In the last blog Circle of Life I told you about
the most intimate details about having IVF treatment and how I was now waiting
to do a test to see if I was pregnant.
Well guess what I am and yes that is a photo of the actual pregnancy
test used.
Trust me, when you’ve waited three years for it to happen it's an
important memory to capture. It worked, can you believe it, it worked
first time. After all the waiting, investigating, blood, sweat and tears
we didn't have to suffer the trauma of the treatment not working. It
makes me feel grateful that I came straight home from the hospital and stayed
in my bed for the rest of the day! That two-week wait feels like a lifetime, you try not to think about it
and then you just can’t help it. Then at times, you can’t stop thinking,
your mind races one minute and you daydream for hours the next. You go
through all the what if’s. You start to imagine what pram you might buy,
what cot you might buy it really is a crazy experience. I had a feeling
it would work you know, deep down I knew it would work. However my
anxious subconscious needed a little boost to make it through the full two
weeks until test day and so three days before I was due to take my hospital kit
test, I did a wee secret test and it was positive! Of course I was very
casual on the outside about my findings. I didn’t want to get my hopes up in
case it was a false positive, but I just needed a boost. If I'm honest, inside
I was Dancing!
Three days later I did the actual test and it was POSITIVE. I then
allowed myself to get super excited. Well as excited as you get in my
family, we are quite a reserved bunch. Nobody really seems to jump up and
down about anything in company. I don’t actually remember if my husband
was home for the proper test. I’m now wondering if maybe I did the test
on Thursday for him as he was going away, because he didn’t come with me when I
went to tell my mum, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t at home. It’s all a bit
of a blur! I wanted to tell everyone and I wanted to tell them in person
so I could see their reaction, it was like I’d won the lottery. I got in
the car and drove to my mum’s house, but she wasn’t in. I then drove to
my Grandma’s house and she wasn’t in either. I got to my brother’s house
and they were all there! Not sure why, were they congregating in case the
test was negative? I was on cloud nine and it’s because of that I’m
unable to tell you a lot about that day or the days to follow because I was
THAT HAPPY I can hardly remember anything!
This was a big achievement though. I couldn't believe my luck; my
body that usually fails me on so many levels didn't this time. I always
knew any attempted pregnancy would have to be carefully planned, saying that I
didn't think it would be such a military operation. I knew I couldn't
just fall pregnant, I had to tell the hospital so they could prepare me
physically so it was done at the right time for my body. The excitement
of announcing you're pregnant to family is not really as effective when they
already know you've being going through fertility investigations and IVF
treatment for months before hand. So the big "I'm pregnant"
line never really got much of a reaction if you see what I mean. Yeah I knew they were happy but I guess what was going through their
minds was “what next”, how was I going to survive this pregnancy. Would
my body cope because as I explained before, pregnancy does carry huge risks in
CF. Not so much for the baby, but for me. You see a baby
growing inside you is a bit like having a parasite. It will take whatever
it needs from you to develop and grow regardless. There was also a huge risk
that my lungs could be colonised with a nasty bug I have called Burkholderia
Cepacia {BCC} I have this bug anyway along with another called Pseudomonas
Aeruginosa, but colonised BCC would mean that it could absolutely annihilate my
lungs and send me into respiratory failure. However I felt that was
a low risk because my health was fairly stable at the time, if I could just
avoid people that were sick, but my CF team had to make sure I understood it
was a real possibility. I just thought in life you have to take risks and
this would always be a risk factor if I were to get pregnant myself. My
mother was most likely told I would never have children and never get married
because it was unlikely I would make it to adulthood but if you are willing to
accept that is your fate, it's possible that's what you'll end up with. I
do struggle a lot with negative thoughts. My glass is never half full,
but I wanted to experience pregnancy for myself. For me, surrogacy wasn’t
an option I was willing to explore at that time. It got me thinking about
fate. Maybe it was meant to happen at this time, we were meant to have
this child. I wanted to be excited but at the same time I was being quite
aloof about the news should the worst happen; I didn't want to tempt
fate.
I had so many plans based on the success of this IVF treatment and I
could finally start to get organised and put those plans into action. I
wanted to experience everything that pregnancy had to offer. I wanted 4Ds
scans, pregnant belly casts, weekly photos, a maternity photo shoot, I wanted to
breast-feed, go to ante-natal classes, but most of all I wanted a baby
girl. Some people will be outraged with my preference but I knew I would
probably only do this once and for me, I wanted to buy dresses and pretty
frilly things and wanted to take her to dance classes. I also thought a girl
would look after her dad if anything ever happened to me and I hoped she would
be a lasting reminder of me. In the early days visiting the fertility
centre for the IVF seminars, I quickly realised that for the hundred or so
couples in the room, some would never have babies and I felt extremely
lucky. The week after announcing the pregnancy to family I went to
Edinburgh with my Gran and Cousin GG, we were going to visit GG’s sister and
have a nice day out in Edinburgh to cheer up our Grandma. I bought my
first pair of maternity jeans from Topshop and it still didn’t feel real.
I must have been speaking about it every five minutes; maybe I was verging on
annoying. I can’t even fully remember what the argument was about, but I
ended up very cross with GG. It was the start of the emotional side of
pregnancy, the hormones roller coaster where all reason is up in the air.
I had my final appointment at the fertility centre at around six weeks
for another vaginal ultrasound for the purpose of detecting a foetal
heartbeat. That was another emotional roller coaster for my husband and
I, because I was technically pregnant and I felt pregnant. I was thinking
I was pregnant, but this would confirm it or potentially turn our world upside
down. I was very calm that day, I don't think I thought about the possibility
of there not being a heart beat. I lay back on the bed and tried to
regulate my breathing so I wouldn’t cough. So many things went through my
head in the next few seconds. It was like my whole life flashed before
me. Suddenly the nurse said, there it is "Congratulations" you
have one foetal heartbeat. I don't think I've ever felt that much
relief and I think this was the point my husband realised it was real. I
was measuring 6+6 weeks pregnant and was due on the twenty-second of December. Most
people would just be taking a pregnancy test at this stage but we knew right
from the start. The first three months of my pregnancy wasn’t great; I
was sick, a lot. I craved milk, I couldn’t get enough of the stuff.
I was easy drinking four to six pints a day. Even though I had the
morning sickness I was happy. I was happy I was getting to experience the
full effects of pregnancy, something I’d wanted for so long, but it was
exhausting for me; it was beginning to feel real now. I didn’t get off to
a good start as I was starting to have chest complications at the time of the
embryo transfer and antibiotics were delayed when I needed them. The
decision was taken so they didn't jeopardise the egg collection. Now that
I was pregnant it meant I was restricted to the antibiotics I could safely have
and this didn’t help in my recovery. However, it was important that in
the early stages I should try to soldier on with basic antibiotics instead of
the lethal cocktail I usually get.
I made my first appointment with the midwife, I waited a few weeks for
the appointment and was concerned that would make my subsequent appointments
later. I had no idea what to expect. I asked a lot of questions and
she rudely told me that I should have made a double appointment if I had this
much to discuss. Like I was supposed to know all this being my “first”
pregnancy! She arranged for my first scan to be done at hospital and I
remember being both disgusted and disappointed that I would be almost 14 weeks
by the time this was to take place. I thought the whole point if it being
called a 12-week scan is that it was done at the 12-week point in
pregnancy. She also took a blood test from me that day and this was the
icing on the cake, it was to be her last meeting with me. I was told to get up
on the bed and as she stood in front of me with her soiled uniform, which
looked like she spilt her dinner down. She proceeded to come at me with a
needle. I stopped her and said, are you not going to clean the area first.
She replied, “I don’t usually”. I told her I would rather she did on this
occasion and I never went back. I think you need to absolutely trust
these people if they are going to be looking after you and the most precious
cargo you have. I never usually question medical professionals; I just
let them get on with what they have to do. I’m a seasoned hospital
goer. However this time my attitude was completely different and for you
guys out there that do not yet have children. You wont understand that
feeling until you are in that situation. That mothering instinct starts
from the minute you find out you are pregnant.
The changing body
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