MSE Pregnancy Club 24

2522laura

To be honest I think it would help if everyone knew pregnancy is not always straight forward and it does have its ups and downs. I honestly never had any idea just how many pregnancies ended in mc until I started reading pregnancy books and used the TTC thread. It would help people to be better prepared if we werent all sheilded from what can sometimes be the harsh realities of pregnancy and trying to conceive - and equally would stop women blaming themselves if things go wrong

dizziblonde

2522laura wrote: »

To be honest I think it would help if everyone knew pregnancy is not always straight forward and it does have its ups and downs. I honestly never had any idea just how many pregnancies ended in mc until I started reading pregnancy books and used the TTC thread. It would help people to be better prepared if we werent all sheilded from what can sometimes be the harsh realities of pregnancy and trying to conceive - and equally would stop women blaming themselves if things go wrong

It's one reason I've always been incredibly open about the problems we've had - and at one point the infertility and miscarriages drove me to being physically prevented from comitting suicide... because it's only by people who are the sort of person who's able to be open about it (basically I'm a bolshy cow who's better when she's got something to scrap about and I know not everyone copes how I do with things) that the fact it's so common gets out there and the shockingly bad way it's dealt with at times gets confronted really - hospitals and doctors get away with a lot of feats of breathtaking insensitivity because of this conspiracy of silence (the horror stories of women being sat in the ante-natal waiting room for scans to confirm miscarriages, or my own GP's !!!!!ish behaviour for example).

Plus - and I don't go in for the whole "angel mummy" thing as a general rule, because it doesn't sit easily with my own lack of religious beliefs - I'm not going to sell the children I lost's existence short by denying their all-too-brief existence!

Best comment I ever got - after loss number 3 - "are you sure you're doing it right"... thankfully my sense of humour saw the hilarity in this one as I earnestly questioned the poor lad about "oh, so which hole is it meant to go in then?" But yep, I did the blaming myself, I did the "what did I do wrongs" - then started looking at the odds, and realised that a) it's a chuffing miracle anyone gets pregnant at all (if you haven't seen it - The Great Sperm Race on channel 4's youtube is amazingly good at describing just how slim the odds are in any given month) and b) the odds of things going smoothly 1-12 weeks are pretty flipping slim as well in reality and I realised I'd just had a chuffingly large chunk of bad luck, coupled with having to drop 3 stone! But I was strong enough (and I have to say, literate and intelligent enough) to go out and seek OUT that information - not everyone is and when all you get from the NHS is a "this isn't viable these are your options" leaflet... what hope do you have of getting that perspective on things?!

It's always an eye opener when people ask what number baby this is and I reply "it's the first to make it this far" - just the sheer number of people out there who share the stories they've been holding back though.

snoopytweety

2522laura wrote: »

To be honest I think it would help if everyone knew pregnancy is not always straight forward and it does have its ups and downs. I honestly never had any idea just how many pregnancies ended in mc until I started reading pregnancy books and used the TTC thread. It would help people to be better prepared if we werent all sheilded from what can sometimes be the harsh realities of pregnancy and trying to conceive - and equally would stop women blaming themselves if things go wrong

I couldn't agree more strongly - and to add to that I made a point of being very open and honest whilst we were going through all our struggles, problems and the long process, if someone wanted to ask me something or know something I would tell them, I found that actually it helped me as people were more understanding and accepted more easily why sometimes I might get upset when another person was pregnant or if someone brought a baby in to work. Actually I didn't always get upset as I was genuinely pleased and always wanted cuddles. I suppose my point (although very long winded) is that it helped me not to keep the fertility issues a secret as I could get it off my chest when I was struggling and had support if I was upset! x

emmylou83_2

Its not quite the same, in actual fact its not the same at all, but when my mum died, i was just 18, and people just couldnt and still cant get their head around the fact that i have always been able to talk about it so matter-of-factly. I dont and never have got upset whilst talking about it. It happened, I`m the one that has to deal with it, and my way was to put my "to-the-point" head on and just be honest. Yes, she died, yes I was and still am gutted, no she didnt get to meet any of my children. But me not getting on with things wont help me in my life. I was on a poker forum a few yrs back, and 2 guys were saying nasty stuff to each other about their mums....u get what i mean, so i said to them, How the hell would u feel if something did actually happen to ur mum, how would u cope etc etc! They both apologised to me, and to each other! lol. It also used to bug me when people said "i`m sorry for ur loss" I felt like asking them what exactely they were sorry for? I know its the said thing, i just dont get it
Snoopy, I hope that poor lady at work is ok, she must have felt terrible xx
Laura, yes it should be more openly spoken about, even at a young age such as biology in senior school. If u grow up knowing what *can* go wrong (without too much detail to start with of course) I think it would def help women when/if they do experience it.
xx

Icey77

happydays77 wrote: »

Well I've spent the morning being a lazy mare in bed but now have to get up. Was up for a couple of hours at 6am when I had to get/drag/bribe my DS to get up for school. Waved him off at 7am and then took to bed like a true professional. My hip is very painful today and walking round is just ridiculous. I actually think I'm falling apart!!!

Afternoon Ladies and Bumps!

I've just got up too, I had a truly hideous night with heartburn kicking off at 2am and not not getting anywhere with it until at least 8am after I'd been horribly sick

I have no idea where it comes from though, it's not as though I eat something and then an hour later it kicks off, it's always (I say always but it's only been a handful of times thankfully!) been 4-6 hours after I've eaten.

I have to say hats off to your girls that get heartburn all the time. I was honestly thinking that something was starting and Elvis was considering making an early appearance.

How is everyone today?

dizziblonde

emmylou83 wrote: »

Laura, yes it should be more openly spoken about, even at a young age such as biology in senior school. If u grow up knowing what *can* go wrong (without too much detail to start with of course) I think it would def help women when/if they do experience it.
xx

I got told I was mentally abnormal for being aware of the bad things that can happen in pregnancy - by a mental health professional of all people (think I've told bits of this story before on the 12-24 week thread).

I've got a history of depression, and a family history of mental health issues - nothing major, just dear Churchill's "black dog" that catches a few of us on occasion and teaching particularly shredded my mental health quite badly over the years. As such, midwife did the mental health part of my booking in and started gently nudging around the issue of me being at risk for PND. I know I am (the one thing I CAN do is to spot when depression's starting to bite me) and so was quite happy for her to refer me onto perinatal mental health.

Get to that appointment - the specialist nurse starts asking my history - we get to the miscarriages and how understandably I was quite concerned about this one - have got through the 12 week scan and am less concerned but I'll relax more once the anomaly scan's over with at 20 weeks and I've got confirmation all the bits are in the right places... bam - tick in the "excessively worried" box (I just don't like to count my fingers, toes, heart chambers and what-not before they're fully hatched)... continue on - get marked as yet more of a liability because I don't have an army of friends with babies... and she couldn't accept that, why would I really - we'd been struggling with fertility and losses for over half a decade - friendships move on and we'd lacked common ground... bam tick in the box for being naive and not realising babies are hard work.

Then mentioned my childhood - where my mum had fallen apart mentally and I'd essentially been the second carer for a chronically ill child and mentally ill mother... bam - deprived childhood... worried about what might go wrong... refuses to label her childhood as neglect because it was just a collection of things to happen to her and you deal with life and get on with things... she had me marked down as a neurotic headcase because I'd made a point of working out what could go wrong with the pregnancy at each point, and then having the feeling of crossing that hurdle as we got over it - rather than drifting along in utter ignorance.

Thankfully I'm strong enough to have challenged the twist she was putting on everything - and when even the medical profession are chalking women aware about things like abnormalities, ectopics, missed miscarriages, placenta issues etc as being the disfunctional ones - what hope do we have?!

I think I scared her off!

Kimberley

emmylou83 wrote: »

How old is ur DD Kimberley? I was only just 19 and managed to give birth on just gas and air and pethadine so i`m sure she`ll be fine! xx

She just turned 19 at Christmas. I think she wants to try just gas and air and maybe pethodine in the last stages but because she wants a water birth she may not be allowed the pethodine.

snoopytweety

Wow - Dizzi, I stand amazed at how brave you have been and how strong you have clearly managed to remain through all of that - sometimes, I wish we could take some of these "Health Professionals" aside and give them a bit of "human" training and "bedside manner" training as for all the training they go through to get to the position they are in, they are sometimes not very capable of living in the real world!!! x x

happydays77_2

Hey Snoopy, did you have another scan yesterday or am i confused?

flutterby_lil

Sammie_03 wrote: »

im jealous
i would love a pancake with loads of syrup and sugar on now!! might get some ice cream today and make some to go with ice cream too. ohh there is endless possibilities with pancakes!!! :cool:
xx

Yum yum yum, I have nutella and chocolate spread, syrup, sugar and lemon, strawberries, melon and ice cream for mine

emmylou83 wrote: »

Good luck at physio Lovecrafting xx

Flutterby, it could be ur baby is now head down, how many weeks r u now?

Mmm pancakes, i`ve cheated and got some of the Aunt Bessies microwave ones too, as well as the mix lol! Only got sugar and icecream treat sauce to go on them tho, oh and DD1 will have nutella theres some icecream in the freezer actually.....altho i wont be sharing my haagen dazs!! The supermarkets really need to take the stuff off of special offers!! I`m eating half a tub 2-3 times a week atm !!! x

I am 35 weeks on Thursday so yeah i thought it could be baby getting ready.........thanks hon.

Enjoy your pancakes everyone.