Groomed bush and wine, these are a few of my favourite things....

On a lighter note – in preparation for D-day I just got a wax – finally, after I don’t know how many months. A lot. So I literally feel lighter! I am gorilla no more, and now the doc and his team won’t be horrified when I’m lying on the table half-naked ready to be cut open!

I wasn’t really bothered about it until I was at a friend’s baby shower and the other ladies (all childless and/or single) were laughing about the bush that you tend to see in birthing videos and I realised that that would be me. I used to be so conscious of good grooming and I really miss having the time to care! But seeing as I haven’t been able to see my V-JJ for months now, caring about it’s appearance has been easy to forget. But I do miss being able to see it. And my feet.

So because these things are heavily dominating my imagination at the moment, here is a list of things I have been missing being pregnant for more than a year (ignoring the 2 months between pregnancies – I was in grieving so they don’t really count anyway).

In no particular order (well except for Wine, that is definitely number 1):

• Wine – no explanation needed. I need it. Soon.
• Food – not any food in particular - although of course blue cheese, brie and salamis will be first on the post-baby menu – but just to enjoy eating food without feeling sick and bloated afterwards. To eat without the fear of reflux and nausea, and to enjoy the taste – pregnancy does weird things to my taste buds.
• Flexibility – to sleep on my back, to bend down easily, to feel strong and mobile again! I hate this feeling that everything is weak and broken.
• Sex – yep, it’s been more than a year really since the sex has been any good, that is, without a huge belly in the way of things. Plus TTC sex is the worst kind of sex, there is just way too much pressure when you’re wondering if each time is going to be the jackpot!
• Wine – did I mention this one?
• Energy – to be able to chase my toddler around again. I feel so guilty but I am the worst playmate at the moment, I dread getting down on the floor with him cos I know it’ll be so hard to get up again.
• Nice skin, nails and hair – I know I’ll have to wait ages for this one, as the worst is yet to come. My hair will practically all fall out post-birth and I’ll get that horrible baby fuzz regrowth. When I was pregnant with H I had great nails, they seemed to grow faster and stronger, but this pregnancy my nails have been TERRIBLE, they split and crack and the cuticles are non-existent.
• Kissing my husby – we’ve been sick tag-team for weeks now so it’s been like a permanent quarantine.  And germs aside, we’re just so busy with work and toddler-wrangling plus the belly gets in the way, romance is so very dead. I am aware this will not change with the arrival of a new baby, just lamenting it anyway!!
• Wine. 

2 weeks 2 go!

Just over 2 weeks til D-day (or B day I spose)!

I’m so excited, nervous and scared – I feel almost bi-polar, my emotions flux from high to low so much.  I go from dreading it to wishing it was happening tomorrow.

I’ve got so many reasons to be scared. I know so many beautiful, smart, healthy women who have lost their babies at this same stage of pregnancy I’m at now or even during childbirth. None of them deserved that tragedy – nobody does. But, like me, I’m sure none of them ever expected to suffer such unusually cruel and unfair loss.

I have been lucky enough to have one beautiful and healthy child, albeit through a birth that left me quite damaged physically and a little traumatised. But I also lost a baby - he may have only been 19 weeks old, but he was mine and growing in my body and I feel responsible for his fate. So now I am living in this weird limbo, so close to the end of a long, arduous pregnancy, the light at the end of the tunnel almost within reach, but with still so many risks and hurdles yet to overcome.

And I feel like I learn a new terrifying possibility every day. I had a PAL support meeting last week and in keeping with my split-personality at the moment, it was both unsettling and therapeutic. I went already in a fragile state, having had a couple of bad weeks with H waking twice a night and husby being away one week and then sick the next, I was just physically and mentally exhausted. So it was no surprise that I cried during the relaxation exercise. But when the organisers started reading out birth stories I was too taken aback to escape before the floods of tears began again.

Ever since the birth of my first son I have been unable to read birth stories, good or bad, and I avoid watching people give birth in TV shows or movies too. I feel so cheated by my birth experiences, like I did everything in my power to have the best experience and to give my baby the best entry to the world, and that I was let down in so many ways by things that were not in my control but that were influenced by my health care providers.

I considered making an official complaint in the months after H was born, but ultimately I decided it would not help in my healing process.  I saw a counsellor once but it really didn’t make any difference to my feelings. The PTS was not helped by the sleep deprivation, my son was a poor sleeper for the first seven months until we tried Tresillian methods, and I am acutely aware now that if this baby is the same the sleepless nights will not be over once she is born.

This PAL group has been a much better outlet and salve for my grief, both for the bungled birth experience I had with my first son and the tragic loss of my second son. I have felt supported, understood and maybe most importantly, cared about. But of course, the flipside is the fear I have for the other ladies and the concern that what has happened to them could now happen to me too.

I try to suppress the doubts and fears and be positive, but then I worry that if I don’t worry enough I might be tempting fate. I really just need to get this baby safely into my arms so I can relax!! I’m torn between wishing it would happen early and wanting to get through my son’s 2^nd birthday this week and make that as special as he deserves.

My darling toddler was testing my patience to the absolute max when thankfully my mother-in-law arrived like a guardian angel to fulfil his boisterous appetite for attention. She honestly couldn’t have come a moment too soon. And with husby finally back in good health we are almost ready to welcome our new baby to this family. I even started packing a hospital bag tonight!

So baby girl hang in there, stay well and know that in just a few more days we will be eagerly introducing you to our world and whatever the outcome, you will enrich it.