Talk : Antenatal support thread for women who have chosen to terminate V

[treedelivery]

Welcome to the 5th thread.

An amazing day to begin a new journey together. The thread babies are arriving and we take this as a positive nod from the great karma controller - whoever and whatever that may be.

Good luck to our thread, to the souls who read, those who post, those who drop in to learn and hold hands.

Our cyber bench is a supportive place, we sit outside hospitals as strong but scared women go to ride their wave. We huddle in our cottage when the weather is bleak, stormy or biting cold.

When the sun shines on us we share stories of real life, gain strength and giggle together in times of warm weather.

Just means more practising Viv

good luck!

Shangrila!!! Hurrah, so pleased to hear your fantastic news! That's just brilliant. Hope you are enjoying those first warm wiggly snuggly cuddles. xxxxxxxxxxx

Shangrila! I'm so happy. Another thread baby makes me want to cry.

So glad you and Bella are home, Mishtabel, and looking forward to an update.

Lins... any pics yet? and how is the feeding?

Hi Mrs BG. I hope you're doing okay. I am always thinking of you. You and I arrived on the thread at similar times, didn't we? I agree with Bezzy that January and February are bleak months indeed. And you had a momentous year last year - the loss of your beautiful baby, and your wedding. I find all the loss tiring, actually. Above all I've been sort of wearied by my own losses - more than tearing my hair out and screaming. Please keep talking so we can try to support you.

Viv, you will get there. I have noticed that many of us who have had these losses have conceived the lost babies remarkably quickly. My unscientific mind wonders if there is a link. Maybe not conceiving straight away is a good thing. You will get there, though.

I echo Bezzy too. Queen Bee our founder. I am thinking of you so much with tomorrow ahead.

Thinking of you tomorrow, Bee.

Lovely post Bezz to Bee.

Thanks Cant, for your words. I think the bleakness of the winter is getting to me. It's the first winter in three years I've spent in this country and I'd forgotten just how long it goes on for.

Shangrila! Woohoo, so wonderful to have another baby safely arrive.

and congratulations again to Lins and Mishtabel again. Have I missed the photos?

Night everyone, xxx

Hi all, again will try to get on later when kids are in bed (think I underestimated how much teenage girls still need and miss their mum when she's away - read; clingy). Just had to quickly say I will be thinking of you today Bee, and hoping you receive good news. And I second what Bezz and everyone else has said Bee. I'm so glad for you and this thread and the support it generates for all of us. I honestly don't know what I would have done without you girls, especially at the time of my CVS and in these past few weeks. Good luck Bee xxx

Bee, am thinking of you.

Mishtabel, your big girls missed you! That's so nice.

Oh dear Bee... am worried that things are not so OK given no update. Really hoping it's just been a busy day and you've not had time/energy.

Hello handmaidens
Thank your for posting and thinking of me.
I am at work and last night was just shut off and shut down.
All as expected really - no great drama to mark the end of a traumatic journey; nothing very shocking.
The consultant very wise and weighed up all the options as thougtfully as he could. I got a bit lost when confronted with all the odds, data, percentages. It all seems nothing to do with a baby or the desire to make a new life with the man I love.
So my uterus all fine- excellent.
The hormone levels indicate could conceive and we know that I can of course.
When one conceives naturally, well one only needs one solitary egg. When carrying out IVF,they like to have 8 to 10 eggs, at a push 4 or 5.
I have one follicle in one ovary and two in the other. Given that we know that my eggs are of doubtful quality, that many perish in the process of IVF, this reduces my odds to 5 percent.
All that money, all that disruption, all that hope and dashing of hope seems to not match the high risk that we would not make a baby.
Got to go. Children to teach to
More later
Bee xx

Dearest Bee

There's no words of wisdom for me to type.

Just know that I'm there for you

BK

I am on a friends link - I wanted to come to say I am thinking of you all. Especially Shangrila, Lins and Mishtabel. Lovely lovely early weeks at home. Lovely time.

To Justa - how strong you are. We must get back onto that thing about the hospital Mrs.

To Bee - what to say. I can't ask questions as I don't know when I can be back to hear answers, but I wish you peace. I'm sorry the news wasn't 100% positive, but in a small way I'm glad it was 99% in a 'direction'. Not a wishy washy middle of the road to plauge you with more stats and 'choices'. If that makes sense?

I wil be back. Looking into computer warranty....

Oh Bee . Was worried as I knew you'd post good news sooner; was LM with you, is he around at present? How unfair life is sometimes .

Thinking of you, xx

Back home now - lying in daughter's bed, little son having guitar lesson in adjoining room. I have terrible period pain.
The irony.
So to continue my conversation earlier.
My odds are very low of conceiving a healthy child with IVF. He did not say not to do it. He said in some ways it is harder as my hormone levels are good enough; if they were poor too he could categorically say no.
So - if money were no object, say the treatment was free, would I do it?
Yes. Because it would be hard but so much less hard than choosing to terminate a baby. He also said that there may be other chromosomal abnormalities, not just DS of course.
There are other options.I sat in a cafe just before the meeting, alone with a coffee and muffin and a sad face for company. And I said to myself, whatver he says is the decision, is what I will do. And I will not, not, not try again naturally. I cannot face terminating another baby. I just cannot do it. How many times would I have to do that before I had a healthy baby?
And there is egg donation. Which in the first instance fills me with fear. Feels so very Brave New World ish and feel that I am not psychologically strong enough for it. But then, you know what, Tree has inspired me. And the odds of success are so much higher- 60 percent. I am letting the thought in, it can waft around in my sad thoughts for a day or two.
It just goes around and around in my head; should I try again naturally? Should we pay for IVF in spite of odds, since odds as we all know are just averages and somehow meaningless? Should we take out a second mortgage and try egg donation?
Should we choose the here and now, choose the lovely life we have, enjoy my children before they flee the nest and say 'enough'?

Somewhere inside, the saddest thing is that I hoped and prayed that I would have a baby to balance out the losses. That somehow in the end, all the trauma, all the tears, all the loss, would be worth it.
But life is not like that.

There is no prize for having endured pain.

Ladies, I wish there was, for all of us. That for every loss, there was a warm gift of love.
Am feeling for Babyliy today and for Having Kittens.

Tree is sadly computer lost; has been broken and remains broken but she wanted to send biggest of love and congratulations to Shagrila. And of course to all of us, all of you.
I do love you guys.
You know that.
Bee xxxxx

Hello Numpty - yes he was with me, thank goodness. And yes he will be home soon. I am very quiet, just have nothing to say out loud to him.
And Tree - you must have been writing as i was writing about you. How close we are on the time/space continuum.
Off to think about what would be good to cook.
I love hearing the guitar guy - he is from Buenes Aires, long hair in ponytail and cycles on a bike all decorated with flowers. As he is teaching he sing/talks all the time; so little man, I love singing, ooh yead, do you like singing too etc. He is in fact quite potty.
It is soothing.
x

Bee, I wish I could say something that would help, and I can't.

What an impossible decision. There is no easy happy ending here. You will have to do what your instinct tells you to do, be it trying naturally/IVF with your eggs/IVF with donor eggs/deciding to stop trying. I suppose the last option would be the easiest in many ways, but would leave you with a sense of 'what if' and the feeling that the trauma of the last year has been in vain.

You have time to think. And talk... and drift.

And we are here to talk to/rant at/be yourself with.

Oh Bee, it's so confusing, so many difficult options. But, then there are options. Is that an 'at least'? He didn't rule it out.

Wish we could all be with you, but you must need some quiet time with all this spinning around in your head. Try to let the thoughts and options come and go like a breath and your instinct will surface gently. It might work. Might help. I've tried it in my saner moments.

Hola to the flowery Argentinian. Sounds like a fun character to have around.

Take care xx

Hi Bee, so sorry the news re: IVF wasn't more positive. So much for you to think about now. Do you think that while you are deciding, it would be worth taking folate and pregnancy vitamins just in case you decide to try again 'naturally' at some stage? I mean, you could always stop taking them if you decided 100% that you didn't want to go down that path, but if you decided otherwise, at least you would have the good stuff on board already ( I think the ideal is to take them for 3 months before conception?). Just a thought. Feel free to ignore of course...What are LM's thoughts (sorry if you've already said)?

Take care Bee xxxx

Hello All

Dearest Bee, I hope that you're managing to work through some of the thoughts that must be whizzing through your head. As BG said, so confusing. So NOT how having a baby with the man you love is meant to be. Not fair. (I must be getting repetitive I say that a lot)

Mishtabel, how is the lovely Bella getting on? And your big girls?

I managed to drive into a parked car yesterday. Not just any car, a 59 Plate S class Merc (the HUGE one). Why not a clapped out car??? I did the right thing and left my phone number, but have heard nothing?? I'm hoping that he's either:

a) having an affair and shouldn't have been there at all yesterday or
b) just handed details to his insurance company.

Either way, I'm on edge every time my phone rings. Ironically, I was on my way to a lovely relaxing facial when it happened. Typical, I lay there with gritted teeth the entire time she was working on me.

How are the other thread babies getting on?

Hope you all have a lovely weekend

Much love
BK xx

Oh Bezzy! how . I think the trouble is that sometimes when we are on shorter journeys or nearly at our destination, the mind wanders onto the next thing and rather than actually really seeing what you are doing, you are seeing the next thing you should be doing. I've done that before when cycling home, started going the way that I would if I were driving because I was thinking about something else entirely. Easily done.

Classy car to get though! Really hoping driver is OK about it; after all so many people would have driven off not leaving numbers, I've seen that happen before.

Bee: I hope you are having a gentle weekend, and that hopefully your thoughts on the next direction forward settle into a pattern that makes sense both for your reason and for your emotions and what you can face doing. Even if you're not up to talking, think of us as being here with you; and I hope you are getting cuddles with your family and LM to give you strength and comfort and a sense of being rooted and strong. xx

Oh dear, Bee, round and round in circles. I so get what you say about "whatever he says is the decision, is what I will do". It's so hard to be objective and rational when faced with these choices. My very sweet and helpful doctor said to me after my last termination that he would help me find out anything I needed to if it came to looking into egg donation and I just don't know how I would feel about that. I decided to put the thought out of my head until it really came to that being my only option.

I was reminded this week of an earlier conversation on this thread this week about family members coming out with things you don't necessarily want to hear. My father's comment on my miscarriage this week was "Have you decided to abandon the effort? It sounds like your experiences are telling you maybe you should." Hmmmm, no, I am not defeated yet! At my age, and after my experiences I have learned not to expect plain sailing, unfortunately. I don't know how many more times I will try but one more I reckon, at least. I guess my dad is just trying in his own way to be protective.

I wish you could edit posts on here. I've just read back my post and seen that I've written 'this week' way too many times in the space of 2 lines!

I think it's hard to understand, from the outside, our very visceral need to keep trying. I don't really understand it myself but I felt it so strongly after the last termination. Even right afterwards, I knew I had to try again, regardless of the consequences.

So I do understand, Bee and Kittens - these decisions are from our hearts and hormones as well as our heads.

Kittens, good luck with trying again. And Bee - good luck with the thinking process. I agree with Mishta about the folic acid etc. It can't hurt.

Sad few days on our thread after all the happy baby news. We need Tree's cashmere and the cottage. Thinking of you, Bee, and Kittens.