My little baby is turning 1 on Tuesday. I can’t believe that a year has gone already from that fateful day when my waters broke 5 weeks earlier than they should have, and Bugalugs came into the world.
With Bugs turning 1 it was no surprise that I started thinking about the IVF we had to have him with us. And I realized that I had been meaning to share my story with all my readers. But once I started writing it just kept going and going and was way too long for just one post. So our story is actually in four parts. Starting today and ending Bugalugs Birthday on Tuesday!
So here is the first part to our story.
Hubby and I had been married a month when we decided we would start trying for a baby of our own. Hubby has two boys from his previous marriage who are in their late teens and live in the UK. We literally said “Let’s have a baby” and a couple of months later the pregnancy test confirmed my suspicions. We were pregnant with Grotbag.
I had a very good pregnancy with Grotbag, textbook in fact. I was 5 days late and ended up having an emergency C Section as Grotbag was later diagnosed with Sagittal Synostosis which is the premature closing of the sagittal suture in babies. This is the soft spot on the top of a baby’s head, between the left and right sides of the skull. When this closes, growth of the baby’s head from the sides is made impossible and the head can only grow from front to back, which means the head grows into an oblong shape. Grotbag had to have surgery on his skull when he was 4 months old but that story is for a whole different post.
Grotbag was about 18 months old when we decided we were ready to try again for a brother or sister for Grotbag. And sure enough in November 2006 we were pregnant again. I was sooo excited. Unfortunately in the January 2007 at 10 weeks I miscarried. I was devastated as anyone who has had a miscarriage would know. I also had to have a D & C (Dilation and Curettage) which meant a day in hospital and a definite finalization of the pregnancy. I was OK for a few days but then as my hormones were trying to right themselves I was a mess. I would say it took a week for me to function normally. It was hell.
But I like to think that I am a positive person with a cup half full attitude so I brushed myself off, told myself that it happened for a reason and set about trying again. Because my Hubby works away our window of opportunity is fairly small to fall pregnant so when we fell pregnant again in September 07 I was amazed it hadn’t taken that long.
But I was scared of losing this baby too so I couldn’t relax. I can’t believe how I took my pregnancy with Grotbag for granted. And then again at my 9 week scan, my worst fears were realized - there was no heartbeat.
Hubby wasn’t with me this time and I just ran out of the consulting rooms in floods of tears. I couldn’t believe that it had happened again. I again needed a D&C which again was awful. Why me?
I had always seen myself with at least two children but was beginning to think that maybe I was destined to have an only child. At my follow up appointment with Dr N, my OB/GYN, she mentioned to us that we might want to take a look at doing IVF. I couldn’t believe it. We had already had one child naturally and Hubby had two boys from a previous marriage why would we need IVF? She asked us to take some tests to see if there was anything going on, which we did. We found out that although Hubby had millions of sperm there was only 11% that were any good. I also had quite low progesterone which is a very important hormone in the first weeks of growth.
We couldn’t believe it. We had a lot to think about. Did we really want to go down this path? Could we be content with just one child between us? How much money were we willing to spend? Where would we get the money from?
One of my main concerns was how this was going to affect Grotbag. I had been a bit AWOL of late. Since my first miscarriage I had let myself go a bit. I was putting on weight, feeding the void, and could tell you what day of my cycle I was in without even thinking about it. This obviously got worse after the second miscarriage and I felt that I was spinning a bit out of control.
By this time it was October 07 and Hubby and I decided that we would wait until the New Year to make our decision. To give ourselves time to think about whether we wanted to go ahead and that that meant. What we were going to put ourselves and our family through?
In the meantime I decided I wanted to concentrate on anything apart from ‘Getting Pregnant”! So I decided I had better start thinking about ME! I joined weight watchers and by Christmas I had lost 9kg. It was a great feeling and I felt healthy and alive again. The weight that had been lifted of not having to think about pregnancy was amazing and so I was starting to think that IVF might not be for us. Did I want all that stress again?
I myself am an only child and have no horror tales to tell so I was sure that Grotbag would be fine. I was also working and enjoying what I was doing so was in a frame of mind that I didn’t want to upset the apple cart so to speak.
But, there was this gnawing feeling that I hadn’t “finished” yet and I knew that really if I didn’t try to have another baby that this feeling could turn into resentment or worse, bitterness. So really the decision had been made for us. Hubby agreed and said he had the same feeling too and so we decided that we would make the appointment and start the ball rolling on our IVF journey.
Little did we know what lay ahead for us over the next few months!
