Challenge accepted…

Ultimately I know that most people in the world don’t post anything on social media with malicious intent but rather to support each other or raise confidence especially at present with the pandemic. I admit it’s a very beautiful thing to do for each other.

However my heart breaks a little more when I see these posts. It’s another realisation that the world is not ready for the mum and father’s whose babies died.

Since the start of the pandemic there have been two posts circulating social media. One being a joke about the baby boom we can expect after the lockdown has finished. The other being challenge accepted regarding being a great mum. This one you tag friends in who have children and are a mum. It’s a celebration of all the wonderful mums in the world.

It’s like a knife to the heart for me! Not because I can’t appreciate and celebrate those wonderful mum’s and the newborns that might arrive but rather because it reminds me of what a taboo subject baby loss is. What’s more upsetting is that no one (not even my close friends who listen to my grief) would think to tag someone like me in. I’m not considered a mum because my children are not here.

Our second round of IVF was stopped just as we started injecting. We may not fall pregnant naturally (we have some fertility issues now following our first round of IVF). The decision to stop trying to conceive was not ours. Of course with a pandemic and unknown affects of pregnancy and babies we would not want to risk falling pregnant now (we already know loss of our babies). However the rest of the world continue and have a choice to conceive.

Yet the sad reality is I was a mother, and still am, long before most of my friends. I was a step mother and a foster Carer. I started my mothering at the difficult age of teenager. Yes straight in at the hormonal stage where the young person is finding out who they are! Then I delivered two beautiful identical twin girls (Kora and Ava). I also lost three other babies (another set of twins and a very early miscarriage).

So why do I get dismissed as a mother. I think the world has always struggled with the death of a child before the parent. I also feel that people don’t recognise you as a parent from the moment that stick says positive. We keep it quiet that we are pregnant till week 12 when the truth is if we are going to be that 1 in 4 then it will happen.

Maybe if we didn’t hide the fact we were pregnant the reality of loss would be a more common topic talked about. Maybe we wouldn’t be scared to approach the subject or to say we are sorry for your loss.

Neil and I waited till 12 weeks to announce our pregnancy with Kora and Ava yet we still had the earth shattering and heart breaking news to share at 19 weeks that we had delivered our children and were due to cremate them in the next few weeks.

I wish that one day early miscarriage and pregnancy loss is something we can talk about openly. I love to see your photos of your beautiful children and I celebrate with you what a wonderful mother or father you have become. I ask that you please allow me to talk and celebrate my children too. I ask that you see me as a mother.

So I am sending love and a challenge to all my friends that are the 1 in 4 that suffer a miscarriage or pregnancy loss. To the couples facing infertility. I challenge you to celebrate the person/mother/father you are. You are truly some of the strongest people I know. You are warriors and I respect you all.

Reflection in the mirror

When I got pregnant naturally the first time I was a healthy weight. I have always been the kind of woman who is harsh on herself. I think most of us are. You never see what others see in you and we are our own worst critic.

I have since fallen pregnant naturally again a year after Kora and Ava only to have a biochemistry miscarriage and then 4 months later fall pregnant with my first fresh embryo and frozen embryo transplant which resulted in a heterotopic pregnancy of twins. One of the things I have struggled with most has been the impact and changes to my body.

I know this sounds very vain (which I guess it is) but I’m sure lots of you resonate with me in regards to wanting to be happy in yourself and your appearance.

I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life. I have gained this weight due to lots of factors. One factor that people don’t realise is the fact I didn’t get to breastfeed or pump my milk. This helps your body to lose the baby weight. Another reason is my shape changed which I guess it would when expecting twins. My hips are broader and I have boobs (there are some advantages)! When I sit down I feel like those packets of ham with all the rolls!

Scales should say this!

Of course an obvious reason for weight gain was eating the wrong foods. When we were grieving intensely I found I would like a takeaways I didn’t have the desire, energy or fighting spirit to make a healthy dinner. We would pop to the pub or have a glass of wine at home in the evenings. I had to remind myself that I am in fact human and grieve doesn’t have a manual. Grieving children, I’ve found has been tough as it’s so isolating and people don’t really want to talk to me about our children. Therefore it’s easy to fall into staying indoors, withdrawing and indulging in the wrong foods and drink.

IVF medication probably had an impact on my efforts to lose the weight. The amount of medication I was injecting and the side effects really impacted me at times. It definitely impacted my relationship for a while. You can’t help it but you almost become a different person.

Also when injecting there are times when you are not allowed to have intercourse. In a way you lose a natural animalistic part of your relationship. Neil and I went through a particularly rough patch at this point and the impact on me was to hate the reflection in the mirror even more.

I would sit and cry whilst trying to apply make up wondering what was the point and who was I applying it for anyway. My figure is unrecognisable to me. I no longer see the person I use to see looking back at me.

My mind plays havoc with my self worth and confidence as I wonder how my husband can like or even lust over what he sees when I can’t stand the image before me.

I don’t know where to share these insecurities! At mother and baby groups you can hear the new mums talking about the changes to their bodies following childbirth. What group can I attend? I’ve never seen a group for mum’s who delivered their dead babies! Although Neil and I had been attending a support group (which is now unable to meet face to face due to Covid-19) I’ve never raised this issue as it feels so irrelevant compared to the loss.

I personally struggled as I felt a failure. I use to say to Neil that I would be more accepting to the changes to my body if I didn’t have empty arms. You always see advertising or positive posts on social media about embracing your body in relation to the mummy tummy, those stretch marks or the little bit of wee that may happen now when you cough or sneeze. Maybe it feels less significant when you are the proud mum of a living baby or more comforting and easier to accept. I’m only surmising as I don’t know what it’s like to bring home your living baby.

I also changed as a person to some extent. I’m fundamentally the same person but with additional layers of experience and emotions. I hope I’ve changed for the better. I hope I’m more understanding to others who have had experienced difficult or life changing situations. I hope I help others with my openness. However I fear that I have become a more sensitive and emotional person in private and ultimately towards Neil.

I sit in the nursery (very rarely) and I can get consumed with grieve and fear. Kora and Ava’s cot is bear, the Moses baskets are still in the cellophane and the travel cots are still in the boxes. Now with Covid-19 and not knowing when IVF will be allowed to start again I worry that the nursery will never be filled with babies. I know that I can’t feel or fear all this without it having an affect on me even if it’s just a quick wave of emotions.

Ultimately I feel as if a part of me is missing. A part that you can’t see in the mirror. A part of my heart broken and missing. I see a woman with a longing in her eyes. I see her strength but also her weaknesses. I see a woman who is patient and resilient. I see a woman who is so different to the one that stood there just 2 years ago.

I remind myself that I don’t judge people in their weight or the way they look so why do I judge myself so harshly! I’m sure others view me more sympathetically then I see myself.

I am blessed though to see my husband stood right beside me. I remind myself I am a 40 year old woman whose body and mind have gone through so much the last two years and it’s important to remember that. I have the love of my husband and they say love is blind so let’s hope it is or he shuts his eyes when in the throws of passion!

How many weeks were you?

A question that makes me falter.

Let’s face it pregnancy loss or the death of a child is one of the hardest topics we have to face. It’s a taboo subject. Maybe because it’s not the norm for a child to die before their parents or maybe it’s the fear of this happening that prevents us from talking. So what do you say to someone who has recently been through a pregnancy loss?

I’d like to point out that I believe the majority of people are not malicious or unkind. I like to think that the comments people say are because they don’t know what else to say or they say it without taking the time to stop and think about it. I’m sure we have all been guilty of this (I know I have).

Sometimes we say standard remarks or questions to make small talk and they are considered the norm to ask. Often when I’m working particularly or when I meet new people I am asked “Do you have any children”? I am that age when I could very easily have children. It’s a question I hesitate with, I want to say yes I have children but how do you explain that they were all lost in pregnancy?

I am not scared to say that I have lots of children who unfortunately passed away. I am not ashamed to talk about my babies but I appreciate this conversation is very difficult for others. The reaction and almost fear I see in their faces let’s me know if they are ready for this conversation. It’s a strange and very upsetting situation to find yourself in. As a society it is publicly accepted to joyfully talk about your children and their milestones or the challenges of being a parent yet when that challenge or milestone is the loss of your baby or an anniversary you managed to get through it becomes taboo.

I would like to see a time when we are brave enough to listen or talk. Why shouldn’t Neil or I talk about our babies with the same enthusiasm and love that others talk about theirs? Why should people cringe or shy away when we say our babies names? When we talk about grief we fall into the norm of stating it is good to talk and remember the person that has passed. It helps the people left behind to have those fond memories or share those moments. Yet talking about our babies that passed before their time appears to be difficult for society.

If you are with someone who has had a pregnancy loss and they have the courage to talk about it then I ask you to listen. If they want to talk then it maybe helping them. Think before you ask a standard question like “Do you have children”? Be aware that fertility issues are more common then we care to talk about. Studies suggest that after 1 year of having unprotected sex, 12% to 15% of couples are unable to conceive, and after 2 years, 10% of couples still have not had a live-born baby. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss with 85% being in the first trimester.

Neil and I were of course in the other 15% and were in our second trimester with Kora and Ava. Our other losses were a biochemistry and another twin loss at 6 weeks 5 days falling in the 85% first trimester loss.

One of the first questions people seem to ask when I mention our loss of Kora and Ava is “How many weeks pregnant were you”? I’m unsure why people ask this. I have spoken with many women that have experienced a miscarriage and I hear their loss. Strangely even some of these women sometimes say comments like they were not as many weeks pregnant as me and didn’t have to deliver their babies so it’s not as hard as what we went through.

I find myself repeating myself to both these women and the others who ask the question how many weeks. From the moment a woman and man see the positive pregnancy test they become a parent. I know Neil and I had started building our nest immediately. We made it homely and safe. We took pride in choosing and designing our nursery. We travelled near and far to collect the furniture that we could afford on our budget.

As stated before, I am a planner and preparer so it was obvious I would start early with the above but even if these perspective parents haven’t done this they have instantly imagined their new future. They have looked around their home and imagined the change and their baby in their home. They have started to think about names. They have thought how they are going to share their news with their nearest and dearest. They have tried to work out their due date. They are expecting parents and it truly isn’t significant when the loss happens. It is a loss!

When my mother died people gracefully and sympathetically gave me their condolences. Why don’t we do this for someone who has suffered a pregnancy loss? Would it not be more comforting if we simply said I’m so sorry for your loss?

I don’t see why delivering my babies is deemed socially more difficult. I in fact find this more comforting. I have been so blessed to be pregnant, I have experienced labour and delivered my children. I have photos and hand and foot ink prints of them. I felt them move inside my belly. I got a small baby bump. There are women who long to have this. Women that can’t get pregnant or miscarry early.

I must admit I felt cheated at first and suffered horrendously with the loss and still do. I felt like so much had been taken from us. We would not hold our babies in our arms but rather in our palms for a short time. We would not know what colour eyes or hair they would have. We would not know how different they would be even though they would look identical. We did not have lots of memories to hold onto whilst grieving.

Then we had a biochemistry miscarriage! I have a video as I was going to create a pregnancy video log. This was due to losing Kora and Ava and wanting to appreciate every moment of any future pregnancy but also because not having our mums I realised that I had so many unanswered questions. Therefore I was going to create a video log for any future baby/babies.

The video is of Neil and myself in bed after just getting the positive on the test. We were elated! It was almost one year on from losing Kora and Ava. Two days later I felt different. I have always been good at reading my bodies signs when I have fallen pregnant. I expected the positive test on both occasions. So two days later when my heightened sense of smell disappeared and I had no nausea I wanted to test again. This test came back as negative. I was no longer pregnant. This is called a biochemistry miscarriage which many women have but don’t know they have had. This is because we were trying so I tested early (5 days before my period due date).

I had that familiar feeling of feeling cheated. Only this time all I had to show for this pregnancy was a photo of the positive pregnancy test and a video log of Neil and I. The kick while we were down was that my period came late and confirmed the test exactly one year to the date we were told Kora and Ava had no heartbeats.

We didn’t get any build up or the chance to share it was gone as soon as it arrived. Leaving us yet again heartbroken.

Our third pregnancy loss came following our first round of IVF. We didn’t make it to our official test day as I had a heavy bleed two days before. This is usually a sign that the embryos didn’t implant. This in itself is a loss! We knew the sperm had met the egg, and that they had fertilised and become blastocyst. All they had to do was implant and we had to wait 2 weeks to find out if they had. Unlike our other pregnancies we didn’t know if sperm had met the egg etc. IVF felt more optimistic for us.

Neil and I have faced so many challenges in our fertility journey so we were quick to progress and decide to go for round 2 of IVF. However I felt pregnant already. My sense of smell, nausea and weight gain were all telling me I was pregnant.

It was at the clinic when we were completing the paperwork for round 2 that we tested. It is the quickest I have ever seen the test change (even when I had twins before and my hcg would have been high). We went from sheer excitement and elation to the absolute heartbreak in just one scan! This was of course our heterotopic pregnancy.

The result was seeing the baby in my fallopian tube with their heartbeat at 6 weeks 5 days. It is the earliest scan we have had and I must admit it looked like a kidney bean with a flutter but there it was a BABY! Obviously I was taken into hospital and my tube and the baby was removed.

The same old familiar feeling of being cheated crept in. This time I was in pain physically and emotionally. What I found so hard about this pregnancy loss (I don’t know if Neil felt the same) was that it was so quick from finding out to losing. Not only that but this baby was put in an incinerator with my tube and probably lots of other people’s body parts and waste.

Suddenly I felt grateful again for Kora and Ava. Grateful for the cremation service, for holding them, for having just those few memories and photos, for getting to second trimester and feeling them move.

I guess what I’m trying to articulate is that how many weeks is really NOT important. A loss is a loss. There is no comparison and the heartbreak of losing a pregnancy is something so awful and soul destroying. After a pregnancy loss (regardless of how many weeks you were) life changes. You try to live in everyone’s world. You become a different person and work through your grief often unsupported professionally and unaccepted by a society that can’t bring themselves to talk about your loss. If you are one of those people that have experienced this then my heart truly resonates with you. I’m truly so sorry for YOUR loss.

A letter to my embryos

To my embryos,

I’m sorry the four of you are sat in the freezer for the foreseeable future. It’s a crazy world here at the moment as a virus called Covid-19 (Coronavirus) is making people ill and lots are dying. We are at present in a National Emergency state and our Prime Minister has asked us to effectively lock down.

This means we are not allowed to visit friends or family but rather stay with the people who live in our homes. We are only allowed out once a day to exercise. We are not allowed to work unless our job is an essential role in combating and supporting this dreadful virus.

You don’t know it yet but your mummy is a Sign Language interpreter so her work has stopped at the moment. Your daddy is a handyman and therefore his work has stopped. We are both self employed and therefore have no income at the moment. Our loved ones safety is of course of paramount importance and we are indeed following the instructions. It’s hard though as the Government are not helping us, we are not being given 80% of our wage like others.

The thing is we could not see the future and we managed to save, sell our belongings and borrow money to pay for you. There were two others but sadly they are no longer with us. 6 beautiful embryos down to you just you four. Yet in this dilemma and world I fear we will not be able to let you grow and become our beautiful and longed for children.

I can’t help but worry that we will not have the money to feed ourselves let alone you, our children to be. We do not know how long this is going to carry on for and just how hard hit we will be with loss of earnings. Our safety nets of cash were used when we had time in hospital and time off with the loss of your sisters Kora and Ava and then the loss again from the other 2 embryos and an operation to remove the tube and baby.

Your daddy and I have only been married 9 months! In the two years 3 months we have been together we have been through 3 pregnancies, 1 pregnancy loss of identical twins Kora and Ava, their cremation, a biochemistry miscarriage, a pregnancy loss of twins ended by an operation and now a pandemic where we are not supported financially.

My heart is broken! I have a constant internal debate about whether I would even want you to grow in a world like this where so often we have witnessed ignorance and selfishness. People are being asked to stay at home (not a big ask if it saves lives) your daddy and I were asked to stop trying for you. This was of course the right decision for now but a choice we weren’t allowed to make for ourselves.

I worry that if we are to face something like this again and just say Kora and Ava or you were here how could we protect you? I am fine with eating scraps and struggling to survive when it is your daddy and me but how could I cope if you were here? I’m thinking of a new career! I never want to be in a position where I can’t look after you. A position where I can’t give you Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The way it stands at the moment we can give you the psychological and self fulfilment needs in abundance but we can’t meet your basic needs. As a responsible person I’m looking at what we can do to improve or change this situation.

I trained for 8 years to become a sign language interpreter studying at degree and PGDipolma level. I have given my heart and soul to the deaf community and love my job but the truth is I love you more!

So this pandemic is giving me lots of time to write and think and I’ve realised that if we get through this together, if the world shows kindness and strength then I would love you to be here. I will look at other options of employment or training. I will monitor if the Government hold your daddy’s and my job at the same level as the employed. I will look at doing another job in the evenings to pay back the money/debt that we owe for just wanting you.

I will look for the positive stories and community spirit that I believe is still there. We can’t all be greedy, self centred and selfish people. I BELIEVE in humanity and if you were here I would be teaching you this. Ultimately your daddy and I will find a way (maybe a new or different way).

But for now I rest easy with the knowledge that you are safely stored. I hold onto the kind hearted people and stories that I am seeing here and there. I am at peace with waiting for you. I have hope that when we go ahead the world will be in a better place and I will find solace in bringing you into a world that has mended.

Love your mummy. X

I survived

I made it through Mother’s Day as I often do and it reminds me of how resilient I am. This year was very different as we all know right now we are living in a very different world. This year my heart also felt heavy for all the new mums that didn’t get to celebrate in a joyous and social way. I hope they were celebrated and spoilt in a safe and loving way.

My Mother’s Day went by with copious amounts of alcohol! It was filled with music, love and laughter. The first Mother’s Day without my mum and my children was definitely the hardest. I guess I had high expectations and assumptions that my husband would spoil me. This year I lowered my expectations and chose to be peaceful about the day. My husband of course forgot Mother’s Day. I only got a card because I reminded him the day before.

I wasn’t angry or disappointed this year. I guess because of what is happening in the world it puts into perspective the things that are important. Neil and I spent our weekend in the garden, planting flowers and jet washing the patio and decking. It was peaceful and perfect. Looking out of my window into the garden I see the blossoming and blooming of the flowers. An array of colours, birds chirping away, my fur babies enjoying being outside and it gives me hope.

I counted my blessing. I listened to the songs my mum loved and remembered her finger dance. I was grateful to have so many wonderful memories. I thought about Neil’s and my pregnancy and how lucky I am to have experienced pregnancy, labour and the delivery of my identical twin girls. I am appreciative that we got to hold their tiny but perfect bodies in the palms of our hands.

I am thankful that I am a mum! I received a tag in a post from my previous foster daughter Alissa and I got a beautiful gif sent to me from Amy, Neil’s daughter. I may have lost so much but I also am blessed with what I have.

I am of course consumed with grief but I’m learning to live with it. It will always be there. It hasn’t got easier and I don’t think it ever will. Time is not a healer. However, I am learning what it is I need to do to cope and survive. I am learning what helps me, what are my triggers, how to deal with my emotions and the comments flippantly made without care and thought.

I have learnt that a virus may have delayed or stopped my chances of becoming a biological mum but I am using this time to be kind to myself. The loss of children can not be mended, my heart is broken and will forever be but my mind is strong and there is a lot of love in my home.

Selfishly heartbroken

This a stream of consciousness blog where I have not sat down and thought for hours what I want to say or indeed how I should put it. I’m going to be honest and hope that it doesn’t come across as bitter because I don’t believe I am that person but I’m aware it could be interpreted that way.

So we got the call today due the pandemic our IVF has been cancelled with no future date at present. I was expecting the call and decision but somehow being away abroad (on a holiday our friends and family paid for as it was my 40th) I maintained some optimism that the call might not come.

Of course we understand the professionals decision and it was obvious to me that it was coming as soon as pregnant women were put in the at risk category. Neil and I had also spoke ourselves whether we should risk getting pregnant if we didn’t know for sure the implications.

Although the main professionals dealing with pregnancy are advising there is no risk we were unsure about how much evidence there would be for this or indeed how long had the virus been about to enable enough research. Did we want to risk two embryos? What if we miscarried again? We would the have to find more money to pay for another round and how would we do this? What if there was a medical impact on the babies?

Also it was not just the implications of the virus itself but being able to feed with the right nutrition when the shops are empty due to bulk buying and of course the impact again on us financially!

We have already spent so many thousands and are in debt generally and in debt to some very special people that helped us out to top our money up to meet the cost. We don’t qualify for NHS funding because we fell pregnant naturally with Kora and Ava our identical twins we cremated in Sept 2018. With both of us being self employed it has caused a huge strain on our finances we have to take time off for appointments, blood tests, scans, transfers all without pay and on top of the £10,000 paid for the two rounds so far.

What is even more worrying now is with the virus and no support for us (self employed) from the Government how are we going to manage day to day anyway without an income. We spent all our savings and sold our property to pay for IVF. We didn’t have a crystal ball and although we contemplated regularly how we could build our savings up and support a family we didn’t ever include a pandemic!

Of course Neil and I had also talked about this situation too (or rather I thought about it, told him my worries and he just tried to reassure me and remain positive). But honestly should we be trying for IVF now when our financial future was potentially being discontinued? But then we think about all the families who had no/little money when they started to try and conceive/or fell pregnant unintentionally and how they manage somehow and don’t we also have that right? Just because we are planning, waiting and paying for our opportunity should we stop because of things out of our control?

Anyway I digress! The nurse at our clinic called today and informed us that we could not go ahead with our treatment. It was a very difficult conversation on both sides. I felt for her too. I knew she would have had to say this to so many women today and how hard it must be for her knowing how much we all want our babies. She has a kind and beautiful heart and I knew she would be going home to a well deserved large glass of wine after such a tough day.

I couldn’t hold back the tears, I know 40 years of age trying for a baby yet crying like one at this news. The nurse said “I expect you feel very angry” I wasn’t sure at the time how I felt other than heartbroken but anger was not the emotion I was feeling. That said if anyone is also in the same situation I totally understand and do not judge you if you were/are angry.

Upon reflection I realised that I felt cheated. Cheated out of my opportunity to try now, cheated as I am not fortunate with time and my age, cheated because my first round of IVF caused me to have my tube removed ironically giving me fertility issues which I didn’t have at the start of this journey, cheated because I felt like my hope was being taken.

I felt cheated because all those women naturally trying to conceive right now have had no restrictions put on them. I felt cheated because there is a joke going around about a baby boom in nine months as people are self isolating(although we do have Netflix nowadays). I felt cheated because there are women who are pregnant at the moment yet choose to ignore the advice as that is their right after all it is advice and not a statutory obligation or enforcement.

Yet this decision has left us, two people desperately trying to beat the biological clock and have a family with no right of choice. We have been told we have to stop. We haven’t been allowed to make the decision for ourselves.

I understand the decision to an extent but feel it is still unfair for someone else to make this decision for us. But what I find really hard is the fact that we don’t even know when we can start the medication again and continue our round 2. I feel cheated because they’ve took my hope and hope is the one thing that i usually manage to find. I feel cheated because I don’t know when this will end and sanctions will be lifted. I am the kind of person who needs to have a plan and looks for a realistic yet optimistic one. I feel cheated because I can’t see the optimism or hope right now and I don’t know who I am if I don’t have that.

I know a lot of people haven’t walked in our shoes and don’t know what to say and I’m sure it comes from good/well intentions but if I hear the expression “it will work out/I’m sure it will happen” one more time I will not be held responsible for my response!

I am resilient and I’m sure over the next few days I will find my optimism again but for now I look terrible and my eyes are so red and puffy (I am not one of those ladies that looks solemn and sexy when she cries) and I have been wailing like a banshee to the bemusement of my fur baby who looks at me with sad eyes (albeit from a safe distance). If she could talk (in my head she does and I am that person that talks back to her) she would be saying “I don’t know what’s wrong but when you are done can we go out for a walk please?”

For now I’m going to stop feeling sorry for myself and deliver the leaflets to my neighbours offering my support if they are isolating. After all I’m sure there are others in my neighbourhood who are worried, scared and less fortunate than us. I’ll wear a dark hoodie though so I don’t shock anyone with my appearance!

International women’s Day

A quick shout out to acknowledge this day.

What amazes me is the strength that I see in most women I come across. When I sit in the support group surrounded by all the others that have lost their babies I am overwhelmed with their ability to cope.

I am impressed by their resilience and how they manage their grief on a daily basis whilst empowering others and challenging the taboo subject of pregnancy loss/baby loss.

I read the rawness of infertility in the forums and I’m inspired with the inner strength these women find when a pregnancy is announced, or how they support their friend/family with approaching them with their news. The selflessness of their soul searching to “enjoy” the happy occasions with the important people in their lives.

Admiration for the mums and grandmothers who hold their daughters hand when she says goodbye to her child and continues to be by her side whilst grieving for the loss of her grandchild.

For the mum’s who faces everyday after the death of their child, you truly are a wonder.

Let’s not forget all the men who battle through with the same struggles and at the mother’s side. My heart goes out to you in recognition for your often very silent pain.

Mother’s Day

Mother’s day is coming and I know I won’t be the only person struggling on what is a seemingly happy occasion for most. I used to struggle because this November it is 6 years since my own mother passed away. I struggled because it is also very close to my birthday another difficult time of the year when you reflect on who is missing from your life.

However in 2019 I experienced my first Mother’s Day as a mother whose babies died. A mother whose mother has also died. This was by far the most difficult of Mother’s Days.

I am blessed to be acknowledged by my amazing step daughter (Amy) often with the most beautiful message and also a previous foster daughter (Alissa) who has the kindest and most loving heart. Their words are both heartwarming and touching and remind me that having a biological baby is everything but so too are they!

I count my blessings on what is a very sad day for me and Neil. I used to be a foster carer so I am very aware that I am blessed with having had a mother in my life even if our relationship was difficult at times. The last three years when my mum was fighting to live as long as possible following her terminal lung cancer diagnosis we had the best times. I cherish all the memories even the difficult ones as I am fortunate to have experienced them.

It reminds me to think of others on this difficult day. My heart goes out to all the people whose mother has passed no matter when or what age they were when they passed. For now there is just a dark empty place in your heart an aching that only you can truly understand.

I think of the children who are or have been in the care system who will have struggled with their relationships with their biological mum if they even knew her. I think of how hard it must be for them too.

Nowadays though my heart resonates also with those struggling with fertility. The ones who long to have a baby and may never have the opportunity. The ones who are doing everything they can to have their babies and going through IVF. I think of the ones, like myself, that have been blessed with a pregnancy but have lost their baby/babies.

It’s a day that is so bitter sweet. I know how lucky I am to have such wonderful children in my life. Lucky to have even fallen pregnant. Lucky to have experienced labour and the delivery of my identical twins even though it was traumatic. Lucky to have succeeded our first round of IVF even if the result was a loss of twins and a Fallopian tube. Yet I look at all the mothers and daughters and all the mothers with their babies and my heart breaks and I scream and cry inside.

That envy monster rears it’s ugly head as I wish for my situation to be different. I wish I had more time with my mum and I wish my babies were here. I long for the chance to be a biological mum to living babies. I watch the mums with their babies or the children with their mums. I see the women older than me out with their mum and my heart aches a little more. They continue with their lives blissfully unaware of the impact this day can have on some.

Of course I am aware that I don’t know their stories or struggles and I remind myself that they might be with their rainbow baby, they might have adopted their children following fertility struggles. This might be their last Mother’s Day with their mum. It might be bitter sweet for them and I pull myself away from that envy monster.

I try to celebrate this day as I know my mum would love this and I am of course a mum myself. However it has been harder to acknowledge this day after losing Kora and Ava. Sometimes I just want to shut the blinds and stay indoors so my eyes won’t see the many happy people with their loved ones in their arms.

Neil is so sweet on this day even though he has lost his mum too he treks to the shops and he buys me a Mother’s Day card. He signs it from Kora and Ava and chooses his words carefully. He of course understands and gets it after all he is a father who lost his identical twin girls. I sometimes wonder how hard it is for him to look at the cards and not buy one for his mother. I wonder if he just goes into the shop and picks any card without reading it as it’s too painful to be stood there. I wonder how hard it is for him when he knows how much I want to be a biological mum and how much he wants that for us. I wonder if he silently cries when he writes our babies names on the card. There is no card from your babies in heaven to their mother.

The world is not ready to talk about baby loss or the grief of a mother and father. The avoidance of acknowledgement is only too real. I hope we can break the silence. I hope that we can help the world to understand this painful loss and feel brave to talk or stand by the persons side. Not knowing what to say is understandable but allowing us to talk about our babies like you talk to us about yours is the kindest gift you could give us on Mother’s Day or any other day.

So to all the mums with empty arms or the people without your mum, I hope Mother’s Day is kind on you. I hope you have the strength to reach out and the support and love to surround you.

The truth about IVF…

It’s a wonderful thing is IVF. Giving people like me the best opportunity to fall pregnant. What people don’t know is just how tough it can be.

For me and my husband it’s the waiting! Not only the waiting that you have in relation to the IVF but also the waiting when your body has different ideas from the expected process.

I talk openly to so many people and they are surprised by how much is involved with the IVF process. I guess we all know what we know and if you have no reason to have an understanding of it then why would you know? Saying that I’m not sure if people have assumptions about IVF (like a Virgin Mary immaculate conception). It surprises me how little people know about what you have to undertake when going through IVF but then I remind myself that I too was a little naive about the process.

There are differences in everyone’s journey. Neil and I were not able to be funded via the NHS as we had conceived Kora and Ava naturally. All our tests came back as having no fertility issues. When I say all our tests, we did not have as many as others as the initials ones showed no problems. Our tests included hormone blood tests on day 1-3 of the menstrual cycle and day 21. This is to show that as the woman I am in fact ovulating. Neil had to have a sperm test which came back very favourably especially considering his age (43 at the time).

Therefore for us it meant that the only way we could have IVF was to pay privately. You may wonder why we chose IVF if we could conceive naturally and our answer would be our age. W wanted to give ourselves the opportunity and freeze my eggs before I was 40 years old.

So let’s start with the money! IVF is not cheap as it involves medication, medical procedures, scans, blood tests and follow up consultations. There are different options to support with the finances however we were not able to use any of these. For example if I was younger I could share my eggs collected with another woman who does not produce her own. This would almost halve the cost of IVF. I am a geriatric mum being over 35 years of age so would not be allowed to undertake this option.

Neil and I chose to pay as we go. The first round is more expensive as you are paying for more procedures including egg collection, stimulation drugs for your ovaries and the transfer of the embryos. However on any further rounds if you were fortunate enough to freeze any embryos then you pay for the transfer and medication making it cheaper.

Have I lost your concentration already?

The waiting as I mentioned is very difficult. It’s a strange concept to be willing your first day of your menstrual cycle when you are used to hoping it doesn’t arrive and you are in fact pregnant. However when undertaking IVF you wait for day one to ring the clinic. This is because you start your first injection on day 21.

That’s right you read that correctly, injections. The woman who is going to have the eggs collected and/or transferred has to inject in her stomach everyday and that can increase to twice a day.

IVF medication

One of the drugs I had to inject was buserelin. It works by acting on the pituitary gland in your brain to stop the production of natural hormones that control the release of eggs from your ovaries. This is so that the fertility clinic can take control of when you ovulate to allow them to set the date for egg collection.

I had menopausal side affects from this medication. I most definitely had mood swings and hot sweats. There are many side affects from the drugs and how they affect people vary. I think we were lucky with the affects on the whole.

The next injections we had to take was to stimulate my ovaries. We had to add this injection whilst reducing but still injecting buserelin. I must admit I don’t remember any side affects of the stimulation drugs.

It is after the stimulation injections that you have to administer a “trigger” injection. You are told by your clinic when to administer this as they scan to check how your ovaries are responding.

The trigger injection has to be taken 24 hours before your egg collection. We were fortunate that ours was at 11pm for our appointment at 11am.

We have seen on forums lots of couples have egg collection and get only a few and some retrieved none. Here is where it gets complicated. We had 16 eggs collected. Over 20 eggs is high and can lead to over stimulation and potentially a delay in the transfer. This means a wait again for the body to return to a norm before starting a frozen cycle.

The transfer after egg collection hopefully happens 5 days later and is called a fresh transfer. If the transfer can’t happen for reasons stated above or if you are blessed to have embryos to freeze then you can have a further transfer which is a frozen cycle.

The embryologist stated that you can expect half of the eggs collected to fertilise. At the point of egg collection for the woman the sperm collection happens. This is then added to the dish of eggs and is monitored in the lab. This is where you have to wait again. you get a call the following day to say how many if any have fertilised. We had 9 fertilise which again was a very good number and over half!

Then you wait again to see how many of them reach 5 days and are able to be transferred and/or frozen. This is a very anxious time and you can only hope that you have some fertWe again were very fortunate and had 6 very good embryos. They are given a grade they transfer the best one or two.

I must admit we did not worry about the grades. We thought it will either work or it won’t. We had two embryos transferred. At this point you have to wait again. This is probably the most difficult wait as you hope that the embryo(S) implant. 14 days later you can take a test. Although I have seen many women take the test earlier (not recommended by professionals).

During this wait you will be blessed with putting progesterone pessaries into either your vagina or bottom to thicken the lining of the womb to help the embryo implant. I told you the truth about IVF is it is hard both physically, financially and most of all emotionally.

We were going out of our mind during this wait as we scrutinised every single feeling and symptom. Ultimately all you can do at this point though is wait.

If you have read my previous blogs then you know our fresh cycle resulted in a heterotrophic pregnancy. Another loss of two babies. With only a 2% chance of one of the embryos going the wrong way into the tube, it had happened.

This meant more waiting for us! We had to wait for my body to repair from the operation and we had to make sure our emotional state of mind was in a good place before going for a frozen cycle.

After going through IVF and looking at the forums my advice would be to take it in your stride. I know it’s an easy thing to say and I can expect many people would want to punch me in the face for that comment! However the clinic said to us that we were a very relaxed couple and that they felt we would have a success.

At times I did not feel relaxed (far from it) but what I’ve learnt through all our losses is that it was all out of our hands. We could not have done anything more or different to make the outcome change. Nature can be very cruel and it doesn’t matter how many avocados or pineapples you eat. Just be as healthy as possible, look after yourself and most importantly be kind to yourselves!

Statistically speaking…

Talking statistics around fertility

Facts and figures!

When we fell pregnant I never expected that statistics and mathematics would play such a part in my life and subsequent grief. I hated maths in school and never thought it would affect my life or that I would require it that much as my career progressed.

We are surrounded by statistics everyday whether it’s reported on the news, in an article we are reading or in an advert. I had never really paid much attention to them until I became one of the 1 in 4 women who suffer a pregnancy loss. Subsequently from our loss of Kora and Ava and through our fertility journey we seemed to be consumed with percentages and statistics.

When we fell pregnant with MCMA (monochoronic monoamniotic) twins we were unaware what this meant. The sonographer moved from one side where we had seen a beautiful baby to the other saying “There is one heartbeat and there is the other”. She explained that they were identical twins and appeared to be sharing a sac. We were marked down as a high risk pregnancy and told we would be scanned every two weeks.

This was as much information as we were given. I assumed we were high risk as it was a multiple birth. However I could not help but research a little further more about MCMA twins.

MCMA image

Here comes the next statistic… only 1% of twins are MCMA. What I discovered is that they had more risks than other twin pregnancies. Mainly as they were sharing the placenta there was a risk of undernourishment of one twin resulting in other complications. However our scan showed that they were both growing at the same rate and had only 1cm difference in size.

My mind felt put to rest. I had read some wonderful success stories of MCMA twins and I felt I should remain positive as I was the one carrying them and I didn’t want to impact my babies with stress or worry that could be very unnecessary.

Our first scan had been delayed and we had actually been scanned at 13 weeks and 3 days. Our next scan should have been in 2 weeks but was also delayed and we had it at 16 weeks and 4 days. I remember Neil asking me if I was nervous but I told him I felt excited. He had been telling me how worried he was as they had said high risk. If I had to describe myself I would say I am a realist with optimistic tendencies. I had heard the high risk, I had researched the possible outcomes or implications but I also felt hopeful.

We were told on this scan that our babies had no heartbeats. It was the devastating news I had not expected but Neil had worried about. We were taken into a room and in automatic mode I swallowed a pill to end our pregnancy. We were asked to return two days later to start the induction of labour.

Labour however had different ideas to the medical professionals. Here is our next statistic… I was the 1 in 60,000 women that induction doesn’t seem to work. We were in hospital for 10 days before I delivered Kora and Ava. I can’t even find the words or feelings today to explain how difficult it is to walk around with your babies still looking very pregnant but knowing they have passed away inside you.

I later found out that the survival rates of MCMA twins is 50% which is a statistic I would happily bet on. I like the odd flutter and would always bet on black or red on the roulette table with the odds at 50%.

This is not the end of the statistics! Neil and I then became the couple that struggle to conceive. We fell pregnant again nearly one year on in 2019 but had a biochemistry miscarriage just 2 days after finding out we were pregnant. Again we fell into the 1 in 4.

We then started our IVF journey and in November 2019 we started the injections. In December our two week wait to take the pregnancy test came to an abrupt end two days before our official test date. It was assumed that it had not worked due to a very heavy bleed. However we had in fact been successful with twins again. We had what is known as a heterotopic pregnancy. It is (of course) a rare complication in pregnancy in which both extra-uterine (ectopic pregnancy) and intrauterine pregnancy occur simultaneously. It may also be referred to as a combined ectopic pregnancy, multiple‑sited pregnancy, or coincident pregnancy.

So for the next statistic only 1 in 70,000 pregnancies are heterotopic. With 1% of IVF pregnancies resulting in this type of pregnancy. However as Neil and I had no underlying medical conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome or endometriosis it was obviously considered a very low risk for us.

Comments I have become used to hearing are “it could only happen to you” or “it’s just your luck” or my least favourite “you have such bad luck”. I am unsure if these are positive or negative comments. I don’t find them very useful but I again understand that people often don’t know what to say or pass a comment without thinking too much about it.

Positivity

Let’s turn these statistics around! Women at my age (38-40) undergoing IVF have only a 5.3% chance of having twins. I was lucky to be in that percentage. Our first round with one fresh and one frozen embryo which resulted in twins. Between the ages of 38-40 there is only a 38% chance of getting pregnant via IVF. We also managed to be in this statistic. To conceive naturally in between these ages during ovulation there is a 29% chance as fertility decreases at 35 and decreases rapidly after 37.

Only 1 in 250 people are fortunate enough to have identical twins and it was Neil and I that fell pregnant with our daughters Kora and Ava at the age of 38 when fertility is decreasing.

So I conclude by saying that I feel lucky. I have fallen pregnant and been blessed to know what that is like. I have experienced labour and delivered our identical twins Kora and Ava. I am so grateful that Neil gave this to me. As difficult as the IVF journey was due to complications and a roller coaster of emotions we were fortunate enough that both embryos implanted (albeit one in the wrong place) on our first round. Many people have IVF and go through many rounds. We were lucky to get a good number of eggs and for them to last till day 5 and be of a good/high quality. This gives us more opportunities to try again.

I also told my consultant that I am starting to play the lottery as I seem to fall into the lower odds and being positive I’m sure one day the odds will most definitely be in my/our favour!