had a very stressful pregnancy. The pandemic was still in full swing and on 30th August I started bleeding heavily. I’ll never forget it. I had gone to the toilet in the middle of the night and when I wiped myself there was lots of blood, and it kept coming. It’s happening again I thought.
I froze. I felt somehow sick and numb at the same time. I couldn’t believe it and I wanted to pretend that what I thought was inevitable, was not happening. I could not though. I returned to the bedroom and woke my husband up. We dropped the kids off at my mothers and drove to the hospital. It felt like an age. At the the hospital I had to go to A&E. Due to the pandemic my husbad was not allowed in I was crying. Eventually they moved me to gynae. Again, despite being a wheelchair user. Alone.
I waited alone for what seemed like an age. Feeling loss and like it was all slipping away again. The registar who saw me was nice enough but the whole experience was terrible. I have a severely retoverted uterus and none of their speculums could reach my cervix. I had to lie there while they twice went to find a larger one. Finally she opened one up enough to see inside. My cervix was closed. This was a good thing. The bleeding it seemed had stopped and was brown but there was quite a bit pooled. I was sent home but warned I was experiencing a “threatened miscarriage”. I had to take it easy and come back for a scan on the Monday when they would book me in.
I cried all the way home. Even sat next to my husband I felt so alone. The radio was on. Chadwick Boseman had just died. In my distressed mental state I felt this was an omen. Though of course that is nonsense. That weekend felt like one of the longest of my life.
Again, at the scan I was alone. The pandemic made it that way. I waited. I hate pregnancy scans. Once you’ve lost a child they are not something joyous every again (until you are told there is nothing wrong), they are terrifying, they threaten bad news. I held my breath. My baby was fine. A fetal pole was detected. The blood was a heamtoma and if it did not get bigger, or closer to baby, I would, we would, be fine.
I continued to worry and hold my breath until my little angel, Poppy was born mid spring 2021. Early liver problems, another emergency scan. Severe HG again, not able to eat or drink without puking for months again and more weight loss meant that once again my pregnancy was fraught.
When I was pregnant with Poppy, small barely perceptible tics my daughter had had for many years suddenly exploded and my 9 year old daughter began suffering non stop motor and verbal tic attacks. She also started to have seizures. She was diagnosed as having tourettes in the May (as motor and verbal tics had been present for over a year). A paeditrician also noted a heart abnormality and we were placed on further waiting lists (at the time of writing we are still waiting for many of these).
Last year I noticed Teddy was not developing in a “normal” way. I knew as we had been here before what this probably meant. Things have been very tough with Teddy and we are now on the autism pathway for him.
Despite all this, the one thing I am so proud of in this life is my children. They are amazing little people and despite the challenges I wouldn’t change any of them for the world.
