support thread for women who have chosen to terminate II

[brightonbaby]

Erm, trying to create a new thread for us, ladies. Not sure if I've succeeded...

Murray won! just. Can't see him going much further now if it took that much effort this early on. Federer would have demolished him. And yes, the girlfriend is most incongruous...

OK, I've never made banana cake (think I've been too busy trying out variations of chocolate cake!) - what is a good recipe, please? Preferably one without nuts (a recce round my books suggests they all have nuts...) for DD who is a banana fiend.

BrightonBaby, your period'll come. I think my first cycle after my first loss was anovulatory - no signs of PMT at all, and the blood took me entirely by surprise - that might happen to you too, so beware. I am in the waiting game too now albeit a week behind you.

Bezzy, forgot to answer about the teenager. Hmm. I would be tempted to say 'no' on grounds of being hopefully pregnant, but maybe BusierBee is right - and she might be a godsend. Or a distraction. Go by instinct, though. And SA sounds like a plan anyway!

I think I probably am one of the long term committed already. I am getting so much strength from you lot. Actually I think we are good - this sort of thread could so easily be a moanfest where we drag each other down, instead of which it is uplifting. So hurrah for you lot. And anyone else who is reading silently.

Daftbat, how're you doing?

And Eulalia, living it up on holiday...

Morning all....I'm terrible, have been swilling down far too much vino....I'll blame Murray, if that blasted game hadn't been so long, I wouldn't have drunk so much. Actually woke up with a bit of a headache this morn. Not good. Bad BK.

Have responded to said teen asking if she was going to work and explaining that our lives aren't very glamourous these days. She remembers us from when we lived in SA, and that was 9 years ago, I was 22 and had a fantastic existence (beach, pub, club, beach, pub, club) so don't want her pitching up, thinking that's what we'll be up to here! Hope she doesn't think I'm putting her off, just want her to be prepared and under no false pretences.

I'm not into the baking thing so much. Am essentially greedy by nature, and the last time I made muffins, I ended up eating all 10 by myself in 2 days. Not good for waistline.

Thanks for the support BB, I know I always get excited when I see that you've posted.

Must be mad, gave DD strawberries with her brekkie and now she's needing a new set of clothes already. ggrrr

Love to everyone xx

Bad bad bad bad Murray giving Bezzy a sore head! was it white or red wine?

Well done on warning the 18 year old. That makes it a bit clearer to her - if she wants to help bath DD, or read stories, or go to soft play, this is a good place to come; if she wants to party till dawn - not such a good idea.

Though wine is pretty much always a good idea.

Thanks Can?tdo for mentioning me again ? has finally prompted me into posting! Been lurking since we got back from hols three weeks ago ? have been feeling like BrightonBaby after hers ? after fairly escapist time away, the days since then have been harder. Before, we were just counting down the days to the holiday and that helped get us through. Now, it?s back to reality, working out how to live with everything longer term, and starting to catch up with friends (three more pregnancies in the last three weeks, including one girl at work whose tummy I now have to watch expand on a daily basis.)

Like BrightonBaby, it was our first pregnancy and I?m equally hungry to get pregnant again. I just feel empty, like a part of me is missing. Our decision to start trying late last year was mainly practical rather than emotional ? we?d been married nearly three years, I was about to turn 33, it seemed like the right thing to do, rather than because I was terribly broody (actually, DH was far broodier than me!). Even now, it?s being pregnant I really yearn for, rather than an actual baby (which I?ve never had to miss) if that makes sense.

We?re theoretically already trying again ? theoretically as while I had something like a period four weeks after the termination,my cycle hasn't felt back to normal. But am back on the folic acid and am even hoping against hope that something might happen this month, though realistically it?s virtually impossible! Good luck to those thinking about trying again, I know how emotionally exhausting it is.

Anyway, must stop rambling! Am v impressed by all the baking that?s been going on. I?ve managed to become a halfway ok cook from pretty hopeless beginnings, but learning to make cakes is still on my ?to do? list. I?ve also been avidly watching Wimbledon. I usually get home around 7pm, so last night?s Murray match was perfect timing for me! Though it did result in drinking lots of wine to cope with the stress?.

Love to all, and am especially thinking of PelvicFlawed who might be out there reading this. Kate xxx

Bezz and Cantdo - I just love how you two are ALWAYS here! Is fabby. Yes have a super banana bread recipe Cando - will dig it out. (wait for it - we will be inundated with everyone's favourite one now!)
It is from a book an aquaintance of mine compiled in fact - after her wee beautiful daughter tragically and unexpectedly died at around 18 months. She was called Daisy. I make it often and every time I read the notes from her mummy I cry.
What a scorcher it is - had insomnia til 3.30 in the morning following a bout of ..... unprotected shenanigans .. not the right time of the month but nonetheless. Opens up the potential for more heartache just when am finally feeling bit recovered.
Bezz - I love reading your posts too and i do not think you unkind to warn the Teen that life is not all boys and booze -
Well - scrub that - as quite alot of booze. You tell it how it is Bezz and that is invaluable.
Off to do all the admin and work emails i have missed whilst away and housework and food shopping and on and on it goes.
Is little Bezz in an adorable cotton summer frock?!!!
B xxxxx

Morning Gu - you know Gu is the name of very overpriced chocolate puddings?
And Katerina - well done sweetie for posting - not easy at all. None of it is easy. Sounds like you and Brighton Baby in very similar situation. Is scary, scary but like many of the women on here, you are young. You really do have age on your side.
It will be okay I just feel it - so rare to happen twice and those it has happened to are older birds like me.
Sorry PF- I did not mean that you are old - I am nearly 42 and you are three years younger lovie and this all makes a difference. Take heart.
Is so painful for us all. I dreamt terrible things about babies when away - a baby made from a balloon that i was carrying around, a baby drowning. So distressing -so whilst on surface am much more functional and myself - it is not very far beneath the surface. I guess the next step for me is that it will be more deeply buried.
Welcome back Kate - and hold on tight to our thread. Tis strong and delicate at same time.
hugs to you all
Big ones

Hi Katerina and GU and Busier

I am 33 too. Though at one point I pretended to be 34 to disguise myself. I also pretended my DD was older than she was. I was wishing away time - I may be mad.

Ah Busier I have Cooking with Daisy [goes off and finds it]. Did you know her mummy? I bought it when DD was the same age as her DD when she died. I love reading it. I have everything for the banana bread except plain yoghurt, will maybe pick that up this afternoon and bake the bread tonight. Tennis permitting, naturally.

Good luck with the trying, ladies. I need to wait for a period. Katerina, I was like you when I tried for DD. I was 31 then, and thought it was time to try, didn't really imagine it working (!), fell pregnant first time, wasn't taking folic acid, was taking killer painkillers for terrible tooth infection, and was woefully unprepared. And DD was a very easy pregnancy, no risks, only the usual fears. I am glad now I didn't know then what I do now - that would have been so different. But it was a false reassurance, because there was always the chance of this.

I genuinely believe you and Brightonbaby and Bezzy will get pregnant soon. I hope I will, and BB will if she wants to (can sense the ambivalence there - you want to; you can't cope with prospect of, etc).

The passes for the memorial garden for lost babies in the hospital where Stella was born dead came today. A place for us to go and remember and wail.

Busier - it will get buried, but it will always be there. My DH says each time we've lost a child we've lost a part of ourselves, an innocent part.

PS I like those overpriced Gu puddings...

He sounds like a very thoughtful man - who can put it into words well - the loss. I find it so important to find words for it. My LM -and he is lovely - finds the feeling of it and the words for the feelings very hard. I know he knows but he finds it hard to verbalise it.
I do know Daisy's mummy. God - making me cry now. I thought of her so very much when I was going through my trials. What she has endured. She has two gorgeous children - well three - but Daisy no longer with her. Terrible. Unimaginable. The mummy is very very lovely and think Daisy very close to her all the time.
You need a place to hold Stella close - I guess the garden is your cookbook to Stella.
Sweetie. So much pain and in the end banana bread not enough. But everytime I pick up her book I remember Daisy's mummy and so it is a tribute to her little, lovely life.
Yogurt needed. We will all bring a cake to our tea party when it happens.
Big kiss Cando
Busy B
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I think men struggle more with the words in general. DH has tried to join the dads' section on SANDS, but he hasn't been accepted yet (five days after asking to join). Interestingly he says that mums and grandparents have far more threads on there than dads. And it isn't that men don't post on the Internet - check out the music forums, they really do. But perhaps they struggle to post on the Internet about losing their children. Which to be fair I always thought I would do. Now I find I am a garrulous needy old bag!

I am glad you know Daisy's mum. If you see her, will you tell her that her book really revolutionized our eating with DD? DD is an unreliable eater and her recipes are fab for her and us both. Much better than (ssshhh) Annabel Karmel, that always feel artificial to me even when they're not. That book is a beautiful tribute to a little girl's life because it has brought to much to other children's lives.

Hello all, and welcome back Katerina. I hope that you're doing ok, and that reading our ramblings has proved therapeutic for you.

Mini bezz no longer in cotton frock due to strawberry fiasco at breakfast. Now in new Gap combats and t shirt.

Admittedly am here all day long, 'tis a great way to communicate with adults during the daytime too, when conversation is limited to farmyard noises and saying 'no' a LOT.

How do you feel about the passes arriving Can't? As I had a surgical termination, I didn't have any of that to deal with, so can't imagine what it must be like.

Glad it's not just me that thought of puddings every time somebody referred to GU! Am a touch obsessed with food.

I too have been having awful dreams BB, much too traumatic to write about here, but strangely enough it didn't bother me much, just made me feel somewhat 'ooh that was strange'

Capt C not back from the office last night until 12am, suspect this is his latest form of contraception!

Think you should post the banana bread recipe, am intrigued, last time I had banana bread I was about 19 and it was..errr...laced....Am going camping this weekend, just for 1 night, would be good to take some home baking, to prove that I don't sit on ass all day at home.

BK xxx

Well Cando I will tell her. Have just emailed her to explain about you mentioning her book - and that this keeps a little bit of Daisy in our hearts. I hope it is not inappropriate as do not know her well but felt moved that Daisy's life still affecting little girls and boys everywhere.
Yes - am sure someone will reply to him on Sands you know. It is a big thing to reach out and do. Golly - little Bee type thought -would it not be too fab it somehow we managed to create our own one? A tribute to all of our lost souls -where the men could join in too? But guess we would get visited by those who felt the need to pass judgement.
Not sure then.
xx

Came to chat, but baby dd2 is a grump. So can't - Bah!

Got to go now! Bye!

Oh stink.
Naughty treelette.
Join us soon lovely cherry blossom tree.
kisses

She's been a very loud sapling indeed - has been chuntering non stop. Especially if I put her down [the cheek of me].

Will be in for long chats as soon as am allowed.

Waves to all.

Hi again Busier, Cantdo, Bezzy, Tree, GU and everyone else

Reading all the messages has been therapeutic, even nearly two months down the line. Though am now sitting at my desk dreaming of GU puddings, so thanks all for that! We don't normally buy them (honest) but then my brother-in-law stayed with us for a couple of months and he bought them practically every other day. We have a shamefully high pile of the little dishes they come in lurking in a kitchen cupboard....

My DH is another one who struggles to express how he's feeling. He has a super sunny disposition, and he's always trying to be positive about everything even when he's hurting. I said to him that it's ok to cry, but he said that he can't actually cry - even when he feels awful, tears don't come. We went to our first session with the hospital-referred psychotherapist last week and he found the whole thing quite uncomfortable. Actually, so did I and we're not sure whether to persist with it, although predictably I did cry while talking to her - no crying issues my end! Am very impressed by the level of support offered on the NHS if we need it. Six initial sessions, plus six follow up sessions, then we can be referred for more if necessary and she is also available during any future pregnancy up until one year after the birth. We did get given a little fig tree just after the termination (various family members sent flowers, which I found very hard to deal with, but this seemed so much nicer), and he has been very protective of it, going to check on its progress in the garden every night when he gets back from work, so I think that might be his way of dealing with things.

My first "period" following the termination only lasted one day, so not sure that really counts, but we decided there was nothing to gain in holding off, so we shall see. K xx

Oh love - the little fig tree and him tending it is making me well up. My man very much like this - is like a foreign language for him - the world of the emotions. Just have to trust that they feel it in the core but is too much to ask them to find the words.
I also hated the flowers. I cried when they arrived and said 'I don't want any effing flowers. I want a baby'. It felt so wrong somehow which is not to say did not appreciate the thought behind it. Someone sent me a Lancome vibrating mascara and some chocolate. Much better. And a dear horticultural friend of all of us sent a dear hanging love heart. Touched me.
My docs have always said one period is enough to try again. You cuddle away.
Amazing provision from your hospital I agree. Have you thought about going alone for a session? Maybe would feel more able to let it all out without worrying for him? My Lm would not want to go to therapy. Sense if he was going to talk to anyone... it would be me.
Oh i feel very teary about you all today.
My little soldiers.
kisses
Sad Bee

The little book we had from ARC said that people might send flowers and we should mention to family etc if we didn't want them to, but we didn't really expect anyone would send them. As you said, it was a well meant gesture but felt so wrong.

Think you are right and I might try going alone in the future. We're going together again tomorrow but after that will see. I didn't feel v comfortable talking to her either, not sure if that's just because it's the first time I've ever gone to therapy and didn't know what to expect, or whether I didn't bond well with the lady herself. But feel I should give it time.

How are things with you, Busier? Are you still trying to reach a decision? Do you feel you actively need to reach one, or that a decision will eventually come to you if you let it? Or are you fed up with people asking?! Each time I've posted here I go on and on about myself and only realise afterwards that I forgot to ask about everyone else. Please know that doesn't imply I'm not thinking about you, in fact I can't believe how often I find myself thinking of everyone even when I've managed to detach myself from the internet...

Never feel you are crapping on Kate - if you look back to Bee just after both times - I was a ranting, ranting wreck. This is your time lovey and it is early days.
You will find a time to be reaching out - you already do in fact -and that i think we all feel is part of the recovery.
will tell you about me and feelings re ttc in a bit.
Must just share conversation on way home between my youngest - aged 8 - and his wee friend.
Friend 'Has G got a start chart?'
Me 'No - he's being a very good boy at home' - a matter of opinion but star charts never work for me
Friend ' I've got one. I only need two more. Then I can choose'
Me 'Ooh lucky boy - what would you like?'
Friend ' Not sure yet'.
My son (looking pensively into the middle distance,
'I wish I was as naughty as you, Killy!'

Not quite what the inventor of star charts had in mind methinks. I chuckled all the way home! That, my dears, is why I do not have a star chart system at home.

They have us sussed - these kids.

How funny - what would he be liking a star for I wonder?!!
Do not answer that - suspect Bezzy husband getting quite a few at the moment!

ha ha ha! No stars for Mr C at the moment, been working too late.

Just back from gym for swim and shower as I STILL have no bath or shower at home....