it was a good week. Finished up everything we wanted to do on Thursday & did more baking, sewing & film watching on Friday. Simon took the children swimming after work - Jasper enjoys it so much & does a good dolphin impression I’m really enjoying the them, Claudia is a joy to be with atm.

Claudia went up with my parents to Oz’s party, we picked her up this afternoon, she had a good time but is v. tired. We (or rather Simon) did sanding & painting & other exciting (not) house-related tasks. I knitted some boxes (odd I know).

I’m feeling shit, the fact that I’m functioning & having happy moments just makes me feel worse the rest of the time. The whole ttc shit is looming over me & I already feel like I want to scream & rend my hair (we’re not even trying). Spent a couple of hours crying on Thursday night, then again on Friday night, then again tonight - see a pattern? God it’s crap.

I’m glad that the summer is now officially over, September is good.

We’ve been doing stuff - lots of stuff. Simon’s pretty good at plastering and he’s built more cupboards & shelves & put cornice up, we’ve nearly emptied the loft. The house is still pretty chaotic but so much better. I’ve been knitting (a lot*), bought some fabulous needles from Hong Kong & am feeling rather pleased with myself. Claudia’s riding a wave of energy & enthusiasm (mania?!) for all things which is fun. Lessons are slowly starting again - her new swimming teacher is great & there’s only five in the class which is a big improvement over last term. Piano is going really well, she loves it - I enjoy seeing her getting so much pleasure from playing. Jasper is two in all ways.

Monday - did maths (subtraction with borrowing) with no difficulty at all, spelling (short & long vowel sounds & adding -ing rules), English, drawing, verbal & non verbal reasoning, piano practice & some sewing (she’s making a little bag). She’s reading a new Beast Quest book & we’re reading Rats of Nimh together. We went to the park at lunch time and Simon took them swimming in the evening.

Tuesday - maths, English (took a long time but no complaining), spelling, handwriting, Latin, piano, reading. I read a few more chapters of Rats of Nimh and we baked a cake for Violet. We had a mad dash out to buy Claudie a new swimsuit when I discovered she’s lost hers. Went to see Alison & everyone in the afternoon, Si took Claudie to her lesson then we stayed for dinner & cake

Wednesday - maths, English (sentences using collective nouns), non verbal & verbal reasoning (she’s starting the 9-10yo papers now & rarely gets any wrong - far better than me ), piano, spelling, reading. We read about Botticelli & looked at pictures where the canvas is round, talked about how to use space, horizon lines & composition, did some drawing with pastels. Ballet doesn’t start until next week & my mum visited in the afternoon so it was nice not having to rush out.

Thursday - piano lesson very early (I was slightly fragile & Japser had to be woken up & fed orange juice & biscuits in the car for breakfast … poor child ), C’s doing subtraction word problems at the moment. We need to go out later to get Oz a birthday present. Had a lovely cuddle with K’s baby - she’s teeny, was nice, I like babies Felt a bit sad when we got home though. Made up silly sentances in Latin on the way home.

We have an appointment next Tuesday to discuss Toby’s post mortem results, my mum referred me to the Silver Star Unit in the end (have no idea what to do abut the GP - I don’t trust them at all which is worrying) & they phoned to arrange an appointment the following day (very impressive). We’ve been up to the cemetery a few times, Toby’s still the only baby there - which is GOOD obviously but it feels very strange seeing his little marker all on its own. We need to do the wording for his plaque but I can’t do it at the moment, it is too final. I’ve been having lots of weird dreams that I need to dig him up because I’ve forgotten something important.

*I have six projects on the go at the moment (jacket, jumper, bag, two lace projects & a blanket) - far too much

two and a half weeks later, referral still not sent. Not quite sure which part of her job she actually does.

Pretty much everyone we saw with Toby was good - few things would’ve been better if done differently but I’m certainly not traumatised.

Not the fucking-lazy-bitch-GP though. Because we had the scan on a Saturday we had to go through the local out of hours GP service to get a referral to delivery suite for a scan to confirm he’d died, a plan for induction & all the associated investigations/procedures. When we rang them the GP said ‘oh dear you’ll have to be brave & give birth at home’ when I said I was 17 weeks pregnant her response was ‘I know’. WTF??? She only even agreed to call delivery suite to check if she should do anything different after I completely lost it with her. She had the DS mw on conference call so I heard her (mw) being totally appalled that she hadn’t already referred me in, the obstetrician I saw as horrified that she suggested I just stayed at home.

Really, give birth at home - no pain relief (declined the epidural because I knew I’d need a GA later but the morphine was nice), none of the billions of blood tests I had, risk infection & fucking DIC because who knows how long it would have taken to actually happen. We wouldn’t have got to see or hold Toby because he’s have been in a terrible condition, no PM. What would we have done with his body … he was a bit big to flush down the toilet. What about the haemorrhaging & ERPC? I don’t have ergometrine & synto in the fridge at home. What would I done with Claudie & Jasper .. hang on kids I just have to pop up stairs to labour for a few hours, give birth to your dead sibling & possibly bleed to death … could you ‘phone the ambulance please darling?

She’s a fucking evil lazy bitch & I will find a way to make sure that she knows it.

We were planning to book a holiday just after Christmas (when prices go down) - I am dreading Christmas quite honestly & though it would be good to have something to look forward to.

I’m troubled by the jinx though - every time we plan anything something bad happens - camping in August/September - car explodes - baby plans/purchases - baby dies - book a holiday - Simon gets made redundant????

It’s stupid but I feel cursed. I might never leave the house again.

Cried more yesterday than I have for weeks. Claudia really wants to go to school, I can’t believe we’ve got into more debt, can’t let go of the image of Toby & Jasper together. Feel quite strongly that I can’t cope with another pregnancy. Feel crap physically - my body has been so abused for the last 5 years (the list of drugs & procedures I’ve had is insanely long, not to mention the self medicating) - thought of ttc again fills me with gut-wrenching horror.

Pitiful whine … I just want to be normal … I just want to do normal things. I don’t want drama and trauma, I just want to be normal. If Toby hadn’t died I would’ve been normal - baby conceived the normal way, pregnancy without shit loads of drugs, children without a huge age gap. I feel so fucking conspicuous & freakish. I might have been able to do normal mother things - whinge about pregnancy & birth & all that shit - without feeling that there’s a barrier between me & the rest of the world. I don’t fit in anywhere, everything is put through a filter that normal people don’t have - things don’t sound or look or feel or mean the same to me as they do to everyone else. All my wonderful FFs are either childless & I wouldn’t, in a billion years, expect them to listen to any of my angst or cycling again which we will definitely, 100%, never, ever, ever do again. I can’t be around pregnancy or birth or young babies (or even hopeful people) without wanting to throw myself under a car so I guess I really shouldn’t leave the house.

1 - I don’t think the mw weighed him properly, everyone expected him to be bigger & he certainly felt heavier than 60g.
2 - I’m sad they didn’t get footprints. I keep meeting people who’ve had prints from much smaller babies.
3 - I’m worried he wasn’t really dead & we killed him by inducing labour. He was in much better condition than he should’ve been given that hed been dead for between 2 & 5 days. This one really keeps me awake.
4 - my knees hurt (especially the left one).

not.

Felt really crap today.

Everyone else is asleep.

Lost it a bit when Simon (& Jasper) were peripherally involved in an accident on the A329 last night - mum came over to calm me down. Still I’m not phoning NHS direct every day & am continuing to allowing Claudia to leave the house - so I’m doing pretty well.

Claudia decided yesterday she wanted to go and stay with MIL for ‘four days’, so she is! I really need some time not being cheerful, I’m so tired it’s all unreal. Settled solidly in numb with brief flashes of sad.

Have a new plan - to be referred to the Silver Star Unit in Oxford. I think I meet their criteria with

“High blood pressure in pregnancy”
“Previous stillborn babies”*
“Recurrent miscarriages or other early pregnancy losses.”
“Previous severe bleeding (placental abruption)”
“Previous early labour”**
“Any other unusually complicated or stressful previous pregnancy.”

This bit sounds good though

We run:
* A pre-pregnancy clinic where advice about another pregnancy can be given and appropriate care planned.
* A recurrent miscarriage clinic, usually limited to women who have suffered at least three early pregnancy losses.
* An early pregnancy clinic, where women who suffer recurrent miscarriages can be guided through the early weeks of their next pregnancy.
* The Silver Star clinic, where full antenatal care is given at a very high level to those who need it.

I need to see if I can get referred without going via GP (unlikely).

* well Toby was ‘just’ a late miscarriage …
** 35+6 weeks is technically preterm

I knitted a hat!

Couvercle from knitty - even involved a little bit of crochet - left out the brim though. In Rowan All Seasons Cotton.

What I’m finding hard is that we made plans - it seemed like the sensible thing to do once we got past 14 weeks. We thought about the car & bedrooms & paternity leave. I let myself think about Next Year … Claudia’s birthday, Christmas, holidays, next time at Newgale, next May etc. Now it all feels a bit hollow. I can’t imagine getting the car because there’d be a gap, it would never be right.

I think I was lulled by Jasper, I wasn’t vigilant enough.

Still, I’m practising serenity - children are great, Simon & I are strong, great friends, wonderful family. But there’s the Toby sized gap & not knowing What Next.

It was lovely apparently, from what little I remember all about letting go & finding a way to move on. Simon feels not better but relieved, Toby’s now okay, he won’t be disturbed, we can visit when we want to. I feel worse - I don’t want him in the ground, I want to keep him with me, I don’t want him on his own. When I woke up his morning I didn’t have the ‘OMG he’s really dead’ dread but ‘he’s not here anymore’ instead. I completely understand parents who run off with their dead children’s bodies.

We took him to the cemetery - Claudia wanted to carry him so she held the coffin all the way, it was great having the three of them together. She decided it was okay that he was tiny because we could fit a tiny carseat between her & Jasper; if he wasn’t dead of course. She wants to know why he couldn’t have been very small but alive. She’s having intrusive thoughts about him waking up & wants to know how to stop them.

I’ve ordered a couple of books about helping children with grief & ‘Trying Again …’ because I needed to make the free postage up but right now it is inconceivable to risk this happening again. I don’t like making decisions based on fear (sickening terror?) but this is about life. Even if you ignore the early losses I’ve got a 50% success rate for babies who make it into the second trimester. Is it immoral to contemplate creating a life that is as likely to die as live? I still feel completely fucked up about our poor little embryos.

Does a 16/17 week old fetus have enough neurological function to suffer as it dies? If Toby was ill did he feel it? If it was the placenta again I guess he’d get hypoxic & his cells would slowly stop functioning - he wouldn’t have had the horrible gasp reflex because he didn’t breathe. What if it was an infection? If there was some kind of chromosomal or genetic problem did his body just stop? The last time I heard his hb it was 20bmp slower than usual - I assumed it was just because he was getting bigger, it was still in the normal range - was he dying then?