“Never replacing. Replacement is not in your vocabulary. You are only loving more. More and more.”
In the hush of our hospital room, there were so many promises that drifted down to Oliver’s ears in whispers. In our attempt to fill his final hours with comforting sounds, we inadvertently plotted a map for our future. One of those promises was to give him brothers or sisters and to tell them all about him, to give them as much love as we could with his help. In the beginning, this felt like an impossibility. I couldn’t imagine having a baby that wasn’t Oliver. He was absolute perfection to me and I didn’t know if I could love another child as much. Having already experienced the total unexpected, I knew that another pregnancy would be nine months of dealing with unknowns. What I didn’t know was that my love would also expand with each day, until it was softer, brighter and equally as strong for this precious second child.
The early stages of grief had pushed me into the present moment. I knew that there could be no expectations, that we could make no plans and had to be brave for Oliver. I also didn’t know how far into the future my bravery would last. As the leading MRI specialist had determined that there was no single incident, we had been referred to Guy’s hospital in London to explore other possibilities. We could have been told at this appointment that there was a 50% chance of re-occurence. But as we sat on the grass waiting to go in, a large white feather landed on my right knee and I had a feeling that everything would be alright. Although the appointment led to a further genetic research project and offered no clear answers, the worst case scenarios were at least eliminated. And this was a solid enough foundation to build my bravery upon.
To our surprise, our two blue lines came only several weeks after getting the green light from Guys. We had expected it to take much longer and somehow the timing felt serendipitous – due dates would be one year and one week apart. At the same time, it took a while for my mind to catch up with my body. It was a challenge to balance the early stages of grief with pregnancy. Hormones struck me more than they had in my first pregnancy; but the growing hope gave me a focus and structure to my days. The beginning of my pregnancy was already so different, with nausea every day and aversion to so many foods. Having never had a particularly sweet tooth, I found myself craving ice cream, lemon meringue filling and the sour sweetness of grapefruits. With Oliver, I had sailed through with extra energy, no symptoms and only healthy cravings.
The one thing both my pregnancies had in common was getting a “perfect” response at all my scans and checks – although these words didn’t carry the same reassurance that they once had. In my mind, there would be no guarantee until I had an all clear from the neonatal team in the maternity ward. I knew that it was common with PAL to experience higher anxiety up until the timing of previous loss. In my case, 55 hours after a full term birth. I managed this by simply accepting that anxiety was normal and that it was going to be a natural part of the pregnancy for me until birth – it was how I dealt with it that was important. I anticipated that the last week or so would be the hardest for me and was so grateful that I would be sidestepping some of this by giving birth earlier. Up until this point, I took it one day at a time. I did everything exactly the same as I had with Oliver – walks in the fresh air, good food, yoga and relaxation. I also removed unnecessary pressure by acknowledging that a healthy lifestyle makes only the tiniest difference. When my consultant called me his most relaxed patient, my response was “wait until the last week.”
As we got closer to our due date, the other side felt within my reach and the burden of hope and longing weighed much more heavily. My sleepless nights started a few days before giving birth as I didn’t want to miss anything. I went into hospital every day for CTG checks and if I had been allowed to stay in for the final week, I think I would have. Being treated as high risk in our second pregnancy was healing in so many ways. Even top consultants were nervous. Their openness about the limitations of medical knowledge made me realise that there is so little within our control. Scans are just snapshots. Doppler checks are just a measure of a particular moment. The hope and courage coursing through my veins was the only thing I could affect, the only thing I could be certain of.
Now I am on the other side, it sometimes feels as if it was all just a dream. Did those second nine months really happen? Are we really lucky enough to have a beautiful baby girl? In the golden days of Lily Anaïs’ first month, she seemed too miraculous an outcome, magical almost. And the most magical of all: Oliver’s story is still being added to with his first sibling, new narratives are continuing to be written and the family growing is forever his family.
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