The voice in my head.

I have never been an anxious person on the whole. I have the same small anxieties and worries as others but I would say I’m not a overly anxious person. That was until we lost our children.

As a sign language interpreter for the Deaf, I was given a sign name (a sign to use instead of spelling my name). The young people I worked with gave me the sign “whatever”. They thought of me as laid back and easy going.

When Neil and I started trying to conceive I had no preconceived ideas about falling pregnant or the length of time it might take. I knew we were older and I knew the average time to conceive was 2 years.

We didn’t constantly check when we were ovulating by testing nor did we check my temperature for the peak. We didn’t chart anything. We were aware of our window and we enjoyed ourselves both during, before and after. Our sexual life was about enjoying each other rather than doing the deed to make a baby.

We fell in our first month of trying. We took everything in our stride. Even when the consultant told us our pregnancy was high risk (meaning it could result in loss) I still believed everything would be fine. I thought that if I remained positive it would be a good thing as I was the one carrying our girls. My positivity would surely be a good thing for all of us.

We did lose our girls. Their heartbeats stopped at about 16 weeks and I delivered them at almost 19 weeks. They had moved so much in the sac they were sharing that they had tangled their cords and cut off their blood supply.

When we embarked on our IVF journey the medical professionals said to us that we were a very relaxed couple. Even after the loss of our girls and a bio chemistry miscarriage we still went into IVF with a positive mindset and calm nature.

I sometimes questioned whether I was deserving of live biological children as I would see on the forums the posts other couples would put up. I could see their desperation to become biological parents. I too wanted this more than anything however I wasn’t putting out crystals in the fertility moon and cleansing them with water. I was not eating pineapple cores or overloading myself with avocados (if this is your coping strategy then I am not judging).

We were told the grades of our embryos (I can’t even remember what they were) but unlike others we ignored this grading. We have seen people get very concerned about the grade and how good the embryo actually is. We asked the consultant if it was important and he said it will either stick or it won’t. They had said to us that our relaxed demeanour would put us in good stead, they believed we would fall pregnant with IVF.

As you know we were blessed with twins again (2 embryos implanted) however we miscarried one early as the other went into my Fallopian tube. This was now our 3rd pregnancy loss (5 babies) in under 2 years.

All our losses have been something that happened, a cruel act of nature. We did not lose our pregnancies because there was something medically wrong with them. We are in fact very fertile falling pregnant 4 times in 2 years.

People often say to us that we have been unlucky. I guess luck is how you perceive it. For me, I feel very lucky in comparison to others. We have fallen pregnant more than most couples in a small amount of time which tells us how fertile we are as a couple. We are not unlucky for having our girls.

We were blessed to have conceived identical twins. We were blessed and lucky to get to second trimester – no pregnancy is guaranteed. We were blessed to deliver our girls (some couples do not get this chance). We have been lucky to have 4 pregnancies. If we don’t get our rainbow baby then we have been blessed to be parents. We have become better, stronger people from our experiences.

The losses however is where I believe my anxiety increased. We wouldn’t be human if it didn’t have an affect on us. I now drive myself insane with the voice in my head. Even though I know that what I’m worried about is irrational I can’t help it. For example, I didn’t want Neil to swim in the sea in Egypt due to sharks. I was honestly worried he would get eaten by a shark. I know the chances are low but then I know throughout our fertility journey we have met every low statistic and chance (both in a positive and negative way).

My anxiety seems to be around the fear of losing people I love. I dream about my closet friend dying. I fear that I will lose Neil either by choice or death. I need more reassurance that he loves me now than ever before.

My heart sometimes jumps out of my chest with fear when I think or foresee something happening. I seem to react quicker to a situation believing the worse might happen. I have screamed at my fur baby when I thought she was headed towards the road when in fact she wasn’t.

The carefree woman I used to know has been replaced with a woman that fights to be that way again. A woman that hears the inner voice and has to challenge the fear it brings with rationality.

Although I still believe we will have the opportunity to be biological parents together, I now know the harsh reality and facts. I can no longer breeze through a pregnancy with the naivety of our first. We know to well that there are no guarantees when that positive line shows. We know that 12 weeks is not a safe date to announce the pregnancy – there is no safe date or time.

I guess when you have the faced the unnatural order of losing a child before your own demise it’s natural to fear more. When you have found the strength to attend your children’s funeral it’s only right that you may become more guarded and anxious. I guess it’s the harsh realities that we have faced that now mould how we face our future. We can only hope that together we can talk it through and help to fade each other’s anxieties.