Pandemic Pregnancy After Loss

The second time I read a positive result on a pregnancy test I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I was pissed off that my period hadn’t arrived and I wanted it to hurry up so that we could get on with trying for a baby again. I genuinely didn’t consider that we might not need to. I let the dog out to pee, I peed, I fed the cats, let the dog back in, fed the dog and then read the test. I stomped upstairs and woke my husband. He smiled and went back to sleep. I started work and didn’t dare think about the result for the rest of the morning. That lack of fanfare worked really well for us. 12 days of knowing I let myself get a teeny bit excited. Having previously lost a very early pregnancy, this was now unchartered territory and although I was genuinely terrified of losing the baby I began to cherish being pregnant. Despite knowing the heartbreak of loss I was flabbergasted daily by how much I was gaining. Knowledge, weight, memories, love. It was spectacular. Later, I would be angry when people would presume, “I bet you can’t wait for this to be over.” It wasn’t a disease. It was my long awaited mystery and I relished it.

Pregnancy is sold as a massive pain in the vag and I expected to hate it. In the early days of trying my husband and I would joke about how I wouldn’t cope with the hormones. The horror stories told to ward off teenage pregnancy to both boys and girls is really damaging. I thought I could get pregnant by being sneezed on at a Young Farmers Barn Dance and that I’d be miserable throughout. However, I genuinely wasn’t scared of giving birth. I watched my mum push out my sister when I was almost sixteen and it was beautiful and calm. She’d shown me the mechanics of labour and so I knew the art of the possible. Early on I was asked what scared me and instinctively I said, “doctors and nurses running around frantically wearing masks” (cue a global pandemic). Where labour was concerned, I trusted my body as I had seen my mum trust hers and I was quite happy with a birthing pool in my dining room thank you very much. What I was terrified of was miscarriage, still birth and neonatal death. But no one talked about those fears, so I was left to my own devices. The internet. There was one thing that united those horror stories. Hospitals. So I wanted to stay as far away from hospital as possible.

My first appointment was at about 8 weeks pregnant and it was a massive waste of time. I turned up, told the midwife I was pregnant and she wrote it down. Literally. That was it. Why I’d attended the surgery I had no idea. It definitely could have been an email. I got teary when I realised she wasn’t going to tell me that my baby was OK. That no one could tell me that. Given my history she offered us an early scan. That was the first time I had to practise my mum voice. With a stammer I told her I didn’t want it. I had no reason to suspect there was anything wrong with this pregnancy and I didn’t want to see my baby for the first time in the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit. I knew that even if my baby was fine today, there was no guarantees that it would be fine tomorrow. At the EPAU in my first pregnancy I got the good news that my baby was OK but then I miscarried a couple of days later. I remember thinking, this ward is where they’ve cut the resources from. Where the babies are so early they don’t matter yet so no-one bothers painting storks on the wall and you aren’t allowed to take the scan picture home. It’s a really bleak ward.

After that disappointing first meeting I was told MY midwife would visit me at home to give me my notes folder and discuss my preferences and expectations for the next 7 or so months. I felt like the actual queen. I bought fancy biscuits and hoovered the couch where the dog usually sits. It transpired she had Scottish roots so we had a lovely old chat and I told her about my desire for a homebirth. The way I saw it, hospitals were for sick people and I didn’t feel sick. She laughed, oh how we laughed. She reassured me that so long as I had a healthy pregnancy there was no reason why that would be a problem. At the end of the appointment I gave her a Christmas card that I only planned to give her if the appointment had gone well. She hugged me and I thought, this is it! This is the mystery of pregnancy. The lovey midwife, the fancy biscuits. This was before Coronavirus had really made it to the news… Ah, December 2019. You sweet era. Well, let me be frank. That midwife was a conniving old battle-axe. What she failed to tell me was that she was due to retire in a matter of weeks and I’d never hear from her again. She gained my trust and then she threw it in the bin by failing to have an honest conversation with me. I was assigned another midwife who was shielding due the pandemic, who would rack up shit loads of annual leave and take it around my due date and who I would only meet face to face when my baby was 10 days old and discharged from her care. I’ve skipped ahead.

Christmas 2019 came and went and miraculously, I stayed pregnant. Early January we received our appointment for the dating scan and it was just like the movies. There was a heartbeat, there were tears, there was a stork painted on the wall. I came home and although I promised I wouldn’t, I put the photo on Instagram. Our little baby had waved and it was captured perfectly. I couldn’t believe it was finally my time. I’d been given a due date but instinct told me that was a patriarchal stick to bash pregnant women over the head with. I knew Mother Nature was boss and Father Time needed to sit back down. We promised to keep the due date to ourselves. A promise I would eventually regret breaking.

The next 6 weeks passed in a lovely fuzzy bubble of wonderfulness. The first trimester had been tiring, there had been a wee bit of nausea and a surprising amount of burping. The second trimester was glorious. Coronavirus was happening somewhere else and Brad and I were invited to our 20-week appointment. Beforehand, we decided we didn’t want to know the gender but when faced with the question and our little baby on the screen we both said “Yes”. We found out our baby was “quite clearly a boy” and I had a low-lying placenta. The placenta news came as a shock and suddenly I felt very private about the intimate details of my body. If my placenta didn’t move I would be a high risk pregnancy and I just simply could not deal with other people’s stress and the uncertainties around that. So instead of obsessing over what wasn’t certain, we celebrated what was. A gender reveal goes against all my feminist instincts, but I wanted to celebrate this little person who I knew nothing about except what was between their legs. So that was what we did. With balloons and an Instagram post at 20 weeks we celebrated our healthy rainbow baby boy.

My next personal milestone was 24 weeks. This was when my baby was medically

deemed viable. I could no longer chose to abort him and should he be born early, they would do whatever they could to save him. I got into a habit of being very medical about the milestones. Viability came and went and the next ante-natal check would be to measure my bump and pat me on the back for staying pregnant. It didn’t happen. The country went into lockdown, I was furloughed and my appointments were cancelled. This afforded me all the time I needed to nourish my body. Daily exercise, good food and quality sleep. My husband was an excellent juice getter and I stayed very hydrated. In lieu of meeting with any medical professionals, I studied for labour and pregnancy like I was doing a PHD. I knew exactly what was happening to my body and for the first time in my life I loved it and was proud of it. My belly swelled and where I had expected to feel fat and sluggish I was marvelling at my achievements. I walked 5 – 10k everyday with my beautiful dog and husband in glorious sunshine. We laughed. I was strong and capable and happy, quite the opposite of how pregnant women are portrayed and how people seemed to want me to feel. Despite uninvited advice not to lift a finger, we decorated our house and outside the world fell to shit.

Around 34 weeks I was given a scan to see if my placenta had moved. By now coronavirus was in full swing and I attended alone. Unfortunately, my placenta hadn’t moved enough and I was told to prepare for C-section. No matter how many DIY tutorials we watched on youtube, there was no way we were doing that at home. But I wasn’t deemed full term until 37 weeks and I knew there was a chance my placenta could move before then. Without my husband to support me, for the second time in the pregnancy I practised my mum voice. This time I didn’t stammer, I adamantly requested a second scan at 36 weeks.

I was vindicated. The placenta moved 2cm clear of the guidelines listed on the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists website. When I study, I study hard. Let’s just be clear, we are talking about 2cm inside my body. That is a gargantuan move that was only realised because I pushed for that second scan. The fact that the consultant was preparing for major surgery before waiting for the natural course of things really made me lose what little trust I had in my care givers. I hadn’t seen anyone in the previous weeks and when I spoke to them, they were panicked. This was not the calm environment I’d set my sights on.

Ah. 37 weeks. Full term. Carrying around a full term baby felt spectacular. I was so excited. I was fighting fit, the baby’s heartbeat was strong and for the first time in my whole life I was patient. Patiently waiting to meet my baby and patiently preparing to become his mum. But the strangest thing was happening around me. Everyone I knew was wishing this most special time away for me. No-one really asked how I felt, they just presumed I was having an awful time. It made me feel bad for loving my pregnancy and myself. Ante-natal checks showed that both me and the little boy were healthy and there was no reason to worry. I wished that the well-meaning people on the other end of Zoom would hear that instead of telling me their insecurities about pregnancy. I wasn’t going to stay pregnant forever. Obviously, I was going to have a baby at some point. I just didn’t know exactly when. And I didn’t expect to know.

Based on the NICE guidelines, I knew I would be offered an induction between 41 and 42 weeks. That is because the risk of stillbirth increases in prolonged pregnancies. I really didn’t want an induction because that would be in hospital which is where sick people go and neither me nor my baby were sick. I requested two vaginal examinations. One was done at the doctors surgery and one was done at home. Commonly known as a sweep I was hopeful this would start things off and I would go into spontaneous labour at home where I had the birth pool and gas and air. I was fully prepared to transfer into hospital if I wanted any extra help or drugs. There was no drama. But nothing happened.

Pressure started to mount from my care givers, friends, family and strangers on Instagram. All based on this magical due date. Here’s my problem. My due date was a crock of shit. My period is unreliable so we don’t know when I ovulated. Dating scans are unreliable and have diminishing accuracy the longer you are pregnant. My memory is unreliable so I don’t know when we conceived. My baby didn’t have a calendar. I love most of the people who were asking but satiating their concerns should not have been my priority. Listening to my concerns should have been theirs. I thought, surely there must be a better way of deciding whether a woman or baby needs intervention than relying on seemingly random days? But here’s the thing, there isn’t. From my studies I know that in the UK in 2018 approximately 1 in 250 babies were born dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy. And for every 1000 who were born alive, almost 3 died within 28 days of life. Some of these babies came from perfectly healthy pregnancies just like mine. So yes, the risk of stillbirth increases in pregnancy past 42 weeks but there are risks attached to every single intervention along the way. Having babies is risky business. Even those two little sweeps carried risk. But flip those numbers around. For every 250 babies born after 24 weeks, 249 lived. And for every 1000 who were born alive 997 lived for longer than 28 days. Those were the odds I was working off. When people are probing you about your pregnancy, I found that getting technical will kindly make them back off. Yes Sharon, I am 41 weeks and 5 days pregnant. This morning a midwife inserted her finger into my vulva, through my vagina and tickled my cervix to encourage my womb to contract and I would like one sugar in that decaf latte please.

In some respects, I wasn’t ready for my pregnancy to be over. Whilst he was tucked up safely in my womb, I was in control of looking after him and every time they checked they said he was fine. I was petrified that he would be born and he wouldn’t be well or he wouldn’t make it. So at 41 weeks and 6 days pregnant, after mounting pressure from the birth team and a barrage of unsolicited advice from untrained, unskilled, inexperienced and well-meaning onlookers I weighed up the risks of intervention and the risks of prolonged pregnancy and I politely declined induction. I was convinced that if I just waited long enough he would come.

I went onto have a healthy beautiful boy at 42 weeks and 4 days. Those 4 days after 42 weeks are my labour story, and that folks is for another day. Really, it might have been 41 weeks, as I’ve said the due date was a farce. Now, almost 6 months into motherhood I look forward to a glorious new summer. Walks with husband, dog and pram in tow. We’ll remember the greatest Summer of 2020, patiently waiting for our baby. If I’m lucky, I will be pregnant again one day and again it will be a mystery. I am not a medical professional but I was a pregnant woman and I learned to revel in the mystery of growing and birthing babies. Being pregnant isn’t always a chore. Pregnant women are not always weak. They have a voice that needs to be practised because after a woman gives birth to her first baby, a mother is born. That change is forever, life before and life after becoming a mum. Pregnancy is just the mystery in the middle and I’ll be forever grateful that my second mystery, amid a global pandemic was bloody lovely.