“I’m so sorry, there’s no heartbeat…” six words that changed my life forever.

At 23+3 weeks pregnant on Monday 27^th May 2019, I woke up as usual at around 6.30am, but there was something unusual about this particular morning, I couldn’t feel my baby moving. At first I didn’t worry too much, I innocently assumed that after a hot cup of tea and some breakfast, I’d soon feel the familiar kicks, but as my day unfolded, this did not happen.

I’ll start by being honest; I had wanted to blog more during this pregnancy; much more.  I thought I would be able to have afforded myself the time and headspace to fill this corner of the internet with a comprehensive perspective of what it feels like to finally be pregnant four years after the death of our son; particularly given that we’ve all been locked up at home for months.  Then it dawned on me, that I have always had the luxury of being able to write about my experiences for this blog retrospectively.  Always giving myself time to fully understand those emotions and thoughts that I have waded through, before even coming close to attempting to put them into any kind of  readable format for the consumption of others.  To be in the thick of those kind of intense emotions once more has floored me.  I had hoped I could put pen to paper (or in this case, fingers to keyboard) in an attempt to connect with others who might be on a similar journey, but, as of yet, the ability to do that has escaped me.  So, excuse me if this blog is a little jarring, raw or unpalatable for those who have never experienced deep grief, or the fear and anxiety that seem to run so succinctly beside it during a pregnancy after a loss.

Three words, Group B Strep, have you heard of them?

Until the morning of the 9^th July 2004, I had never heard these words before and would little realise how they would impact my life.

After years of suffering with painful periods, I was diagnosed with PCOS and was told I would find it increasingly difficult to fall pregnant.  So it came as a huge surprise to eventually see two lines appear on a pregnancy test.   As I was already three months along and the pregnancy moved along swiftly.  After a failed sweep when I was ten days overdue, I finally went into labour on the 8^th July 2004, and gave birth at 1.31am the following morning.  To this day, sixteen years later, I can close my eyes and return to the labour room and watch everything happen like a scene from a movie.

From as young as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a mother.  I could think of nothing more amazing than spending my days looking after my baby, so when my husband and I decided it was time to expand our family, I couldn’t wait!  I had convinced myself it would take a while, so when that early present came just six days before Christmas, we were over the moon.  I was nervous going into the pregnancy, scared at any moment we could lose our baby.  Then we had our 12-week scan on Valentine’s Day, a day I will never forget.  We were told our baby was growing perfectly and I felt we were finally in the ‘safe zone’.  From that point on I couldn’t stop imagining what our life as new parents would be like, all of the things we would do and how exciting it was all going to be. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.