Our Little Poppy Seed

I’ve had a blog post rolling around in my head for the last few days.  But that’s where it’s stayed.  Until now.

 

Warning: you may want some tissues before you continue.  I haven’t even started writing and I’m blubbing all over the place.

 

I just want to share the story of our little baby with you.  It’s been the craziest week I’ve ever lived through, and while the blog is mostly a happy place, it’s a place to share our lives, and this is mine at the moment.

 

A week ago on Friday we found out we were pregnant.  Our little baby had a personality right from the start, the first time we dipped the pregnant stick nothing showed up at all, our baby was a jokester, hiding until his (just going to use ‘he’ cause that’s what feels right) mummy and daddy had a second go.  And then there were two pink lines, the first mark our kid made in the world (that and the rather excessive growth of my breasts, woh baby!).

 

Andrew and I were so excited.  We really didn’t know what to do with ourselves.  We wanted to celebrate, but we also wanted to mark the beginning of a new life for us, our little family.  We wanted to do something that could become a tradition for each addition to our family, no matter how they ended up part of us.  We settled on buying a nice copy of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Expurey and we were going to write a message in it for our child.  In the book it talks about a rose being unique in all the world, and that was our baby.  We wanted to let the baby know that we loved him, that he was a beautiful and unique creation with no other like him, and that we valued him for everything that he was, and all that he may become.

 

We spent Friday and Saturday treasuring our little secret between us.  We were so excited to tell people, but we wanted to wait until Liz (Andrew’s mum) had come to visit, we wanted to tell at least one of our family face-to-face.  So we headed off to Sweden on Sunday with joy in our hearts and a baby in my tummy.

 

Sweden was beautiful.  Every day Andrew would come home for work and have a chat with my belly.  I spent a few days scouring the footpaths of Lysekil looking for a rubber band to close my jeans, my tummy was a little swollen and I had been walking around with the button undone.  I finally stole one off the spring onions in the supermarket (bad Calli) and used it til it snapped and then kept on using it after!  We went for beauty walks, something Andrew was adamant about doing.  We had a lovely week of becoming 3.  It was seriously great.

 

On Thursday night I had a little spotting, but after some Googling I thought it was ok.  On Friday the spotting became bleeding.  And then the bleeding became big clots.  We traveled home that day, me feeling the worst I ever had, with uncertainty over what was happening, and a feeling in my heart that we’d lost the baby.  The bleeding and clots continued and after a call to the doctor we were pretty sure that I was miscarrying. 

 

Saturday was spent curled on the couch, Andrew and I clinging together, crying together.  And Sunday wasn’t much different.  We’re up and down, just like the clichéd roller coaster.  We joke about our little baby, and then we cry.  I guess it’s just all part of the process, and I’m so glad that I have Andrew to go through this with.  I couldn’t wish for a better person.  He understands, he cries with me, he holds me when I’m crying, he feeds me spinach and anything else containing iron, he tells people what’s going on when I just can’t, he held my hand (or my whole body) when we were at the doctors, he stays home from work when I just need someone.  He’s my husband, and he’s totally fulfilling the ‘for better or for worse’ part of his promise to me.

 

We’ve got beautiful friends here who are showering us with love (and food and flowers and Scrubs).  I’m so thankful for them.  And I’ve got my wonderful family who call, shoot me emails and texts, and just let me know that they’re there, even if they don’t know what to say and feel helpless being so far away.  All I need to know is that you’re there.  That’s all. 

So, this has been a long one, but I just wanted to tell you the story of our little baby, who almost made it to 5 weeks, who would have been born on Sunday the 7^th of February 2010, who was the size of a poppy seed…