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.

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.

Had a really difficult week last week - there’s no real point going over it. I’m angry & sad & was really hurt by being made to feel even more isolated. I feel freakish enough without being banished from polite society.

It was our 10th anniversary on Friday & we went out for dinner - together … alone The Silver Star Unit have agreed to take me (which is a whole ‘nother issue that I won’t go into) I’m seeing the GP on Friday to formalise the referral. We’ve done masses of work on the house in the last couple of weekends, which is good. All caffeine fuelled.

eta: ‘cos it was the point of the post, before I forgot - this is an excellent resource. You know things aren’t quite how they should be when your daughter is pleased that she found the perfect box to be her baby’s coffin.

Felt really crap today.

Everyone else is asleep.

These are terrible photos - child in perpetual motion - but look how big he’s getting

Claudia is having a fabulous time - trips to Frankie & Benny’s and blackberry picking.

I’m trying to clear my knitting stash before I embark on Mystery Stole 4.

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

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.

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?