On Tuesday my daughter lost the baby she was growing. We don't know why, baby just died. We don't know when, just sometime between 13 and 16 weeks. She had some bleeding and so she had a scan, baby's heart had stopped beating. The photo shows a perfect little baby, it doesn't show a why. She had the operation that afternoon and went home that evening. Questions, so many questions, but answers....none. Oh, I'm full of platitudes, they trip lightly off my tongue, and I'm strong, so strong, but inside I'm aching. Crying for that lost little baby, that Grandchild I'll never hold, but mostly sobbing for a hurt my daughter is suffering that I can never heal, for her hopes and dreams that disappeared when they looked at a screen and didn't see a fluttering, for a few gray photos that have been put in a box and hidden in a drawer.

The history of a Midwife

There was once a girl who had a dream, nothing amazing, just a yearning that one day she would be a midwife. She knew what it was all about, her Mother had been a midwife and she had accompanied her in her daily work sitting in a metal seat on the back of her Mum's bike. Sometimes it was pretty boring, she would have to sit in some strangers front room for ages, if she was lucky she would have a glass of juice and a biscuit and the radio would be on, there might even be another child there, but after a while her Mum would come in to the room, her face would be flushed, her hair damp but she would be smiling in a way her Mum hardly ever smiled. Then she would be taken upstairs, into a bedroom, where a lady would be sitting in a bed holding a beautiful, tiny pink baby in her arms. Most of the time she would be allowed to peep at this special present her Mummy had bought the lady, and if the lady knew her she could stroke it's soft, warm face and watch as the baby turned its head to her careful fingers, sometimes it would try and catch her fingers in it's mouth, then everyone would laugh and say they hoped her hands were clean. When the girl started school she couldn't go with her Mum anymore, but she always remembered those special times, and when other children said they were going to be ballerinas or singers, or gymnasts, she knew that one day she would go to peoples houses and make them happy, all the other things were good to dream about, but her job would be special, and she knew that she could do it.

To be continued

One of my daughters is expecting again. We've had a couple of upsets in that she decided to have a couple of quite heavy bleeds earlier on, but a scan following the first one was reassuring so we all got back on track and recommenced the waiting game. A couple of weeks ago she asked me to have a listen to see if baby would let us hear its heart-beat, and sure enough, there it was, bounding away. Two days after that she had a nuchal scan, and thats when the worry began, three and a half hours they scanned for, by the time they finished she had, literally, a bruised tummy. The risks were good though, low-risk for Down's syndrome but, they were concerned about baby's size. Her previous scans scans had put her at 13 weeks, her dates put her at 12 weeks, but they were estimating 11 weeks. They recommended rescanning in 2 weeks. I played it down, in the back of my mind I thought there may have been a chance that originally she had been carrying twins but that she had lost one when she had the bleeds, baby would therefore be slightly small, but would catch up. This week though she asked me to listen in to baby again, and I couldn't hear baby. Plenty of maternal circulation, a good sign, but no racing baby. Friday she asked me to try again, still nothing. I have remained, outwardly, positive, berating baby for hiding from Mummy and Nanny, but inside I'm frantically flicking through possibilities. I have spoken to the hospital, who are hopefully arranging a scan to 'check baby's growth', and I am remaining positive when questioned by daughter. There are good signs, dislike of certain foods, tiredness, breast growth etc, but her womb is smaller than I would expect, especially with second baby. Just think, if she hadn't have had the nuchal scan, we would all be blissfully ignorant, we wouldn't be concerned, just eagerly anticipating 'Peanuts' eventual arrival. We are in some strange limbo like world now though, waiting to see what happens. No one is really discussing it, I havn't started my cross-stitch, and I can't blog about it on my other blog as daughter knows about it and might read it. Not a good time. I want to flick a switch and skip to the next bit, what a shame life isn't like that.