Boy or girl? Pink or blue? We decided this time to find out the baby’s sex. We hadn’t done with Alfie as we wanted it to be a surprise, but this time we wanted to know. I didn’t want to find out with Alfie, but Day did, so I thought it was only fair that he got to find out this time. To be honest it didn’t really matter, they’d be riding a trials bike anyway!!!
Alfie went off with nanna and grandad and I’d arranged to meet them for lunch after we had been for our scan when Day went back to work. Sitting outside the scan room we were so excited, talking about the most important detail, boy or girl. After all, the 12 week scan is the one that tells you everything is going to be fine? Right?
I lay down on the bed, giddy with excitement excited to see our happy baby gliding across the screen. The buzz in the air of the room was palpable.
This was the last moment of my pregnancy that I felt any form of bubbly excitement or excited for our future.
I’ve read this moment described in magazines and stories when something goes wrong at an ultrasound and people get devastating news about their baby, but I always thought it was exaggerated. It wasn’t. The second the scanner touched my tummy I knew something was wrong. The whole atmosphere in the room changed. On the screen barely anything was visible. Black and white squiggly lines but no baby was visible. The sonographer herself was taken aback. We had no idea what was actually wrong, until the lady asked me if I had been leaking my waters. I told her I hadn’t because I didn’t think I had been.
There was still a heartbeat flickering on the screen showing us just how strong that little bean or our ‘pip’ was. I can’t really tell you how we felt, ‘numb’ seems a bit of a cop out really, but that’s the only word I can use. We had no idea what was going on, what this meant for us? Our baby? Our family?
We were ushered upstairs to the maternity unit to wait to be seen by a consultant. At this point I couldn’t do anything, I cried but the tears had no substance whatsoever, it wasn’t the type of crying where you shed some tears and you feel better. It was an empty cry, because at that time, while waiting in limbo we had no idea what this meant. We knew things were bad, but our little fighter still had a beating heart, strong as you like.
When you’re in a situation like this you want to put all your faith in your consultant. You expect them sway into your room with an air of confidence surrounding them. It’s a pregnancy, some people have complications during their pregnancy, but that’s ok, the baby just comes early and they can be looked after in special care until they’re ready to come home. You want them to smile and tell you everything will be just as you wish, that they can fix everything, because that’s what they’re there for. Right?
Wrong.
You do not to hear the words, “waters breaking before 20 weeks rarely have a good outcome. At best your baby will be physically disabled because they will have been unable to move properly for lack of fluid…”
(This was neither here or there for us, it would have no bearing on how much this baby would be loved and cared for.)
“…At worst, you’ll miscarry, most likely over the weekend. So go home and wait, we’ll scan you in a week.”
It’s amazing to think that even though you class yourself as a ‘grown up’ how incredibly naïve you can still be.
This is the point where I learned that not everything can be fixed. Not everything turns out the way you want it to, and you can do every single things right but things still go wrong. This is the type of life-lesson that knocks the wind right out of your sails. The shocking news that sinks that ship that was happily bobbing along on the waves.
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