OK, now I'm at a proper keyboard I'll write properly.
I first got pregnant in Februaury 05, but at 8 weeks I started bleeding. Examination on the gyaenocology ward found my cervix open and they took a baby out. Next day scan showed another "fetal pole". They believe I lost the first one before I went to hospital making three in total. A scan 2 weeks later showed a normal midcycle womb and that I had lost the third too.
We decided to try again quickly and I became pregnant after my first period.I was a little worried till 8 weeks, the held my breath till 12 and then was happy that everything was fine. I had a great pregnancy, no MS, mild cravings etc. "Bean" was a hungry little thing and would let me know when she needed food! I could always sense how she was.
At 19 weeks I had a fall on some outside brick steps in the rain and hurt my back and thumb - mainly my thumb, I ended up in a thumb brace. Four days later I was out walking and started to get pain in my pubic bone that made it hard to lift my feet. I tried sitting but that did too, when I got home I found lying down was just as painful. My partner was late getting home because he was working away, but when he got back I called triage who said they didn't think it was the baby and I should go to A&E because it was probably due to my fall.
In A&E I was miserable, I had to wait a long time to be seen with the same inability to do anythign to get comfortable. Eventually I was seen and it was getting late. I was asked to provide a water sample, which I was unable to do. I tried everything, putting my hand under the cold tap (usually works for me), drinking water etc but I couldn't pass water. The dr said it was a UTI and send me home.
Of course I now know that UTI's are dangerous in pregnancy and she should have called a obsetrition in, if she had they would have found I was in labour and been able to stop the contractions.
The following day I was still unable to move, I didn't leave the house all day, I sat on the loo to relieve the pain of my contractions.
On the night was TD's work do, it was Saturday Night Fever at the local theatre and he had paid for my ticket. He was leaving his company that week so this was important to him. So I got dressed (not in the nice dress I had bought because it wasn't warm enough and the cold hurt me more) and went with him. Through the first act I was up and down. I had to be warned by an usher for standing up during the performance.
In the interval I went to the loo twice, then said to TD to collect our things, I was going to the loo again and I wanted to go home. He waited outside because he was worried, I came out and told him to go get everything we were going to hospital. I was bleeding. He came back and I had been found by a security gaurd on the floor, he called the manager and they took me to the first aid room to wait for an ambulance.
At the hospital they took me through to be examined. I had a scan which confused them because they could only see a head [big breath of entonox] so the doctor got out a speculum and went to examine me. He lifted my skirt (they had tried to cover me with a sheet, I threw it on the floor and growled "I'm too hot" there are a few funny stories of what I said) and jumped back "I can see the membrances" [didn't mean much to me, but didn't sound good, another big breath on the entonox].
A midwife had said at some point "I think we need to prepare "Room 15". After the doctor examined me they took me through to "Room 15". I was crying in fear (you don't give entonox to pregnant women and whilst I didn't know I was in labour I knew it had to be serious) and the MW said she was going to find an anaethatist. I was out of it (reading Michael Odent's work made sense of the way I was, I had gone to the primal brain) and said some really silly things, but whilst they were gone I turned to Mum and said "It's happened" "What's happened?" "The baby" it was all I could manage.
TD couldn't work out how to use the emergency buzzer so just pressed call so it took awhile for them to come back. She was born with the water in tact and they cut her free, they asked if I wanted to hold my baby, but I didn't know what to expect, remember I'd just seen her as a head on the screen a few minutes before. As part of routine the MW listened to her chest and seemed as shocked as the Dr had been when she said "I've got a heartbeat!" I didn't have to be asked again, I leaned forward and took her from the MW.
I held my little girl until she died. Mum dedicated her for me. As she closed her prayer she held her hand and asked Jesus to take it, as she lowered her hand to her chest she could feel that her heart had stopped.
We called her Lily-Hope. Lily is a name we had chosen to be a middle name after my mum (who is called Susan) as I was given her mum's name for my middle name. Hope was a suggestion given to me by people around, I thought it wasn't quite right but Lily-Hope sounded beautiful and when I said it something in me knew it was her name. At her funeral my Grandad preached on the Biblical meanings of her names.They are a promise of another one.
Lily means pure and it is a symbol of hope, of trusting in God and His promises.
Hope in a Biblical sense is not like waiting for the bus "I hope it gets here on time" as Christians we have a hope of a future that is certain.
So it means "Do not worry, there is a perfect hope for you, God has everything in His plan"
I refused a postmortem because I believed that a baby wouldn't survive birth then if they weren't strong so she couldn't have been the problem. I knew something was wrong with me. The doctors said that was their feeling too but they had to ask.
Three months and a lot of blood later I was diagnosed at 5 weeks pregnant as having something called Hughes (or Antiphospholipid) Syndrome. I was given Aspirin and Heparin during my pregnancy and had a really good pregnancy. I went into labour at 31 weeks with the wonderful Tink who is doing really well. We are telling her about her sister and she has already learnt the words "Lily" and "sister"
Isobel, means "Gift of God"
Sara (pronounced in the traditional way "Sarah") means "Princess"
Lily means "Pure"
She is the fulfilment of a promise from God. (Before anyone thinks I put the names together knowing their meaning, "Sara Lily" was chosen before Lily-Hope was born and I fell in love with Isobel a long time before, I didn't know it's meaning).