Antenatal support thread for women who have chosen to terminate VI

[Coffeeandchocolate]

Time for a new thread, ladies. May it continue to give us comfort, and help us find a special, sunny place in our hearts, where our babies are safely tucked in. May it bring good luck to everyone who posts or justs reads.

And to the old-timers, it?s so lovely to still have you here with us, reaching out.

Right, so I managed to have a typo in my very first post on a new thread... it's so lovely, of course, no it?s so lovely... I knew I shouldn't have started the thread before finishing my morning coffee!

Ahh well done Coffee and am glad it is you who has started number SIX. And what is a little typo between friends?
I have my parents coming to lunch; eek. Tidy, tidy, tidy. Oh yes mum, I always have fresh loo cleaner down the loo and my hall carpet is often this immaculate.
The stress, the stress.
May this day mark the beginning of healing and gentleness.
Bee xxxx
ps Hello to Mishta- I too looked at your plans, what fun. And tried to post on the site but did not have correct log-in details etc for my google account. Your wee Bella is just so charming and enchanting looking. And your teens look like, well teens. In a good way!
Bee xxx

He he Bee, you made me laugh... we also have some friends round in an hour or so and I've just finished cleaning. But of course my house is immaculate all the time, this is just extra

Ha ha, my house is very tidy too. Ahem. Well it might be, if not for a messy creative toddler... Bee, what domestic goddess-like lunch did you rustle up in preparation for a parental visit?

Thanks for this new space, and welcome.

Mine would be too if not for 'creative' teenagers (I thought boys were supposed to be the messy ones??).

Nice job on the thread intro Coffee, thank you. Glad you ladies visited my blog. I user to wonder why people made blogs, thinking they were a bit self-indulgent (the blog, not neccrssarily the people), but now realise they're a great way of keeping family/friends up to date with things. Shame you couldn't post on it Bee - would have been lovely to see a comment from you. I love the word 'enchant' - such a pretty word. As to my girls looking like teens - I know what you mean. It's the younger one that I have to keep a tight rein on (the one with the two-tone hair). And yes, how was lunch?

All the best to everyone who is, and who may yet to become, part if this thread xxxx

Hello Ladies

Hope everone had a good weekend and thanks for starting the new thread coffee. I was going to post yesterday with nice positive vibes for the ladies that had anniversaries, hoping that they were - in the context of being awful, not too bad - and then say that I was doing OK at the moment but had a horrid day today. I had a bit of driving to do and (unhelpfully) I keep playing a movie like montage of the run up to finding out the news, what I was wearing, the happiness when the scan was OK, then the slight nervousness at having to wait so long to see the counseller for the combine results and then everything that happended after that. I wish it was a movie that I could stop but I can't and on the one had it seems SO real and vivid and raw and on the other its like a surreal experience that happended to someone else. Did I really feel so happy at 12 weeks? Did I really lie in the hospital with 8 blankets on me as I couldn't stop shaking? I also look back to when I was unhappy after the ectopic pregnancy and surgery and wistfully realise that I would love to be that level of unhappy now as compared to this it was training wheels. But tomorrow is another day.

And as I am fundamentally quite nosey fascinated by people and real estate, Mishtabel could you point me in the right direction of your blog?? Then at least I would have something to read tomorrow, even it turns out to be shit. I did a year of bits and bobs of writing for crappy publications when I left university before I simultaneously ran out of money and realised I wasn't all that good at it but love love reading other people's stuff!

Hope everyone is having a better day and Drama, I hope that you aren't too disappointed by your AF arrival. I also agree that you sounds SO sunny and exhuberant in many of your posts. You make me smile and these days every smile counts!

Love to all and hi to Bee who sounds like a wonderful soothing voice; I can imagine many a storm calmed by her wise words.

Best
xx

Hello Scrum, I think yesterday has been pretty similar for both of us. I was actually ok until the evening, when it hit me, all of a sudden. My current non-pregnant state. The sunny weather ? I was so happy about having a June baby, I was imagining all this sun and warmth and me with a tiny baby in my arms, overwhelmed with happiness. I also had flashbacks of that day when we were given the bad news, and then of the following days and the birth, and then the homecoming without our baby. What I remember very vividly is the the day when we had the scan, the way the professor turned to us and say ?I?m sorry guys, but there is something wrong with the baby?s brain?. Those words which changed our life forever. And then he explained very briefly what he meant, and we asked ?so where do we go from here?? Still hoping for a miracle, for him to say that there might be a chance, that there is still time for things to get better. But he said instead that if I choose to continue with the pregnancy, they will give me all the support they can, but if not we have the option to terminate. I am still shaking remembering this. The word ?termination? kicked me so hard, I felt there was no air in the room. Termination? Surely it can?t be so bad. I shudder at the thought of the utter despair, the helplessness which invaded me in just a a split second. In the tube and then the train, on the way home, I remember staring at people but not seeing anything.

It still hits me sometimes, the disbelief that this could happen. How could it? What went so terribly wrong? June is the month when we should have had our baby, our first baby. The baby which I had just started to feel moving and hiccuping, and who was making me smile just by being there, in my womb. There are times when I still can?t get my head around all this.

I am sorry if I?m making you sad by posting this. I know all of you have been through the same and understand. I am trying hard to remember, when such days come along, that my baby was very poorly and I really do think we made the more humane choice. My suffering now is irrelevant, if that?s what I have to go through in order for her to be spared. The other life, the one we could have had, is just this ? a road we did not take, a life which continued, after we lost Silvia, only in our minds. It?s not a projection of what would have really happened. And I?m trying to find comfort in the thought that my memories of how it all ended are so painful, but it would have been a thousand times more painful to remember her as a very poorly baby, with no quality of life.

pops head round the door Oooooo look at all the space! Well done Coffee i'm glad twas you who began this one you were the 1st (if not one of the 1st) to offer me your love and support so i'm hoping you'll bring me luck!
Thanks scrummy i am ridiculously upbeat...i can't help it i took monty pythons advice long ago and always look on the bright side of life (and i always expect the spanish inquisition too!) I'm not too disapointed by my AF turning up at least i know my cycle is running like clockwork which makes it much easier when ttc; on which note ladies i have ov tests pg tests and a couple of first response tests...just in case i get impatient! lol, Anyone got any good conception advice? i'm till worried that my body isn't ready yet but i've had 2 'oil changes' now a midwife friend of mine and my consultant both said it's good to have at least 1 so i should be good to go if i do get pg; i'm so ready for this now, Ladies who have gone on to have baby's how long roughly did it take u to conceive? if u don't mind me asking. Oh and bee i don't know anyone who doesn't do that! u should have seen me before the mil came to stay poor henry the hoover looked knackered for weeks! lol
Anyway welcome to all old and new lets hope this thread is indeed a healing and lucky one for all. DM XxXxXxXxXx

hello everyone, I've made it on to the new thread and hidden the one I duplicated. Am going to reward myself with a hot long shower after three days of pretending I like camping. xx.

Hi everyone,

Scrum, I always found driving time hard, giving me time to myself to go over eveything again and again. I'm sorry today was bad for you and would love to be a welcome distraction for you tomorrow. First I thought you meant you'd like to read it even if my blog turned out to be shit, and I laughed and thought - yeah it's pretty crappy, at least you're not expecting much. Then I thought - oh, maybe you meant if your day turned out to be shitty. Either way, there's not much to my blog, just a few photos and stuff. At least you'll be able to put a face to the name. I'd much rather be building where you are on the northern beaches, but suffice to say I could never afford it Anyway, blog is jenandmicksjoint.blogspot.com. I hope tomorrow is better for you. - and also for you, Coffee xx

Drama, it took me about a year to conceive Bella, but that was because DH was usually hundreds of km's away at ovulation time, only being home every 1-2 weekends. I was amazed I fell pregnant at all really. Good luck for next month xx

Mmet, the night you described sounds very special and should make for some lovely memories. Can you copy and paste your intro that you did before, as Coffee suggested? Too lovely to waste xx

Love to everyone else xxx

ooh red face, of COURSE I meant if my DAY was shit!! having re-read my post though, quite funny double interpretation if I meant to be the queen of putdowns. If only I had managed to be so inadvertantly offensive when I was trying to find the perfect put down in my old corporate life!!

Looking forward to reading. And now I am smiling properly so not a bad end to a shit day xx

Hello, this was written for the start of thread six, but now is written for the first page of the new thread, either way, Mish and Coffee have asked I repost, so who am I to say no?

This is a thread for all of the lovely women who are going through the difficult process of bad news to acceptance.

The idea is it's a place to go when your friends, family and partners know what you're going to say, but you want to say it all again. Or it's somewhere where you can reveal the most devastating, bleak thoughts to people who will understand. It's a comforting, friendly place to go when your view of your own life, and your most cherished plans are suddenly shattered, and it's a place where your grief will be somehow lightened by the stories of people you've never even met.

The journey's not linear, you can move forward to a week only to find yourself seemingly back at the beginning but you're not really, you are getting through it, the days are getting imperceptibly lighter. It's not about forgetting it's about remembering without too much pain.

xx

Coffee, thanks for the new thread. Reading yours and Scrums post, which I could have posted myself, knowing people out there know how it is to be in this moment, I feel lightened just being here.

It has been a weekend of almost 2 opposing halves. Tidying the kitchen while my husband had a nap sparked something deep in me and I sat on the floor and wept, crying out Lilly and Rose?s names between sobs. Much like driving for Scrum and Mishtabel and Coffee yesterday, the pain woke in me and I had to go with it. I?m also having some alarming dreams. I dream about the girl?s birth, only it?s different and not the loving, warm occasion it was. There are strangers pointing at Rose and Lilly making awful comments about their stillness. I can?t protect her from their words and I feel like I?m letting my daughters down. Later on we were sat in the garden and were lucky to see 2 Robin chicks take their first flight with their parents watching. Such a beautiful thing to witness and it gave me something nice to think about for the rest of the day and for days to come.

MMt, I?ve caught up with your weekend at hey on the last thread, sounds like a lovely time and a fitting way to remember. Thank you for the words too, lovely.

Drama, you sound ready and I wish you all the best with this month.

Cant and bee, hi and hi too all else.

Evening again... Allways, I got emotional reading about you and your dh in the garden watching the little chicks flying for the first time. There is still so much beauty in this world, although it sounds corny it's so true.

As for the dreams, although they are unpleasant, try to think of them as just that:dreams. They don't mean anything at all, having them doesn't mean you let your babies down. Words in a dream mean nothing in the face of your love for Rose and Lily.

I seem to be having a few bad days actually. I am very tearful, on the verge all the time. What gets to me is the lack of meaning in my life, the way I live from day to day and am happy and frustrated at the same time when a day ends. The fearful person I've become, convinced that things will get worse, even if so far this horrible episode of my life seems to have been a one-off, I've had a blessed life so far. But better days have to come, eventually...isn't it?

On a lighter note, reading about Mishta's shitty blog made me laugh on such a bad day. I can actually imagine Mishta reading Scrum's post and getting to the bit about the blog...just brilliant! Scrum, I don't think you were offensive, by the way, it was obviously unintentional.

Hehehe - was v.funny . Scrum, even if you had have been referring to the blog, I wouldn't have been offended - I just thought you were a real 'straight- shooter' type. I actually have a friend that would say something like that without realising, and it's one of the things I love about her - she cracks me up (though it often gets her in trouble with those who don't know how to take her). Still makes me giggle and I'm glad yours and Coffee's day was brightened a teeny bit Hope you both have a good day today (or had Scrum - keep forgetting you're on my time).

Allways, I feel for you with your bad dreams. I've had some doozies over the years, but then there have also been some really nice ones that have really uplifted me, so I'm wishing you one of those. Speaking of dreams, one night a couple of weeks back I woke with the song 'Somewhere over the rainbow' in my head - it had been in my dream but I couldn't remember what I had been dreaming, though it made me think of you and Coffee and your girls. The thing with the robins sounds really sweet and I'm glad you got to witness it with your hubby.

Well, must go cook tea. Love to all xxx

Mishta, that our babies have been in your thoughts, thousands of miles away, is so touching. I remember what Bee was saying a while ago, that our babies seem to have a life of their own in here, it is so true. xxxx

Hello lovely ladies
Yes it does feel that way doesn't it dear Coffeecup? I feel as if I know Sylvia and Rose and Lily's stories in a way that is very precious and vital.
It is different for those of us whose pregnancies ended in a surgical way. There is less of a tribute to them but still a comforting recognition of the loss. When I think of your lost babies, I can almost see a tiny headstone and a name and flowers somehow. A short, tiny life not lived but a life nonetheless.
The grief and shock and despair on the thread is so palpable and so necessary and dreadful and part of the whole process of getting through it. The nightmares that leave you drained, the sudden sobbing, the overwhelming loss must be the soul's way of processing such grief.
I can remember feeling as if I would snap, break, crumble. Lights too bright, words too loud and harsh, everything just TOO. With time, with weeks and months it eases. And that too can bring its' own discomfort as I remember feeling disconnected from my babies. I am much further down the path of recovery than you newer ladies and my situation is different. But I hang on to the thread as am not quite ready to leave it all behind me and hopefully to offer some reassurance that the sun will shine again for you.
It is astonishing what the human spirit can endure. And somehow through it all, there will be some new knowledge and sense of what is worthy in the world; the bond between you and your lovely men.
Hard days, painful days.
You are all doin so well at holding each other up and together. Well done to us.
Bee xxxxx

Dearest Peanuthead too
I am not sure if you are reading my love but I wanted to send you a hug and a squeeze and a hand hold.
One hour at a time; just one hour at a time.
Bee xxx

Hang on, dearest Bee, it?s lovely to have you here with us. I think one of the strengths of this thread is that each one of us is at a different stage, and our personal circumstances are so different, yet we have so much in common. The way our lives have been shaped by this experience, the way we are trying to make sense of it all, or to accept that there isn?t any sense to make maybe, I don?t know.

Words fail me tonight, even if my feelings are very intense and I would like to express them. I just feel a desperate need to hope. My hope is fragile, but the need to hope is overwhelming, brutal even. Not sure I?m making any sense at all. I miss light and colours and settling on the sofa with a good book and a cup of coffee. I miss being able to forget myself, to lose myself into something and not be aware of what is going on inside me.

Anyway, I?m rambling. I hope the evening is gentle with you ladies. And of course Peanuthead, thinking of you. I wish I could find something better to say xxxx

Hi Bee
Not even been lurking - the last few days have been hell, this is nothing like last time. I never really understood where you were coming from re not wanting to get pg again - I just thought surely you would keep on til it worked. Sadly I now know exactly where you are and can't believe my naivity. To go through this twice is hell on earth - once is a mistake, twice feels like a curse. And I know Can't and Lins went through it twice and went on to have healthy babies but I'm not sure I have the strength.

Apologies to everyone else - I have just miscarried a boy at 18 weeks having previously (in Sept)n terminated a boy at 17 weeks for a fatal cardiac abnormality. I then got pg with donor eggs and was so terrrfied through the first trimester I could hardly bear to read on here - it was when Coffee and Allways grief was so raw and it felt too much to read while pg and having "got over" my grief just reminded me how awful it is to lose a baby. SO I have a vague idea of your stories and what has been happening, I know Allways you also have fertilty problems but I don't really know alot about the rest of you having avoided the thread.

So, here I am again - my plug went and my cervix opened and then I had to be induced and it was exactly the same as last time. Same duration of labour - 45 mins, same gender, same time of birth, they even brought the baby in in the same moses basket thing with the same blanket. The babies will go into teh same grave, same minister, same lovely lady at the mortuary. SAme same same.

I do feel cursed. My mother had 5 trisomy miscarriages, all boys and went on to adopt (i'm natural) and I feel like it's been handed down the generations. AS does she. It's unbelievable bad luck. They don't know why - some say becuase I had a UTI (and I did ,had had it for weeks but was very low level and had no idea it was important) Some say an incompetent cervix but I carried my daughter to term no problem, in fact well over term.

Part of me also thinks I forced my body into a pregnancy before it was ready - we had treatment 3 cycles after we lost Ben and it wasn't a natural conception and I'm 41 and maybe my body was just saying no.

So all over again only this time I can't bury myself in another pregnancy - I can't put myself DD and DH through the hell of my morning sickness or the stress that would be the second trimester. Or another loss which would finish me off entirely. Yet I can't let my gorgeous DD be an only child and I'm desperate for another one.

When she was newborn I used to sit with her and feel waves of panic that i would never have another child and I wonder if I knew it then and I'm just banging my head against a wall by trying again.

Anyway I suppose at least I am now able to post - have been howling for 4 days straight and thought I was going mad; it wasn't like this last time, this is truly scarey.

I'm not a great poster and feel bad for being here as I'm not good at responding to others in their dark moments. Or at following what's going on with everyone. But thank you for listening - once again.

Oh Peanut - never ever apologise for letting it out here. I too would be sobbing endlessly if I had endured what you have endured. It must feel like a curse; I can see that. And you have been on the rockiest of journeys, truly you have. It is wrong and unfair and devastating. Your hope was keeping you alive and I just cannot imagine what it must feel like to give birth again and to have lost him. It is surreal in every sense of the word.
And so much of recovery is about hope. As lovely Coffee expressed today and losing hope is a double blow. How to get through this with no hope? Firstly I would want to treat you like a wounded soldier, which is what you are. You need looking after honey, softness, dinners cooked and someone to look after you and dear little girl. Who can do this> Your mum maybe? Your husband? Can you allow yourself somewhere in your deepest darkest mind, a teeny bit of hope? I do still. Despite everything, despite having a coil in even, I still allow myself some little miracle of hope. It is too brutal without it.
The human condition requires it and, guess what, miracles do indeed happen. Shangrila had a baby aged 43 after countless terrible losses. Maybe try and imagine some hope; after all, as I tell myself, if you are having egg donation, it is not your age that matters. So there is some hope that you could carry a baby still and be monitored weekly for infection, or cervix issues. But I can also see and I know myself that there really is only so much that can be endured before self destruction becomes the name of the game. And your wee girl needs you. And you want to love and enjoy these precious years. Oh Peanut. What a bloody nightmare.
I hope you are resting; I hope there is some solace to be found somewhere. Cry, rant, rage here. We will help you as much as we can.
with love
Bee xxx

Peanut, I really wish I could find some useful words, but to be honest I can?t. I just wanted to say, again, how sorry I am that you are going through this again, I can?t even begin to imagine how awful it is. Maybe the ladies who have so sadly been through this more than once ? Bee, Cantdo,Lins, Shangrila or Popsy ? will be able to help more.

It?s horrible not to have answers. It?s natural to feel cursed. For some unknown reason, this seems to happen more than once sometimes. But as you say, it?s good you can now come here and write it all down. Is there any way you can have some counselling as well? I have no idea how else to get through this otherwise, it?s a trauma.

We are here to listen, and don?t worry about not being able to respond to others. Try and be gentle with yourself, one way or the other you are getting through the days and coping. Much love xxxx

Oh Peanut - I think you SHOULD howl, you should cry and rant and rage. It is so unfair. If you were to try and keep this inside it would only be putting the moment off; it is something that must be expressed. And don't feel bad for posting when you've not been on the thread - I know that it was a fragile, scary time for you before. I think as others say, you just have to take it a day at a time. You have endured something that very few others have, there is no 'right way' to process such grief. But I do think it helps to let it out, whether yourself in tears and rage or to us or others in RL. If you can share how you feel, I think it helps you let go a bit more.

I would like to write more, but we're running late and DS needs to go to bed... but just to say that my thoughts and love are with you. xx

Peanut, big hugs from here too. It is crap and unfair. And I agree: once feels random; twice feels like a curse/feels as though it is a pattern that cannot be escaped.

Except of course it can. That isnt the issue. The issue is how you can move forward best for you and your little girl; what will be right for you. I knew, the second time, that I would try again - it sustained me even the night after my baby had been stillborn. I so much agree about hope. But I also get how all this puts our lives on hold, which is okay for us but is so wrong for our existing children. I think Bezzy is struggling with similar issues, by the way - not sure if she is around - and Bee has been too. FWIW, I vowed my obsession wouldn't affect my daughter. I am sure, in retrospect, that it did. All part of the guilt we carry around with us... which is partly why it's so hard...

You dont need to decide yet. It's too early for hope, maybe? I don't know. I agree with Bee and Coffee though about comfort, and maybe cocooning yourself off, shielding yourself a bit, with your DD.

I don't know what more to say, other than big hugs.

Coffee, same to you - thinking of you, too, and Bee. Got to sleep now but just wanted to send that connection, and remember how generous you two both are in your responses to others, even in difficult times for yourselves.

Hi everyone, I have been quiet but lurking. I just wanted to send my love to Peanut. I have no words but I am thinking of you. much love xxx