Our Journey to be Parents....

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