Whilst on duty as a midwife, my colleagues and I would often chat about our imagined pregnancies and births. On the postnatal ward, during those rare quiet shifts whilst all the mums and babies were sleeping, we would discuss whether or not we would want an epidural, a pool birth or a home birth. Never in my future did I envision anything other than a textbook conception, gestation and birth.

The summer of 2018 is one I’ll never forget.  Britain was in the midst of the longest heatwave since the 1970’s, and I was pregnant with my first child.  It was a summer spent excitedly preparing for my son’s arrival with only a tinge of FOMO that I couldn’t join my friends drinking Pimms and revelling in this endless summer.  I sat in my garden cradling my huge nine-month bump staring at the now parched grass, imagining myself splashing in a paddling pool next summer with my one-year old son.  I couldn’t wait to be his mummy and finally have him here.  Little did I know that this would be the last normal day of my life.

Truth be told, I have wondered for the past two months whether to even write about this one.  I don’t want to wallow in poor-old-me status or have people give me their sympathy.  When I post anything about our fertility journey since died Teddy, or in fact anything about losing him, it’s never for anything other than trying to connect myself to others who might have been through a similar experience.  Whether it be to offer them some comfort, or find some for myself; I am not sure?  I think it is most likely a case of simply not wanting to feel like the “only one”. Which I will admit, I often do when I see other people having babies and making it look as easy as shelling-peas (as my Mum would say).

Operation kitchen continues….

If you missed “Part One” you can read it here.

Week 13–  After leaving the house for two weeks, we returned home from Cornwall and I was excited to see the progress. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t what I had expected.  I think I had thought that we would come back to a complete room with doors, a floor and plastered walls.  Alas, that was not the case!  Half the room had the underfloor heating pipes, the walls had all been knocked out and the fireplace taken away and plaster-boarded to form the new alcove for the cooker.  That was it. Mess and dust everywhere; nowhere near to the nearly-finished room that had been pictured in my mind.