This has been a really hard post to write and I've been trying to write it since my last post, its from the heart and still quite raw. I did um and ah about posting it at all, but with this week being Natioanl Fertility Awareness Week, I decided I wanted to share our story.
Back in 2004 Leigh and I decided
we would embark on the journey to become parents...we started preparing the
year before by selling our little 2 bed semi and buying our current home, with
the plan to fill the 3 spare rooms we now have with babies, but little did we
know back then that, the journey would take 12 years to complete, and only one
spare room got filled.
Deciding
to start a family is probably one of the most natural and common things that
many couples decide to do; for me it was something I'd envisaged since I was a
little girl when I used to play with my dolls and push them around in their
pram! It was something that I just simply took for granted that I would be able
to do, just like it seemed everyone else could! We got married very young (18
& 21) but we decided to wait a few years before starting a family...I
wanted it to be perfect, the wedding, the big house and then the babies!
Sadly,
it became quite clear that our plans weren’t going to be an easy task! I think
after the first year of trying we knew something wasn't right and I became
increasingly worried that I wasn't going to get my dream!
From day
one I blamed myself as I knew the problem lay with me, well I say that...I just
took it that I was to blame, I think you naturally always think it’s
you...especially as I was ridiculously overweight! I remember talking to my Dr,
who said that yes being overweight could be the problem; she followed on by
saying that it will help me if I try to lose some weight. She also said
that if we needed to go down the IVF route then they wouldn't even
consider us until my BMI was below 30....I can’t even tell you how much of a
blow that was, because to get my BMI below 30 was going to be a massive
undertaking, and not one that would be a quick fix with slim fast either!
I had
been overweight my whole life; I knew no different....it wasn't like I was once
slim and then piled the pounds on....nope I had never ever been slim! All
through my childhood I was classed as "fat" and that then travelled
on in to adulthood too; I just couldn't resist the sweet treats and crappy
foods! I found just the idea of losing weight a hideous task! I used to make excuses
all the time.
I know,
some reading this will say...."if you want to be a mother bad enough you'd
have lost the weight"....and yes I get that, but for me I knew no
different....food was an addiction, like drugs to a drug addict and alcohol to
an alcoholic....the only difference being you can live without booze and
drugs...you can’t live without food! ...food was my best friend; it was there
to hold my hand, comfort me when things were shit; it was there to initially
make me feel better and make me happy again.
I didn’t have the best time growing up really, I had divorced parents in
a time when divorce wasn’t that high, I had a cruel grandmother who really wasn't at all nice to me, I was a very sensitive and at times a lonely child too, and I
took so much to heart. I comfort ate to
make myself feel better ....and it did to an extent, but once the cake had gone
it made me feel worse, and so the cycle would begin again....and again and
again!
In 2008,
we decided that this baby thing wasn't going to happen for us....I'd tried to
lose weight and failed, I'd left my job the previous year to run my own
business and I'd piled on even more weight, because I was at home all
day, plus Id given up smoking and booze (not that I drank a lot but I decided it could only help)....we'd been trying for 4 years with no joy at all....all I wanted was to
be a Mama....so we decided we would apply to adopt, thinking they'd jump at the
chance to give us a child! Ha! Was I wrong....we got a big fat NO....as I was
too fat! Yep, my weight was stopping me again! It seemed that whatever I did,
my weight stood in the way! They said that they didn’t think I would live
to see the child grow up, and that they didn’t want a child to suffer anymore
trauma as they had already lost their parents once already….honestly, you couldn’t
make this stuff up!
Side note - we did become foster carers in
2010, but I'll talk about that another time.
In
December 2013, Leigh and I sat in bed one night and talked about what we wanted
to do for the New Year, and we started writing down future plans ... I wrote
down I wanted to lose weight for the billionth time, but this time I wanted to
do it for me, no one else just me! Every year I said this, but this time
something felt different! I didn't want to do it because the Dr said or because
some Social Worker told me too....I wanted to do it just for me! I was at my
absolute biggest I'd ever been, I felt like shit...my asthma was really bad and
I my joints ached like a bitch....I felt so down and stuck in a rut! We'd been
trying for a baby for almost 10 years by this point and it was taking its toll
like you wouldn't believe!
I felt
very alone in my journey, I kept it a secret for years, I think when we told
people about the adoption...questions started to be asked and I finally said
that it doesn’t look like we can have our own! I’ll be honest no one really
wanted to talk to us about it....it caused rows and upset amongst the family,
and I felt very alone! Sometimes I would try to talk about it, and the subject
would be changed quickly with whomever I was talking too or I’d just get met
with silence, and then the subject changed! I suppose people didn’t know what
to say to me, which you know I do get, but I needed people to talk to too....I
felt like I had no purpose in life anymore, I remember someone saying to me
that I needed to find something else in life to focus on....but comments like
this made me so cross, they usually came from people who had children themselves...so
couldn’t possibly understand the heartache I felt! What else was there in life
other than being a mother; to me nothing else compared or even mattered!
So in
January 2014 I decided I would enlist with Slimming World online (too ashamed
to go to a group) and by the following year, 2015, I had lost over 8 stone! I
kept in my mind the whole time that I was doing this for me, and when the
weight started to fall off it spurred me on to lose more!
I was like
a new woman, and I loved it! I remember thinking, I'm gonna get pregnant
now....yep it's gonna happen.......I’ve got this, I’ll show everyone that I can
do this, yeaahhhh, so I built myself up from literally nothing and I got back
on the baby making wagon, and I was convinced I would get pregnant straight
away.....but no, it never happened months went by and nothing....gosh I can’t
tell you how distraught I was, I was so sure it was weight related that I'd
pinned everything on it! I really hit an all-time low, by this point, and I
felt like the world was against me....And I will admit, there were times when, I
just couldn’t summon up the energy some days to even get out of bed, what was
the point...no one relied on me other than 2 dogs...and they slept all day
anyway!
I felt
like I was surrounded by babies....everyone was getting pregnant, everyone
seemed to have a beautiful bump....I'd lost friends purely because they moved
on to be parents and I just got left behind as I didn't have a baby...(clearly
I didn’t have the right friends around me!)
I started
to suffered with terrible insomnia; some nights I wouldn't go to bed at
all....the worst it ever got was when I didn’t sleep for two nights on the
trot! I just used to sit trawling the net looking for answers as to why after
losing all this weight I still wasn't pregnant! I used to search for
things I could do other than be a mother, and I used to try and convince myself
that it wasn’t that important.
Do you
know the one thing that haunted me the most, through my whole quest to be a
mother, was the fact that I would never know what my child would look like....I
used to like awake at night wondering who they would look more like, what
colour hair would they have, would them have brown eyes or green...on the
occasions I would sleep, I’d dream about having a baby but the face was always
blank...I desperately wanted to see their face so badly!
In January
2015 I started to feel unwell and each month I would have a lot of pain around
ovulation time, it was so bad I was perscribed very strong painkillers with not
much effect, I was fobbed off with something called Mittelschmerz numerous
times....basically severe ovulation pain! Anyway after the last bout ended with
me in A&E, I decided it was time to get to the bottom of it all once and
for all and not get fobbed off! Both hubby and I got checked out, and I was
referred for scans etc!
An
ultrasound scan was scheduled and to be honest I just thought it would come out
clear, but no I wasn’t that lucky! The shock on the sonographers face made me
scared! She said I'm not supposed to discuss the results with you, but I feel
you need to know.....she said you have an enormous mass on one of your ovaries
and I'm going to personally deliver the results to the correct department this
afternoon, so this is dealt with quickly. I remember walking out of that room
and her putting her hand on my arm and saying....”I wish you all the luck in
the world”.... and I burst into tears!
They
rushed the result through and I was called into the Drs the very next day and
he confirmed what the sonographer had said, and I was referred to the hospital
as they suspected the mass to be cancerous! The mass was the size of a newborn
babies head 14cm by 15cm, and it was causing me a lot of pain, they think it
had been growing for years. As they couldn't tell without operating whether it
was cancerous or not, they said it would need to come out asap! After further
scans they found another small mass on my other ovary too. My consultant told
me that it was possible that they would have to remove both ovaries, plus he
said my lymph noids were inflamed too. I was appointed a Macmillan nurse as a
matter of caution to prepare me for the worst!
I can't
even tell you what was going through my head....I was so frightened and to top
it off I couldn't have keyhole surgery like I thought/hoped I would have....oh
God no, I had to be fully opened up, with a 4-5night stay in hospital, I’d
never been away from Leigh in all our married life and I was so frightened to
go into hospital and be on my own.
I
remember going down to surgery a few weeks later, crying and convinced I
was going to die...either during the op or afterwards from cancer....I was in
the worst place I think a person could ever find themselves in....I thought my
mummy dreams were well and truly over, I thought I had cancer and that I would
die and I just couldn't see a way forward! The lovely Macmillan nurse sat
holding my hand before I went down to surgery, I will always be grateful to her
for the support she gave me at this awful time; they really are wonderful
people.
Also
while all this was going on, hubby got his test results back and it would
appear he had abnormalities in his sperm.....so as you can imagine that was
just the icing on the cake!
Anyways
as it would turn out, I had a miracle consultant who removed the masses, or as
I now know them to be cysts, plus one of the ovaries and tube, he managed to
save the other one! The cysts weren't cancerous, but he said if they had stayed
in there they could well have turned cancerous.....phew! Bloody hell, what a
lucky lucky lucky gal!
This all
happened in the July 2015, and after several months of recovery we decided that
we would see if it was the cysts that were stopping us getting pregnant, so we
gave it one last chance, and thank God we did as in the November we fell
pregnant for the very first time! But this wally didn't realise till the
following January lol; looking back all the symptoms were there but I just
didn't even believe that being pregnant could be the cause! When you have had
the let downs that I have had for the last 12 years you kind of convince
yourself that the symptoms you have are everything else, but being
pregnant!
The
symptoms were ; nausea, 2 missed periods, headaches, extreme tiredness, to name
a few lol....I'd convinced myself I had proper flu as I'd had a cold and with
all these symptoms too...I thought it was flu lol...but no it was our baby
Louis instead!
I
remember thinking, could I be pregnant?!? Nah, it's flu....or is it?! So I went
and got a test, and I sat there on the 2nd of Januaury 2016, absolutely
convinced it would say no....I didn't even have to wait the 3 minutes lol as
soon as I wee'd on it two pink lines appeared lol...I was 9 weeks pregnant at
this point lol
I had the most amazing pregnancy; I loved every minute of it! That bump gave me the confidence that I had lacked my whole life! I think that 9 months were the happiest 9 months of my entire life. I loved to feel Louis kicking away inside, I loved that I had him soling to myself for a 9 whole months; just me and him! It really is a precious gift to carry a child and one that should never ever be taken for grated! I feel extremely priveledged to have experienced it and to have had such a good and positive experience too.
Still to
this day, I can't believe it....I mean what if we had just said...”let's walk
away”....I know you shouldn’t think of the what if’s and why’s, but it's
hard not to. I still struggle with my
demons that I collected over the 12 years of trying, sadly those demons have
caused me to suffer with anxiety where Louis is concerned. I constantly question myself, I constantly
worry for him....I'm already worrying about his first day at school, I can’t
make a Louis decision to save my life in case I make the wrong one! I examine
him every day for marks, scratches, bruises and then beat myself up over anything
I find....how did he do that? How did I miss that? I stress about what he eats, what he drinks, I
feel like no one can look after him like I do....I get stressed to the max if
people try to do stuff for him in the wrong way, I tend to just move them aside
and say "I'll do it, leave it to me"
I have a book at the side of my bed called The Complete Pocket Positives, and there are some brilliant quotes that are very key to my life.
"Facing it, always facing it. That's the way to get through. Face it."
~ Joseph Conrad
Its so very true, we have to face our fears because if we don't they will not allow us to move forward...I have so many fears, but I'm determinded to face them and I hope
in time my anxieties fade away; for the moment, I am learning to live with them...and each day I
get up, read a quote from the book, and tell myself that it’s a new day, go hug your beautiful boy and the
fears will fade away! I try to see the positives in things, sometimes its hard to see them...but I know they are there and that its my brain hiding them away from me, and I know when things seem dark I need to look for the light....Louis is the light, I've always refered to him as my shining star, becuase when I was in my most darkest place, he came shining through...the star tattoo I have on my hand is for him, it's a reminder to me everyday of how lucky I am to have him, and that he is my beautiful bright shining star!
"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars"
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I decided to go
back to my blogging as I do find writing things down a help, and I hope that by
me telling you my story, that it can help someone in the same boat...if what I
say helps just one person, then it’s worth baring my soul! If I can offer any
advice to anyone in my boat it would be, go get checked out, and talk to
people...if they don’t want to listen then go find someone who will (ie a
professional person) don’t struggle in silence, I think if I had of had the
friends I have in my life now back in 2004 then I think I would have coped
better and not struggled in silence…I know I could have talked to them about
our struggles and they would have listened and offered useful advice….or even
just a shoulder to cry on.
I would
love to go back in time and tell the old me to....keep going, love; it’s gonna work
out...I’d hug her and tell her to dry her tears and GO TO SLEEP! I know she
would have really appreciated that!
I’m
determined beat my anxieties and not let ruin my time with my boy! He’s addictive,
the more time I spend with him the more time I want to spend with him! He makes
my heart very happy...and I’m incredibly lucky that I get be with him all day and work from home!
I think after the journey I went through to get him, there wasn’t going to be a
cat-in-hells chance of me letting anyone else look after him whilst I went to
work, I’ve been apart from him far too long already...12 years is a crazy
amount of time to try to conceive a baby!
(Please note, though, I’m not knocking anyone who goes out to work, and put their
children in nursery/childminders etc etc, if I had, not had the journey that we had, had then I wouldn’t have the anxieties that I do about leaving him, that’s
all)
My husband and I are different
people now to what we were then; it changes you...sometimes for the
good, sometimes for the bad! But what I know is that we made it, we never gave up hope...and I can
honestly say at the darkest times hope was all we had!
I’m so
proud of my beautiful Louis, he’s brought so much love, light, and happiness to
both Leigh and I! Louis is a true King, and we adore him like you wouldn’t
believe!
I hope
in time we can give Louis a brother or sister....but if not then that’s
ok. Louis is the missing piece of a very
large jigsaw, if we get to extend that jigsaw...then great, if not then that’s
great too....means I get to give Louis all the love!
Thank you
for reading our story...if I can just say, please be kind when commenting; like I said earlier, it’s been a struggle to
write this post, and we’ve been on a very long and hard journey to get to where
we are today, and I finally feel like I able talk about it...remember we are
just normal people who desperately wanted to be parents, and are ridiculously
lucky to have had our dreams came true!
If
anyone is reading this that is still on their journey to be parent then I wish
you well and I hope your dreams come true too! Keep going, and never give up
hope, because sometimes hope is all you have!
Much
love
Tab x
