Our rainbows are here - pregnancy after miscarriage or loss graduates

[Labmum]

Welcome ladies from the fresh start for pregnancy after miscarriage or loss thread.

Post-natal support group so we can all keep in touch after our rainbows have arrived!

Brief background from me;
March '15 - MMC at 12 weeks
May '16 - DS born
Oct '17 - MMC at 10 weeks
April '17 - MMC at 11 weeks
Jan '18 DD born

DD is now 3 weeks old and a little poppet. We're both doing great and I'm loving my squishy newborn cuddles even in the middle of the night.

Can't wait to see more of the ladies from the pregnancy after loss thread here! Bring on the rainbows!

How are you lovelies getting on? 😊

Hello lovelies. There is a part of me that is so glad that we are all so busy with babies that we are struggling to catch up with each other, but I do miss all our chattering.
So we have an 18 wk old baby and I still genuinely am in awe of her every day. She's bananas and is currently having sleep regression issues but other then that we are all good.
I miss her sister every day and I think watching Flora hit milestones and dates that Eilidh never will has been really bittersweet. But that's our lives and we just have to accept that and take this beautiful path forward with them both with us in different ways.
I hope you are all doing well.

Aww, @Miami81 lovely to hear from you. The 4 month sleep regression is tough, just hang in there and it'll pass. Lasted about 3-4 weeks for us.
Lucy's now 22 weeks and has just cracked rolling over onto her front so I'm trying to get her out of the sleepyhead before she goes in her own room. She was up twice last night rather than her usual once but hopefully within a few days she'll adjust and go back to normal. Other than that we're all good. DS is just brilliant with her and she's obsessed with him, on the days he's at nursery she is much grumpier than normal and her face just lights up when he gets home!

Hello. All fine here with us, but super busy at work so not had my usual day off for the past 2 weeks. Missing having the extra day with kids, but will be nice to take them off in next weeks and have short working weeks. DD is walking, which is great for being at park etc, compared to crawling. She is not very chatty, but able to give her opinion and let us know what she wants more.

Sleep here is still horrendous, but managing better than expected with little sleep back at work.

Miami, bittersweet sounds a good description, but lovely that Eilidh remains in your hearts and thoughts. What happened with flora's weight gain and feeding?

Labmum, I definitely agree. The days with just DD were slower and harder to keep her entertained than with DS. She adores him so much and wants to do everything he does. Frustrates him often, but he likes being her hero really. You might want to stop sleepyhead anyway, before she gets too reliant on it and in this weather it makes them hotter, but sleepyhead actually say OK to use even when baby can roll.

Unicorns how are you?

Hi ladies.

All good here too. I've survived my first few weeks back at work and DH is really enjoying his time off with DD which is lovely.

She's full of beans and crawling everywhere at the moment. I spent most of the morning trying to stop her terrorising the cat.

Flora is such a lovely name Miami. I don't think I knew you had called DD that. As DD's personality develops I often find myself wondering about my babies who didn't make it. I can't even begin to imagine how it must be for you and your DH.

@MogScratch all settled down really well with weight, feeding etc etc. I am still pumping once a day just to keep up her ability to take a bottle and also to get a bit of a freezer stash going for social events.
@keeponrunning85 I have been thinking more and more of the earlier miscarriages as well, I suppose Eilidh is tangible and I know so well what all her dates and milestones would have been, but every now and again it hits me square in the face about the other two babies before her. Like today I met my cousins baby - who is 2.5 and I realised that in another sliding door reality I could have had a baby the same age - it was totally weird.

Hey @Labmum I am totally terrified of the rolling stage. Must be lovely to watch sibling relationships developing.

Does anyone else feel like everyone thinks that now you have your rainbow baby you must be over all that happened before? Only one friend has asked me how I feel about it all since I've had DD. It is a phase of my life that I still don't feel is over, and I don't think I will until we have completed our family. Or maybe I never will.

How do those of you that aren't planning any more children feel now? Do you feel out the other side of it, so to speak?

@keepon we won't be having any more children but I don't necessarily feel over it....my heart still drops with every birth announcement, I think I'll always be a bit bitter and twisty inside now. But I feel a huge sense of relief at stepping off the hamster wheel of TTC, pregnancy and all the anxiety that brings, miscarrying, repeat. I can now just enjoy my children and hopefully find some peace with what happened before. I sometimes have crazy panics about what if something happened to one of them, they're so so precious and I think the fragility of our current happiness is something I'm very aware of.

@Miami81 I feel the same about my "shadow children". Friends children who were born around my due dates I feel a sadness about all their milestones. They are followed by a little shadow of what could have been.

I should have said pregnancy announcement rather than birth announcement. I always get a pang of jealousy at the seemingly carefree rose tinted experiences of trouble free pregnancy they have (but that obviously isn't true, it just feels that way to me).

I just kind of wish that I didn't have to hear about other pregnancies until at least after the 20
Wks scan. Certainly for those close to me
I spend their whole pregnancies in a state of semi terror. I do sometimes begrudge them all their naivety though. Although I know that as they are all so close to us they aren't naive at all and are probably pretty terrified themselves most of the time.
I sometimes feel like the pregnancy ghoul. Taking all their joy away.

I have no idea if we will try again to have a living sibling for Flora. I think honestly for her sake we might have to. The focus and attention from both parents (and extended family) when you are the only living child must be extreme. I feel it's maybe only fair to her to try.

@miami great that feeding is going well and you have flexibility with the bottle too.

I'm not sure how I feel about the miscarriages now. I do think about how old the babies would be if things had worked out and feel sad that they didnt, but I have a stronger feeling that if one of the miscarriages had been a successful pregnancy, then I wouldn't have my DD. And because she is here and wonderful I am glad to have her specifically, not the unknown baby.

Hey you guys! How lovely to see chatter and hear how you’re all doing and your very precious babies.

We’re doing great, she’s 16 weeks so final jabs for a while in a few days, she chats every minute she’s awake, giggles and beams her toothless grin at me. I’ve felt super emotional today which is why I checked to see how you were all doing and if anyone had posted. I’d so love to see pix of your babies and show you my beautiful girl. A couple of us are on WhatsApp chats and I don’t know if anyone would be up for a little chat group, or if people prefer chatting here. She was sitting on DH lap earlier and when she looked up at me and grinned I had a few tiny tears. I love her more than I thought was even possible, it’s so overwhelming, and for the first time she was born I’ve felt myself thinking about my angel babies, especially my first MMC who I named and could have been here plus DD as the gap was big enough. I think of all of them, of the years we were trying, of all the very very shit times and dark nights and I’m so incredibly grateful it was worth it. I’m pretty sure I ovulated a few days ago so annoyingly think AF might be back soon and it’s probably just fecking hormones giving me the feels.

I’m on the look out for sleep regression, is it always around this time?

Feeding still great here, I’m expressing every couple of days and if it’s not much DH gives her a bottle and if I get a full bottle I freeze it to build a stash like *

I’m pretty sure we’re not going to have another and that means she’ll be pretty much an only as my DSC are so much older. I don’t know what impact my scars would have on conception chances and it’s such a relief to be off the ttc train. She’s only little but we’ve talked about it off and on. The whole pregnancy with her I swore blind I wasn’t doing it again and I think I honestly didn’t really think we’d be getting a baby at the end of it so I couldn’t see past delivering him/her. I’d love to be pregnant again and I’d have to have an ELCS so world feel more relaxed about birth but I don’t think that I’ve got it in me and in a couple of years DH will be well into his forties. I’m from a big family and never imagined only having one. But for several years I doubted I’ve have any and being a SM my family isn’t as I’d expected anyway!

It’s quite funny feeling paranoid about contraception and feeling mortal fear about getting pregnant. Having been so in touch with my cycle for soooo long I’m not in the right place to get back on the pill but we’re being very careful and the thought of getting pregnant is terrifying which takes me back several years

Hi Anne. Good to get the jabs out the way for a while. We had the 12 month jabs last week and I'm crossing fingers for no big reaction, but think it can take over a week to happen though. She seems OK at mo though. I hope the jabs dont affect your daughter too much either.

The 4 month sleep regression might not happen. Lots of babies don't change sleep patterns then.

Haha yeah it is odd actively trying not to get pregnant. I've not been on the pill for 5 years and don't want to go back to it. Rubbish that your period came back so quickly.

Would be nice to share photos.

Hi

How are you all ladies? Thank you all for your musings on future pregnancies etc. I hope everyone survived the heatwave.

I vote yes to a whats app group. Can't remember who suggested it. Although I have created images of you all in my mind so it might be strange to discover what everyone looks like!

DD turns one in 11 days time, I can't believe it! She's an absolute delight, even if she did have me awake for 2 hours last night. And DH is back to work on Monday so she'll be off to nursery 3 days a week.

I've only got 4 pills left to take and then we'll be stepping back on the TTC wagon. I think we're going to try and start of reasonably relaxed, no scheduled DTD etc. DH is pretty positive and I'm just desperately hoping we have a more straightforward time with it all this time round.

Hi, I think a what's app chat sounds nice too
When the ttc chat came up last time I was so sure we wouldn't be trying again.. Dh has decided he would like us to try for a number 2 or at least be open to considering it in the near future. While I think a second would be lovely and good company for ds I am really worried about going through pregnancy again...
Ds is almost 17 months now. This week we started some gentle sleep training.. And he has surprised me by sleeping through the night twice 😲
Hope you are all keeping well

Lots of love to you all.

Rainbow babies are so special.

Our little rainbow baby was born in September.

We lost our first pregnancy in September last year.

Amazing how a year can change things xx