Category: General

I don’t know whether there is something about being very close to the end of my third pregnancy, but it has got me feeling all reflective. It’s most likely that the end of one life stage and the start of a new approaching is the perfect opportunity for me to actually think a little deeper and try to process some emotions. How will I move forward with the new baby approaching? What have I learnt and what do I want to change for the year ahead?

I haven’t written a blog in over a year! Perhaps this is a sign of how busy we all are, but I like to think that maybe it’s a sign of how far we’ve come on our grief journey. In fact, there’s a part of me now as I write this blog who thinks it’s self centred or indulgent to be talking about myself when I know there are so many people out there who have battles they are facing in their lives. The blogs at the start of our loss were necessary as life was so confusing and the pain so hard to believe would ever subside.

I will be completely honest, life is much more manageable on a day to day basis now. I also strongly believe that we don’t have to feel guilt around this fact. I know Daisy has helped massively with this, she is wonderfully funny and watching her develop is a real privilege and joy. She is a healthy child, full of possibility. I hope this doesn’t come across as harsh, but she is different to Ivy. She needs different things than Ivy did and would have needed, should she have lived. I still love Ivy, as every day I think of her, speak of her, but I cannot actively parent her like I can Daisy. I guess it is easier to demonstrate my love for Daisy. I can sing to her, buy her things I think she will like, play games that make her smile or just simply be with her.

With Ivy, I know that she is somehow a part of our family still. Not physically, I can no longer hold her in my arms or smell her hair or look into her eyes and that hurts. It always will. Yet, I sense her presence in our lives. Last year we found out that we were expecting our third child. We found out in late August and began the anxious journey of pre-natal genetic testing. The NIPT test had to be taken at 9 weeks gestation, so prior to this we visited an amazing consultant who scanned us to a) check we had a viable pregnancy and b) to assess what date the test should be conducted in order to receive an accurate result. This in itself was a very stressful process. As we have had miscarriages, we wondered whether there would be a heartbeat and if there was one week, would it still be there the following week? Then once the test was taken, we knew we would have a long wait whilst a lab in Birmingham used our DNA, alongside Ivy’s to cross match to see whether we had given good or bad copies of the gene to this baby. I am aware this is a very unscientific and watered down version of what is incredible science and technology but the way I like to think of it is, Ivy is helping us to get to know her sibling. Without her code, we wouldn’t know whether this baby is affected or a carrier or, like Daisy miraculously is, completely free of the condition.

So we had the test taken and we waited for the result. Mike and I carried on with our daily lives, but the thought of the result was never far from mind. What would we do if this baby had SMA again? Mike picked me up from work on the Friday evening before half term and we decided to visit Ivy’s grave. We spoke to her, cleared the leaves and as we finished, it started to pour down quite suddenly and heavily. Mike carried Daisy back to the car and my phone rang. It was Oxford Genetics. The results had come in. Of all places, we were ‘with’ Ivy when the news came. We were altogether as we learnt that this new baby would be a carrier (like Mike and I are) but not ill. Tears streamed like the rain on the windows. We honestly felt so blessed in that moment. Not that we don’t day to day as we await this baby, but more like in that moment there was a real feeling of connection between our past, present and future with love clearly unifying us all together.

Ivy is still very with us in all that we do. Whether that’s at a scan and the sonographer tell us the due date is the day after she died or when a different sonographer asks if we will choose another floral name? (I would like to just point out at this part of the blog, we haven’t found out what we are having but think this might be a bit of an indication) Yes, she is a part of our lives, just not in the way we had hoped for when she made her entrance into the world four years ago!

Yet, Mike and I have spoken about this a lot lately. We feel a sense of acceptance has washed over us, perhaps gradually but definitely more convincingly over the last few months. We will always wish that Ivy had lived and been healthy, but because of her condition, this was just never going to have been possible. I think of her, perhaps more so, as Daisy is developing so quickly. She would never have walked, or talked, or eaten solid food. She wouldn’t be like the 4 year olds I have taught in reception classes over the years. She would have needed support to do all of the basic human functions; to eat, to toilet, to breathe!

This sense of acceptance also comes to us as we prepare for this new arrival. I accept that I am not going to have more children after this. The vision of Mike and I as a ‘Walton’ style family with a house full of children just won’t be our story. We accept that to have had two healthy children after Ivy is the biggest gift ever. We won’t take this for granted and we will do everything we can to assure we help these two living children to feel loved, secure and well adjusted, despite the huge absence in their lives. I used to imagine I’d have 3 children. I am honestly not sure why this was the number I wanted but somewhere that felt right for me. Mike wanted two. He told me very early on in our relationship. So in a very strange way we both have what we wanted. I definitely feel a grief over knowing this will be my last baby. Perhaps, because this baby’s firsts will be my lasts. Plus, I feel a real guilt even saying this when there was a time in our life when we wondered if we would ever have one child or when I think of all the women embarking on IVF journeys or researching adoption.

But with the acceptance of no longer growing our family, I’m also accepting that I’ll lose a little bit of Ivy again. I’ve felt like little losses have happened over the course of our grief. When our contact at Oxford Hospitals Charity went on maternity, when the psychologist signed us off, when our favourite midwife got a new job, even when I left work at a similar time of year and having worked in the same classroom before Ivy’s maternity. When these changes happen I think that somehow I’m losing connections to Ivy or that those people and places will help me to feel close to her. I know this isn’t true. Our love for Ivy goes beyond this. Sometimes when I hug Daisy I hug her a little tighter knowing I’m trying to hug her sister too.

So now having our last child I am heading into this journey knowing that the baby stage won’t get to be relived. I think when we were expecting Daisy, there was a sense of we knew what we were heading for. We had been a 3 before and would return to that again. I expected the pregnancy and the birth to be the same. They weren’t. We had everything we needed,: the Moses basket, the pushchair, the clothes. Yet Daisy was not Ivy. Despite looking remarkably alike at the start, their characters were different and Daisy was distinctively more mobile and vocal than her sister. I think it is clear that this time round, we won’t have the same experience. We won’t be just a 3 again. We will have Daisy and the new one. We will eventually need to get two beds, two sizes of clothes at any one time. I suppose I felt like I knew what I was getting myself in for with Daisy but with this new baby I don’t actually know how life will work with two children demanding my attention. I have to remember thought that I’d never get Ivy back anyway. Each baby is so unique and I am also aware I’ll never lose the experience we had as a three for those special four and a bit months we shared. Maybe part of my anxiety is that a massive part of my previous experience is of difficulty and of things going wrong. I’m almost awaiting that rather than focusing on the positives and hopeful aspects of my journey too.

So now this brings me onto this pregnancy. No more early scans, food aversions and the heightened smells. No more gestational diabetes and questioning whether every itch is the start of Obstetric Choleastasis. Yet also there’ll be no more first flutters of movement, no more times of pulling out the maternity wardrobe to dress my changing shape and no more washing all the baby clothes with a desperate urge to nest.

Being pregnant heightens my anxiety, there is no doubt of that. I work hard to remain positive and excited but I have my wobbles where I feel like I am pushing my luck, that it ‘shouldn’t’ be this easy’ after Ivy, that I feel as if I was expecting things to be harder than this and I am up for a battle. When this happens, I think I look for problems. I am making up stories to justify the anxiety.

I can’t promise that the rest of my pregnancy will be without complications but the closer we get, the more I am starting to believe that this baby will somehow complete our little unit. We will always feel Ivy’s absence yet I am sure that Ivy will be there with us as we continue to take everything day by day, showing us signs and allowing us to be our own unique version of a family of 5.

The more I experience life I think most people hold a range of emotions. It’s not just black and white. Perhaps this comes from a widening of the lens I look at life through. I certainly know that when life is tough the “bad” thing can be all consuming and the only thing you can think about. I am pretty sure my early grief made me selfish. It also made me want to make people understand. Feel this pain. Understand what this is like. But of course, they never could. Just like I don’t know a million other situations such as divorce, cancer, a loved one being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s etc. It’s easier to stick with people who know what you are going through and then turn against others who are not. But then for us we ran the danger of everyone else being the enemy. Luckily we had the strength to see that living like that was never going to make us happy. We needed to accept other people into our lives and to accept that perhaps they won’t understand and nor would we want them to. Now when a friend reaches out to tell me something ‘big’ in their lives, I really do try to listen to them, so I can gauge some idea of what their life is like, but sadly I’ve also come to accept that there is only so much I can humanly do, but I will walk the path with them as best I can.

Perhaps like us, you watched ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse on Christmas Eve. There’s a line in his original book that always makes me think. “The greatest illusion” said the mole “is that life should be perfect.” I have definitely fallen into the trap and it’s impossible to live with that pressure. I also love another Charlie Mackey quote which is “one of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things” We have to surrender, accept the imperfections and trust the timing of our lives. In fact just this week, after being offered an induction to avoid the new baby being born on the same date that Ivy passed away, my yoga teacher had an affirmation fall from her pack which said ‘your baby will be born at the perfect time’ If he or she arrives on 10th May, then I guess it will be in some way poetic that 4 years after Ivy passed we have completed our little family. Perhaps it will mean we will have to adjust the day we wear white for Ivy, but somehow I know my three children are all connected. It may not be perfect and I will always wish that Ivy could have lived at the same time as my other two but without any doubt in my head I know that despite all this talk of beginnings and endings, my love for all three of them is forever and always.