Angels and Rainbows - remembering our angels and praying for rainbows

Brilliant Kayleigh . X

Kayleigh!!! That's brilliant news. Am pleased as punch for you. Hoping for a smooth ride for Ben's little brother or sister.

Vicky I love panto (autocorrect wanted to change that to 'pants' ) sometimes a little silliness and distraction is just the ticket for a broken heart. Carols sound lovely.

Madem it's been a shitter of a year and I just hope that 2015 will be better. Really hope you're being lovingly and gently looked after. The aftermath of a mc after a loss really is the pits. Sending love.

Missalex I have been thinking of your baby girl all day. Sending peace and light to your little family, J and A, linked together through time and space.

Cake I forget sometimes how recent and fresh your loss is - you write so eloquently but your pain must be so vivid. I look back and you could not pay me all the money in the world to go through those awful first months again. They are so vivid and so painful. You must still be reeling from it. Hope you're getting lots of support from family this Christmas. It is a bloody hard time of year when someone so precious is missing. Also, I thought of you the other day when watching a GBBO episode on iplayer and felt inspired to do a little baking. Xx

Thinking of you missa

Kayleigh!!! Gentle congratulations, so so pleased for you.

Wishing everybody a peaceful Christmas tomorrow and thinking of all our angel babies x

madem i'm not at all shocked to hear the mc has left you exhausted, and i'm glad you've been able to have a bit of time and space to yourself, i hope that has helped a little.

AFM well i did a first response test this afternoon and got a BFP! Going to do another first response in the morning with fmu to confirm though. I'm in a bit of shock i think as i really hadn't given ttc much thought this month what with school plays, choir concerts, birthdays and Christmas.

I'll be thinking of all of you wonderful ladies, and of course our angels, and i truly hope that the festive period is gentle to you all. Lots of love xx

Just popping in to wish you all as merry a Christmas as possible, I won't be able to log on tomorrow but just wanted to say I'll be thinking of you all and your angels tomorrow. Wishing you all so so much luck in your ttc quests for 2015 and for better years ahead. I'm hoping that I'll get the all clear to ttc again and will be able to pluck up the courage too.

It's 8 weeks today since we lost W, feels like a lifetime. I'm determined to be as upbeat as I can over Christmas for my dd's sake but I will have a quiet moment to myself tomorrow and shed a tear for our beautiful boy.

Lots of love to you all x

Sorry I haven't updated much either! Have been trying to keep up when I'm up at all hours feeding ds

Am thinking of you today missa x

Fingers crossed for you Kayleigh, what a lovely Christmas present that would be

Hugs to you madem, you have had a tough year x

Visited dd's grave today and took ds for the first time.

Waves to everyone, hope everyone is as ok as can be x

And of course a gentle and loving hug to you and your family MissA xx

Thinking of you all and crossing my fingers for you kayleigh. Report back soon!

I've had to admit defeat to my family today and let them manage all things festive as I'm just mentally and physically exhausted by the mc. I just hope the old wives tales about increased fertility etc post mc are true. Just having a little cry about this bummer of a year before I put my brave face back on and go to church.

Lots of love to you all xx

Sorry for not keeping up, but I'm thinking of you MissA. Love and floaty kisses to A xxx

Just logging in to say I'm thinking of you today missalex and wishing you & dh a gentle day, with lots of smiles from J to help you through xx

Sorry to be brief but also thinking of all on this thread, even though I'm out of touch with all that's happening at the moment x

Sorry I haven't been reading guys, I'm not in the UK at the moment.

Wanted to say I'm thinking of you missa, hope you are having a peaceful day.

Happy Christmas to all you angel mums. I do hope you are able to get through the festivities, I will be raising a glass to all on this thread tomorrow.

kayleigh I'm sitting here quietly with my fingers crossed for you. report back when you have time x x

Thank you vicky. Your idea of going to the carols at the church sounds lovely.

AFM quick update- curiosity got the better of me at 5am this morning when i awoke needing to wee and still no sign of AF. Did a test and got a faint BFP so off to the chemist soon to ransack them of tests just to make sure.

Love to all xx

Oh dear Bhangra should read Birmingham x

kayleigh sorry to hear about your great auntie

town I cried at the nativity play on this morning the other day. I'm blaming it on left over pregnancy hormones, there is no way I'd cry at stuff like that normally! I'm glad you are getting positive times x don't be too hard on yourself over visiting G grave. She is in your thoughts and hearts, as she always will be x

Anna I really hope yesterday went as well as it could for you both and hat you were kind to yourself and each other x

AFM we want to see the pantomime at Bhangra hippodrome yesterday, it was brilliant! For those of you who live close enough I would suggest going, I'm far from a panto fan but it was bloody brilliant and genuinely made me laugh and forget about everything else.
I'm not a church goer in the slightest, normally I would say atheist to be honest, however since having E I have mellowed a little. There is a beautiful church down the road from where we live and I am thinking of taking my son to christmas eve carols there later, might make it a bit of a tradition, go and say a little prayer or something to E, we will see though.

town as far as we can tell Brian isn't in any pain at the moment- in fact while i was wincing at the ways the physio was manipulating his joints Brian was laughing his head off! The physio is going to be keeping a close eye on him and is going to speak to Brian's main peadiatrician to request a hip x-ray so they can see what's going on in there.
You're so right, there's nothing wrong with a cry sometimes.

MissA sending you lots of love for tomorrow

AFM a bit of an emotional day for me. AF is due today and as of yet hasn't appeared (it's 11:00pm where i am right now), but i'm refusing to think about hoping for a BFP as we've had the very upsetting news that my great autie passed away this afternoon . I'm just glad DH is off work for the Xmas period as he'll be able to hold me up while i'm trying to hold my grandma and mum up.

Love to all xx

Kayleigh, that physio appointment does not sound like fun, poor Brian. I hope he's not in too much pain. Is there anything they can do for him other than wait and see? And that's so beautiful that Jessie made Ben a Christmas card.

Tahunny, I definitely think that the baby clinic is a dumb place for berevement counselling. Sounds like you didn't really want it anyway? I've not had any myself, partly because I tried it a few years ago for something else, and the counseller just wound me up. I know it can really help if you get the right person though, Cake it sounds like you've hit the jackpot with yours.

Vicky, I'm so glad you're feeling positive. In general, I am too, although still punctuated with waves of sadness sometimes, only when I'm on my own though. When I'm around other people, I generally feel normal, and it is a nice feeling. Anna it sounds like you will get a similar feeling when you go back to work, especially with nice coworker like yours. The Gingerbread house sounds lovely.

Speaking of waves of sadness, I'm on my own tonight as DP has gone to FIL's house for the Christmas runup, and I've got to work tomorrow so I'm still at home. Found myself crying at 'The Borrowers'. Crazy. I enjoyed the film though! No harm in a little cry sometimes.
We went to G's grave on Sunday, and it was very bleak and a bit sad looking. Her headstone isn't up yet, and we've got lots of flowers in pots but they are not exactly colourful this time of year. I stupidly went and looked at the other baby graves and saw all the christmas decorations, then kicked myself as it hadn't occurred to me to get one for G.

Hope you all find some normal moments this Christmas, and some quiet moments to reflect on your angels. x

Thanks critter all the medical people with Brian are amazing, and his reception teacher (who happens to be the school's senco) is very supportive which is lovely.

Thank you cake for sharing your experience with me. Brian didn't walk until he was 3 due to the hypermobility, and since the diagnosis it just seems to have gone from bad to worse, especially now it's affecting joints that weren't affected 18 months ago. The best bit of all is i worry myself daft about him and he couldn't care less- he just gets on with everything bless him.

anna thank you for the belated wish. Well done for getting through the party, it's so nice to hear you've got extremely supportive colleagues. I too will be thinking of you tomorrow.

AFM i'm currently wading through the present wrapping- which is a slight nightmare seeing as the kids are on school holidays so it's slightly like a stealth mission. Jessie had made a Christmas card at school and when she brought it home i wondered why it was laminated- that was until i looked inside. She's done the card for Ben, so on Saturday we took it up to the grave and tied it around his name plate, and i've told Jessie that after Christmas we'll bring it home and put it in the memory box.

Love to all xx

anna well done on getting over that particular hurdle, it's great your colleagues have been so supportive. Will be thinking of you tomorrow xxx

Hi everyone,

Madem, how are you holding up? I'm thinking about you and sending love.

Vicky, it is bringing me so much hope to hear you say you are feeling positive. I'm having some moments of happiness here and there and I'm trying to let myself enjoy those moments. My parents are with us for the holidays and when we went out for some drinks yesterday I actually felt almost happy.

Kayleigh, happy belated. I'm thinking of you and Brian.

I went to the party. Some of my coworkers that I've seen already since we lost our son kindly went with me to a little bar close to the Christmas Party venue before it started to have a drink and talk. By the time I got to the little bar to meet them my hands were sweating for the first time in my life and I really thought I needed to throw up. From there it was easy! I was so surprised. Everyone were so loving and sweet and gave me hugs and told me how much they'd missed me at work. I feel fortunate to say the least to have such compassion around me, returning to work definitely doesn't feel like such a massive task anymore.

Tomorrow will be our sons special Christmas day. We will go for a walk at a beautiful cemetery close-by and when we get home we will make him a little gingerbread house. We have a lovely urn that we will move his ashes into and hopefully I will find some pretty fresh flowers for him too.

Lots of love to everyone.

Xa

kayleigh I'm sorry to hear about Brian, that must be incredibly stressful for you and do hope you're getting good care. I had a similar experience with my dd who was born with a severe case of hip dyspraxia, not quite the same as Brian but it was something that dominated her early months, she was in a rigid hip harness and had a lot of physio. She was also headed for surgery if things didn't improve. I just wanted to say that she's just officially been discharged from orthopaedic reviews as her hips are now just fine, so things can go really well, little people are amazingly responsive to physio etc so I am keeping everything crossed for a positive outcome for Brian xx

tahunny thank you, I'm still waiting an obstetric consultant appointment but my GP chased it and they promised I would get a date early in the new year. My lovely gp is making it her personal mission to hound them about it! We have a neonatal consultant review on 9th jan so I'm pleased to have that date. Strange how the nhs isn't joined up though as it would make a lot more sense to see neonatal and obstetrics together. We had another session with psychologist last week which my dh and I are finding really helpful - we are lucky to have access to the senior clinical psychologist at our hospital who specialises in neonatal / parents of sick children. She is really fantastic and for me a little more useful that a standard counsellor - I know there are some good ones out there but there is something very reassuring about seeing a qualified medical professional who can tell us if we are turning into total basket cases or not! Each to their own, it's not for everyone but I'm glad we gave it a go as it is helping and we can keep seeing her as long as we like.

Waves and hugs to everyone else xx

Hi ladies, sorry for not name checking in advance but just saw mademoiselle's news. Honey I am so sorry. I agree a mc is nothing like our later losses but for me it really plunged me into despair and darkness after the initial self protective robotic shock mode wore off and I just wanted to say we are here for you. It compounds your grief for G and is just awful. Sending you love. So sorry this has happened.

Kayleigh how worrying about Brian, hope he is getting good care. Poor you.

Love to everyone else, will post more later, have gotten very behind. Missalex I will be thinking of precious A and sending up a prayer for her on Christmas Eve.

Sorry to hear about mc madam. I was certain this was your month. If it helps, I read somewhere that you are more fertile in the first few months after a mc, so fingers crossed for 2015.

Cake, did they give any indication of when your consultation would be? They told me at the hospital on the day I gave birth that I would see consultant in around 6 weeks, as they would have to wait for blood results and placenta results to come back. By the time I got a letter off them and a date, it had been 12 weeks. I refused pm. There was a true knot in the cord, so they said this was likely to be the cause. I got the whole just bad luck spiel with how rare it happens. But 3 months after, a friend lost her baby at 35weeks too. Week 35 seems to be the unluckiest week. I am 1 of 3 people ithis happened to that I know of so far.

Afterwards, I felt hounded by the mw team to have councilling. Even the mw when I became pregnant again started on it. Every other week she would casually drop it in. They couldnt understand why I didnt wNt to attend these sessions when they were on at the baby clinic of all places. Does anyone else think its a stupid place to have them?

This christmas im having mixed feelings about. Im happy its babys first and older dd gets to share it with a sister for the first time. The other part of me is sad that our angel is missing it for a second time.

as strange as it sounds, I like to think she visits us, because the baby will stare over my shoulder sometimes and start laughing at nothing.

Hoping everyone has a better next year. Wishing everyone ttc a bfp for 2015

MademG, sorry to hear about your MC, I hope you are doing ok. I miscarried the month before this pregnancy. Hope this gives you a little bit of hope. X

Sorry not to namecheck, bit of a quick post. Brian was diagnosed with Joint Hypermobility Syndrome in 2012. In June 2013 we found out his ankles, knees, wrists and fingers were affected (we were first told it was just his ankles affected). We had a physiotherapy review appointment yesterday and the physiotherapist has told us Brian now has hypermobility in most of his joints. His hips are very badly affected (i felt sick when the physio showed us just how far she could manipulate his hip joints), so the upshot is that if he's still as unstable or if it's causing him pain by the time he's 7 they'll be operating on him

Love to all xx