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support thread for women who have chosen to terminate IV

998 replies

bezzyk · 20/10/2009 16:33

Hello ladies old and new.

Here's hoping this thread brings better luck and much happiness.

Lots of love

BK xx

OP posts:
tackyChristmastreedelivery · 02/01/2010 15:37

Hello people. Grim sleety day in my little backwater.

Hope everyone enjoying last of the holidays. Will so miss dh when he's bacl at work.I don't see him in the am [and at 6.15 he doesn't want to see me ] and he gets home at 6pm when I'm too tired to do anythin but wonder whats for dinner. Ha! Poor bloke doesn't see the best of his family.

Sounds lovely day with dd Eulalia - in a forced captivity type of way. It's way to cod to go out here, dd went to bakers in a ski suit and on her bike, came back a shivering blue think. Brr!

VivClicquot · 02/01/2010 16:27

Happy New Year everyone x

Firstly, love and congrats to Justa and also to Katie and Lins ... what fabulous news to come home to, after my few days away in the snowy Lake District.

Bee Your post made me cry. I'd also like to raise a toast to you and to everyone else on the bench and in the cottage - you're all amazing women and I'm truly grateful to have found you.

As for me, well my new year away with my best friends was wonderful, but I can't deny that a few tears were shed on New Year's Eve. It didn't help that I should have had a 20 week scan that morning, but I think the closure of what was both the best and worst year of my life simply got too much.

Am also feeling fragile as it looks like I'm about to get AF, despite DH and I deciding to try again this month. It's the first time I've actively TTC and it NOT worked, having fell pg at the first attempt with both babies I lost, so it's a strange and hollow feeling all round.

Anyway, am off to shout at the radio as my football team are making heavy weather of an FA Cup tie against lower league opposition. Tsk.

Much love to all, Viv xxx

treedelivery · 02/01/2010 17:01

Hello Viv, lovely to hear from you. Happy shouting.

I think loads of people will be jolly glad when this season of reflection is pased, and the Jan pay cheque is in. Then we can all just get back to living, without having to ponder on previous. I sure will, and I have had nothing of massive importance happen in comparison to you all.

Good luck ttc. I've never struggled either [when I say one hit wonder I really mean one hit wonder] so I can imagine that being a head trip.

Cantdothisagain · 02/01/2010 17:18

Hi everyone

yes, the whole reflecting on the past thing is hard, hard. And Helenlouisey is right,let's try and look to the future now, whatever it may bring.

Viv - I have always conceived in first month of trying too (four times) and I don't know what getting AF in those circumstances feels like, but I do know that each time I've had a BFP I've had cramps and the feeling AF was coming...it isnt over till it's over. And you are clearly superfertile and it WILL happen soon.

Cashmere socks are pink...Still can't wear them. Boo! Oh and Kittens, I HATE nonalcoholic wine. I'd rather have grape juice. Bleugh. Drank alcohol free Cobra when pregnant the first time but that was over the summer - cold fake beer holds no appeal now.

It's so snowy here and cold. I would love to be in our cottage, chattering away by the fire.

busierbee · 02/01/2010 21:00

I just wrote the world's longest post which have been adding to over two or three hours and have lost it.
Was a real let the heart out post and am cross that it has been eaten.
Really needed to offload here.
Fudge.
Will try again in bit
Bee xxxxxxxxx

treedelivery · 02/01/2010 21:25

Pants Bee. Most annoying. Hope you are ok honey Bee.

busierbee · 02/01/2010 21:53

Okay wimin have returned for another go,

Had started by wishing that it was as snowy and frosty and wintery here in the southern realms of our thread as in the northern. It sounds super cosy and cut off from the demands of modern life at your house Eulalia and that would suit me now. Also thank you so much for offering a cyber hug. You are right, I do need it. I would appreciate it, as I am sure many of us would but am claiming your one as mine.

Many of us here have expressed the wish that the New Year brings all that we wish for. I cannot help but think to myself, if only it were that simple. I begin another year, and I try and imagine what it will bring but am so unclear and feel unable to tap into the hope and optimism about the baby part of my life at least. The loving family and home yes. The friends I have both in real life and here? Yes, all present and wonderful.
I need your cyber hugs - LM has shifted into the manly repose of rational acceptance of our past year. I feel it afresh. Partly due to the retrospective mood that a new year brings, partly the wonderful pregnancies here ( and they are wonderful).
So I turn around and around in my head; sometimes the needle sticks in the groove of acceptance that losing three babies is enough, that I am older, that I have a family. Sometimes it stops in the groove of ' let's go for an egg MOT and hormone check and see what the verdict is'. But do I want to enter that potentially traumatic, horrific world of hopes shattered, of more babies lost, of disappointment with a small glimmer of what-ifs and maybes? Do I want another year set aside for pain? Will my children suffer? Will I? Will he?
We know the answer. This is maybe how you feel Pelvicflawed and Bezzy and Mrs BG, and you have felt Cantdo and Lins and well all of us, all of us have felt some or all of it.
Othertimes I think, okay let's have one more shot of FA and natural pregnancy. But oh, how much more can I take?
Eventually I feel dizzy with it and decide to continue with the low-level anxious feelings and thoughts; on a good day there are none of course. But there is pretty much always something, somewhere to enflame the peace. A cute baby here, a pregnant lady there, mumsnet, the news. There is inevitably no answer.
The IVF route is also formidably expensive - roughly £7000 - and would be another loss, another hole in our life. I know finances are not the only reason to contemplate a child. If I thought it would work.. well I would not hesitate to find the money.
So, the new year does not bring peace, why would it of course?
Viv- thank you for your kind words and am so touched that the space we have created has brought some comfort to you. It makes it seem worth something, the journey. It brings tears to my eyes to consider that there may be souls who are suffering in silence -as many of us have in the past. Please do feel you can offload the demons of loss here whenever you feel. In the weeks and months post my terminations and miscarriage, I ranted and sobbed here like a madwoman. I was so very raw. This place has space for all of us, at all the stages of the journey, truly it does.
There can be dark times but you can rest assured that when you are too exhausted to talk in the real world, when saying it out loud is too unbearable, when you do say it out loud but nobody understands, someone here will.
Ooh just needed to get that mayhem of lack of clarity off my chest. No answers on a postcard required because there aren't any, are there?
Instinct does not even provide one.
I think that is what I find so hard, now I think of it.
Usually I follow my instinct and that feels strengthening and honest. But my instinct to make a baby has let me down.
God - getting a bit bleak, must go and engage with the two bachelors downstairs with LM, who have moved from football to learning to fly a plane, to reminiscing. I pop in now and again, top up beer, serve food, smile, contribute an inocuous and mostly inaccurate comment about said subject and then escape. Boys nights in -we would not do that in our cottage.
Bee xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

treedelivery · 02/01/2010 22:22

Have emailed you Bee x

Cottage windswept in my neck of woods. brrr.

busierbee · 02/01/2010 22:58

Thank you honey - could do with some of your wisdom here.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

treedelivery · 02/01/2010 22:59

Ha! I make no promises on that front.

busierbee · 02/01/2010 23:11

Ooh have read it and yes you can - calm, clear message that helps soothe to raw, frayed muddle.
Off for a bath and the Guardian mag to read.
Thank you dearest Treetops - I feel that there is a little treehouse in your branches for shelter from the baddies.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

treedelivery · 02/01/2010 23:34

Aw Bee, thank you for reassuring me. I'd be mortified if I got it wrong. You know?

Enjoy your bath. Off to drink the tap, had a take away and feel like have had 20g of salt. Possibly have.

Hope that little boy is nicely calm and cozy Justa.

busierbee · 02/01/2010 23:49

Back from bath - ooh so do I Justa.
A little tiny boy - what a truly lovely thing.
Hope that you are recovering and being looked after and that the two other Justaboys are adjusting or should I say adjustaing?

justaboutandhernewbaby · 03/01/2010 09:01

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justaboutandhernewbaby · 03/01/2010 09:06

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justaboutandhernewbaby · 03/01/2010 09:07

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busierbee · 03/01/2010 10:56

Hi Justa - lovely to have you up and about.
And glad to hear you have survived the journey.
Have been quietly worrying to myself this morning about Shangrila - as she did say a while back I think that she had been diagnosed with ante-natal depression; not at all surprising considering her trauma-riddled pregnancy history. If you are reading, I hope that now maternity leave is upon you things are a little more gentle.
Bee xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

treedelivery · 03/01/2010 17:48

This is off thread ladies, please accept apologies. It is about Justas experience in hospital.

Hi Justa - you need to complain, to PALS but also the head of midwifery - who matters. You also need to send a copy of the letter to your consultant. As they matter and they have the clout. You need to state you look forward to reply, and a meeting with the head of midwifery within a reasonable time scale defined by you.

I think the section was a section, some heads do need forceps and some sections are complex and it sounds like the obstetrician acted with good surgical skills. Unfortunately one cost of being awake is that we hear the communication to the assistant, scrub and gas man. Scary for you to hear, but difficult to know how to do better iyswim. If there are real tricky things going on it can be more appropriate to put the patient under for their state of mind, as well as their health. Maybe you were just on the edge of that, iyswim? You could ask for clarification, but tbh I'd keep it neat and focus on the things that are caused by humans and can be altered by humans. If that makes sense?
The postnatal care clearly had issues which you need to mull over and persue. It seems to focus on painrelief, lack of explanation, and lack of compassion.
I think they wanted you out of bed probably as an anti-embolism management thing and because generally once it gets to 12 hours, the longer spent not walking the harder it is to get going. They totally failed to act in a reasonable way to achieve this. Bitches. I'd maybe suggest in your letter that there seemed to have been no hand over of the individual case. Your individual circumstances were not given creedence. I'd also emphasise that you are able to accept some issues of communication and some waits for this and that on some level, as we are all aware of the NHS and it's challenges, but lack of compassion and basic rudeness are utterly outside the sphere of reasonableness, as is being left in pain when there were several pain relief avenues that could have been explored.

The NHS is able to rationalise many failings, but those basic things are down to the individual. Who needs to be told. The managers need information and evidence before they can approach them.

Go girl! Do it while it is fresh, because it does fade and you won't want to focus on it in a while, naturally.

treedelivery · 03/01/2010 17:54

Now I wrote that in a totally wound up state of mind. So if it affecting our thread and doesn't go with our flow - report it and have it removed. I'm cool and gang about that, and can message Justa no problem.

I wrote it with my feathers ruffled, I should have put it somewhere else on mn so I do apologise.
Justa is a star, and I know you all care about her and all the women who use the NHS. Some of us here had care from the same departments Justa did, so it is related in a way. It all goes to improve experiences for all of us.

But nevertheless, do ask for it to be moved.

justaboutandhernewbaby · 03/01/2010 18:24

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treedelivery · 03/01/2010 18:49

Cheers mi dear.

Cantdothisagain · 03/01/2010 18:59

Tree - don't move it on my account. I am horrified by Justa's story and glad you can offer practical support. And Justa, what a story indeed. Thank God for your healthy baby out of all that.

Bee, Bee, Bee, I have been thinking about how to answer you all day and coming up with no answers at all. Which of course is the problem. There ARE no answers. But I do feel that the baby is unfinished business still for you. Whether it gets finished by TTC again or by reconciling yourself to not trying again, is entirely up to you (and LM). I would say though that you sound a wonderful mum from where I am and I feel like you don't need to worry about your decision hurting your children anymore than you do about all decisions. You will inevitably bear them in mind whatever you end up deciding. I would also say that somehow I don't think you are at the stage of deciding not to try again. You may not be at the stage of deciding to try now or in what way, but I sense that you aren't ready to give up.
Even though it IS so hard. I found the second loss really confirmed all the fears and neuroses engendered by the first loss. I wonder how much harder a third loss must be again. Not, not easy at all. If only there was an easy answer.

I guess you return to Bezzy's old chestnut: when not trying hurts more than trying, then it's time to try.

Thinking of you.

treedelivery · 03/01/2010 19:41

Gosh that is a chestnut. What a clear expression in all the fuzz. It could apply to many things too.

busierbee · 03/01/2010 20:35

Thank you Cantdo - you are right -it just opens up a whole can of worms for me. I was talking about it last night with Treetops - it is something to do with not being able to trust my instinct. My instinct is normally good and honest and it says yes, a baby is right. But my rational self knows that my instinct does not get to decide in this instance and it scares me.
Impossible situation.
You are right of course; my voice is not saying to not try.
I am the Queen of Indecision at the best of times and this is so much weightier than any other decision.
I hope you are okay lovely lady and not having too many nighmarish thoughts honey. I do know it must be so very hard to believe it will come good. It will but it is hard nonetheless. Do share your fears; we do know.
Tree - not offended by your words; I feel for Justa enormously but cannot engage all that fully with natal issues - you can. Thank goodness. Love to you Justadoodles and to wee man too.
xxxxx

treedelivery · 03/01/2010 21:02

I know you are all so caring and lovely people, biut still. It might not feel right to have such things here, and so I'll leave it, but you all know I don't mind if it vanishes.

I am reminded of by CBT for PTSD after 2 small car accidents in about 6 weeks, when dd1 was 3 2 months old. The guy used to have me make a chart about 'the fear', and 'the likelihood of this fear happening', then 'the more likely reality', and lastly 'how acceptable is the likely reality'. I then had to choose which reality I was going to accept, and which I was going to discard.

It was brilliant except that my point was I did have another RTA, so unlikely or not it wasn't impossible and that was scary. He hadn't the answer to that which used to make me
Sort of a parallel, because as we bloody well know lightning can indeeed strike twice.