I thought the world would be kind to me

I'm probably wallowing in my own self-pity here and I'd be the first to admit that I have been feeling especially sorry for myself lately. But I thought the world might feel sorry for me too. I've been through a terrible time. I can't have possibly been bad enough in my life to deserve to lose two precious babies and go through a horrific operation, so I would hope that most people would acknowledge that the blow I have been dealt is cruel and unfair. So why are people adding to it? I've posted about my toxic friend, but I am in the process of trying to get back to work to regain some sense of normality over my life and my boss is throwing obstacles up at every turn. He fakes concern about me but the truth is he doesn't want to pay me to come back for just a few days before Christmas and it's inconvenient for him as he's given my desk away to a new girl (so who knows what has happened to all my stuff amalgamated over the 6 years I have sat at that desk?) without so much as an email or phone call in my direction. And then, I have just had an email from Mr W's cousin. So far she has avoided all communication with us. No flowers, no card, no text message. And then I get an email entitled 'Hi there!'. Now that put me on the bad foot straight away. I'm not cheery, this is not a chatty email asking what I've been up to over the last few weeks, this is an email where she is going to discuss the death of my two precious babies and she starts with 'Hi there!'??? She gives no reason as to why the email is 2 weeks late, even though her mother (Mr W's auntie) sent a lovely card 10 days ago. And then after a brief 'Sorry to hear your bad news' she proceeds to tell me all about how precious her newborn son is (born over a month ago so I guess that could explain why she hasn't been in touch but then can't either new parent text anyone when you have a newborn?? They were quick enough to do so to announce their good news from my recollection). Mr W can't understand why I'm upset. 'They got in touch eventually' he said, and he can't see the poor taste of gloating about her baby boy in front of a woman who has lost two. 'If I had lost a leg,' I say to Mr W, 'would you not think that an email to me boasting about how she has two legs would be in bad taste?'. So now he's upstairs in his office thinking I have totally lost it and I am down in the living room writing this. To the only people that will understand. Because it seems that the world is a cruel place and I had better get used to it quickly.

Now that I have got over my angst, I do want to add that I have also been touched to the bottom of my heart by the kindness of others. My friend that hand-knitted me a hot water bottle cover. The girl I know through an internet support site for women with problems conceiving that sent me beautiful flowers having never met me. The work colleague that sat talking to Mr W for ages and offering him hope that we would one day get the child of our dreams. My best friend who has, without fail, text me everyday to see how I am and made a near 5 hour round trip to see me for a few hours. The local friend who brought groceries round to cook us a healthy & wonderful meal. The childhood friend from school whom I haven't seen for a year that rang me as soon as she heard the news. So the world has been kind to me in unforeseen ways, as it has also been cruel. I guess this is what they mean by really evaluating who your friends are. In my 29 years on this earth I have never been forced to make this evaluation. Friends have dropped out of my life based on circumstance or situation. But I feel now I have to somehow take charge and concentrate my time and effort on the people who have shown how much they really think of me. Because without these touches of kindness, I don't think I could have survived the last two weeks. The touches are healing, warm, rejuvenating, restoring. And for every toxic and poisonous sting of venom, I have received ten fold more kind and healing touches. So I have a lot to be thankful for. And I need to shake this self-pity because the world is kinder to me than I give it credit for.

Thank you for reading

Will I always hate Mondays?

Monday was the day I lost my babies. I am already dreading tomorrow. I know I will be sad. I know I will cry. I know I will think back to a lifetime ago (just 2 weeks and a day in real time) when I was still full of the joys of a very precious pregnancy. How can my life have changed so much in a matter of a few short hours? And the night before I lost my babies I was eating curry. Now if I even see curry advertised on the TV I have to turn over. Seeing the takeaway menu from our favourite Indian restaurant made me cry and removing it from the fridge and shredding it didn't seem to stop the tears. I have been changed and I fear the change is forever. I used to love Mondays as they were full of promise for the week ahead (Tuesdays were the day I usually disliked instead as then the week had already had its tone set and it was often the same as the week before) and I used to love curry. But it's not just those superficial things. I feel changed inside. I feel like I will never be truly happy again. I feel my life will always be clouded by what could have been. I dreamt about my babies last night. My beautiful twins that would have looked just like their daddy. My babies that would have been the most cherished children that ever lived. I dreamt about them as babies, putting them to bed in their cots. I dreamt about them as young children, riding their bikes and playing in the park. But those experiences of pure pleasure will always remain in my dreams. The future of my babies was stolen from them and from me. And I don't understand why God chose to take them so soon. And I don't know if I will ever be able to like Mondays or curry again.

Toxic Friends

I've just been reading an article in a magazine about how to rid yourself of toxic friends and make a new start next year. If only it was that simple. I can easily identify my 'toxic friend'. After my double ectopic pregnancy she sent me an email saying 'Well, you've had an eventful week. You don't do things by halves do you?' and then continued to tell me all about her and her week where she was singing in a local choir concert which I would have loved had I bothered to buy tickets. The fact that I was in hospital after an emergency operation seemed to have slipped her mind at this point. This is probably the hardest thing in my life that I have ever been through and to have people making me feel like a drama queen is not what I need at all. This friend is so self-centred I don't even think she was being deliberately cruel, just what is going on in her life is so much more important than what is happening in mine.

But how do you rid yourself of these friends? She's getting married next year and Mr W is an usher, we have a lot of mutual friends too which means I can hardly cut her out of my life. I just don't want her to contact me anymore. I don't want her toxic remarks that just make me feel even worse at a time when I already feel I am just barely stopping myself from breaking into a hundred thousand pieces. I am fragile and I need cotton wool to surround me not razor sharp needles. My close friend tells me I have to let it go. I have to stop caring about her and what she thinks. I know I still have to see her in group situations, but I don't want her to call or email or offer her 'support'. She even told a mutual friend of ours that my operation wasn't that bad because the worst part about a laparoscopy was the gas they pump into you (may I add that this toxic friend is a doctor). Firstly, this wasn't just an operation. I lost two babies. She's a woman and a woman that wants children as she has vocally expressed in the past. So how can she not understand that I wouldn't give a sh*t about gas?! The worst part about my operation was the emptiness that I still have in my heart. The hole in my life that my two babies, although only days old, have left. Even without that aching, burning grief that shows no signs of healing along with my poor body, my operation was actually a laparotomy. So I was cut from one side of my groin to the other. Two weeks later and I have only just stopped bleeding. I only have one Fallopian tube left which is badly scarred and a 20% chance of another ectopic pregnancy, which makes both Mr W and I petrified to try again. As a doctor, I expected understanding; as a friend, empathy. I got neither. And can a friendship ever recover from such a betrayal? Her fiance called Mr W to offer his condolences. He shared with him hope for the future from a medical perspective (he's also a doctor) and Mr W actually felt much better after speaking to him. But my friend is apparently 'waiting for my call' which she will be waiting for a long, long time yet.

To my Babies

They lived
It was us who gave life to them
We started to love them
Unconditionally.

They knew
They would look like their Daddy
And he would teach them
How to be good.

They grew
But it was too soon
I couldn't protect them
My little ones.

Ectopic
Is what they called you
But you're my angels
One day I'll meet.

I know
You'll look just like your Daddy
God takes good care of you
As I never could.

We know
We will never forget you
You were our babies
Taken too soon.

Two Precious Angels

I wake up in the recovery room and Dr Mumble is there. He is explaning that my right tube was too damaged to save and he is also saying that there was another ectopic pregnancy in my left tube. They had to remove it but they put the tube back together as best they could. He was asking if I understood what he was saying. The nurse told him I was too drowsy and he would need to speak to me again. But I understood. There were two babies. Two angels. Twins that I could not keep safe. Twins that God had wanted so much he took them before they had even really begun to grow. My precious babies that were too good for this cruel world of ours.

It's a week since my operation and physically I am healing day by day. But my heart feels like it will never be mended. I feel that I will always have this emptiness inside. That I will never truly feel whole. Mr W and I went to the hospital chapel the day after the operation and we said some prayers and hung a bauble on their christmas tree with our own little prayer attached. We thanked God for the strength he had given us to get through that terrible day and we asked that he take good care of our precious angels that we never got to meet. Because I know that everything is decided about you from the moment you are conceived. Your hair colour, your eye colour, your height, all those physical characteristics are determined in that one moment. God knows what you are going to look like. You may be a fetus to the medical world, but to him you are a child created in his image. And I know my babies would have looked just like their Daddy. And I know we would have loved them so very, very much. And it hurts that I never got the chance to see them and that I never got to hold them and tell them how much they were loved. My friend says that they are my guardian angels. That they were sent to show me that I can get pregnant, that there is hope for me and that one day I will hold that precious child in my arms. And that just makes them all the more special.

So at this moment, the dream of being a mummy still remains unfulfilled. Because of scarring in my left tube I have a 20% chance of another ectopic and I will be monitored closely if we do fall pregnant again naturally. Or there is IVF. I know I will try again. I know I will find the strength to pick myself up and move onto the next step of the journey. Because life does not kill the dream you dreamed, not while you still have hope. Mr W says he knows we will be parents. He feels it in his heart. But all I feel is emptiness and the absence in my life of the two beautiful babies we should have been welcoming into our lives this summer. The preparations are on hold, the names remain unused, and my heart stays broken.

The best of times, the worst of times

I have been away again for a while and a lot has happened. I will try and recreate for you all the original feelings as best I can. It will be hard as they are now tainted by what was to follow ...

On the morning of the 20th November I wake up and go to the bathroom and pee into a plastic cup. I come back and hand said cup to Mr W. Oh the romance of it! He wanted me to take a test as we were going away for the weekend, but I was not convinced it would be anything different than the normal bright white window staring back at me. So I said he could do it. I got back into bed and shut my eyes as he opened the test packet and proceeded to dip it in the cup, carefully timing all the while. He put the lid back on the test and waited. The 3 minutes up I heard him rustling around with the instructions. What was he doing? He'd seen a negative test before! 'It's negative right?' I said opening my eyes and his face turned to me and said the words I will never forget 'I think it's positive'. I jumped out of bed and snatched the test out of his hands. There was that second pink line that I really had started to think was just the stuff of dreams. The clomid had worked! We were pregnant! I went to the doctor the following Tuesday convinced she would tell me it was all a mirage, but she did another test (despite me taking mine with me!) and it was positive again! 5 1/2 weeks pregnant with a due date of 25th July. We were so excited. I can't even begin to describe the joy we felt. We made plans, we discussed names, I know it was early but we were both convinced that after nearly 2 years of hell this was our time and we were determined to grab hold of the dream and not let it go. We were ready for this, we had been ready for a long time. It seemed so natural that this was happening and that in a few weeks we would be telling our families over Christmas dinner. Those few days really were the best of times.

But it was not to last. The best of times were soon to turn into the worst of times. On Saturday 28th November I started to feel a lot of abdominal pain. I was eating Rennie tablets like they were going out of fashion thinking it was trapped wind. I was sore and bloated and it hurt to stand up and sit down. Somewhere in the pit of my stomach I knew something was wrong. Sunday came and my Mum begged me to go to the doctor. My back and shoulders hurt and when I cried because I was scared I was losing the baby, my whole body was wracked with pain. I knew this wasn't right. We went to our out of hours doctor at the local hospital who asked if I suspected an ectopic pregnancy. He took a test to prove that I was still pregnant and it was positive which gave me hope. Because I was in pain all over my tummy and it was all tender, he also suggested that it might be appendicitis which would involve an operation that could be harmful for the baby. I still hoped and prayed it was the latter and that little Bubba W was a fighter. I was taken to the ward while Mr W was sent home to collect a few things for me. I bled a little in the night and felt sure I was losing our precious baby but the nurses seemed more optimistic. I had a urine infection, they explained, and there was not a lot of blood. I was told to keep thinking positively.

Monday 30th November. Ten days after our positive pregnancy test. Two days before my 29th birthday. And officially recorded in my history book as the worst day of my life. The rollercoaster started in the morning with the doctor offering me hope. It was good that I had only bled once and it was not continuous. The pain had started to subside and she was sending me for a scan. I went down with a nurse from the Early Pregnancy Unit and another lady who was 8 weeks pregnant. She had also been bleeding. Her scan was first and it was good news. The baby was growing and she was happy. She went back to the ward pretty quickly and I felt sure it would be good news for me too. I went into the ultrasound room and it was the same lady who had diagnosed the cysts on my ovaries last time. She didn't recognise me. She moved the instrument around the bottom of my tummy and just kept moving it and moving it. I knew then it was bad news. Surely she would know where the baby was? She would be able to see it, just like with the lady before me. She then had to use the transvaginal probe camera which I managed to escape last time. But I didn't care. I just felt totally numb. She told me then that it was looking like an ectopic pregnancy on my right-hand side that had ruptured. There was a sac inside my womb mirroring the pregnancy but it was full of blood and my womb was also filled with blood and fluid. There was a layer of blood around my tubes which indicated the pregnancy had ruptured after becoming too big for the tube. And then she left me outside in the corridor to speak to the nurse. And it was there I sobbed. I sobbed because my heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I sobbed because this world is a cruel, cruel place. I sobbed because no medical miracle could save my precious baby, he was doomed before his life even really began. I sobbed without control. I didn't care where I was or who saw me. I didn't care that all the pregnant ladies with their beautiful bumps coming for their routine scans were looking at me, staring at me, feeling pity for me. The nurse called me into her office but I didn't really hear what she said. She mentioned surgery and she had paged the doctor. She then took me back outside to wait for a porter to bring a wheelchair to take me back to the ward. I protested that I would walk, I knew Mr W was waiting for me, and the pregnant women in the waiting room were too much to bear, but she wouldn't hear of it so I stood in the corridor with fresh tears rolling down my face. The porter came and we went back to the ward in silence.

When I got to my bed, Mr W was there. He knew by my face it was bad news and we sat and cried and cried while someone pulled the curtains around us. But there was little time for grief at that moment. Within 20 minutes I was surrounded by nurses and two doctors and a bed showed up with a porter ready to take me to theatre. Nurses were undressing me and putting surgical socks on me and tying one of those horrible gowns that always seems to leave your arse on show. The original doctor who saw me, the registrar we nicknamed Dr Mumble, gave me some consent forms to sign and went on in his mumbling tones about the risks of bladder and bowel infections and a whole list of other potential effects of the surgery I was about to have that I didn't understand. I signed it and was helped onto the bed. In a whirlwind I left the ward with Mr W alongside the bed. When we reached the theatre doors and he was told he could go no further, he kissed me and said everything would be alright. It was only when I turned to see him for one last time and I saw his face drained to grey and his eyes filled with worry that I knew maybe it wouldn't be ok. Once inside the theatre, another consultant read out the surgery I was about to have and the jokey assistant said 'Did you get that? It's blah de blah de blah'. 'That's what I heard' I joked as the anaesthetist suddenly popped into my eyeline. He explained that because I had eaten they would have to put pressure on my throat to stop me from throwing up into my lungs when the anaesthetic was administered. I remember thinking I would not like that at all as I hate any pressure on my throat and have thrown up at the dentist when they have applied too much pressure or gone too far into the back of my mouth. However, the assistant put two fingers on my throat and warned he would have to press harder when I was going off to sleep and that was the last thing I remember ...