"I will praise the one who's chosen me, to carry you"
-Selah: I will carry you

Sunday 10 March 2013

So hard to keep going sometimes

I've been laying awake in bed for an hour now, thinking about our journey to be parents so far....and I can't help but think that it has been a series of barriers in our way, over and over. We get over one and another one slams down. Three years of it so far and we have nothing to show but a gravestone.  I have to wonder, are we just not meant to be parents?

I was 27 when we decided we wanted to try, we had to wait a few months due to travel commitments which meant we'd be in countries I did not want to be pregnant in, but finally the time came.  We had a tough time trying for Bertie, I knew there was a problem but a succession of doctors ignored my repeated requests for investigations, until at last a kind GP listened to me and ordered an ultrasound.  By some miracle we conceived Bertie before the appointment came round. We went along anyway as I still wanted to know if my suspicions were correct as it had implications for the pregnancy, and for the future. The sonogropher refused point blank to check for me and just had a quick look at the embryo, grumbling the whole time. Nice memory of our first glimps of baby to be there then!

Fast forward to 26 weeks and three days pregnant.  I go into labour for no explainable reason and Bertie is born, alive, thank God. Two days later, our world fell apart.  We left the hospital empty handed wondering if it was all a dream.   Because Bertie was breech, I had to have an emergency ceserian, so we were advised not to try again for six months. In the end we waited five, as we were so desparate to be parents again.  Now, it's 18 months on from Bertie's birth, 13 months of trying again and I have a diagnosis which explains why it's been hard, and a few months of first line treatment have failed.

Now we are waiting to see the specialist again to do further tests, stronger drugs.....and I have to wonder, will this work? How far are we going to have to take this journey, and will we ever get our rainbow? Or, will we go all the way to IVF and still be left empty handed? Could I even cope with the physical and emotional toll that would entail? And even if we do conceive......oh God what if it happens again?

Hope. It has got me this far, hope, and determination. The primal need to be a mother is in me and I can't give up until I am. But, it is so hard to keep clinging to hope when time keeps marching on, and you have nothing but heartache to show for three years of your life.   My favourite bible quote, Jeremiah 29:11 promises us that God has plans to give us hope and a future.   I know faith is about believing what there is no evidence for, but really, I am starting to need some evidence, I need something to start going our way to convince me that God's on our side with this, that we are not battling against the tide of devine will and that our time is going to come.  It is so hard to believe that this is going to happen for us when three years of evidence to the contrary are behind us.  If I was not successful at 28, will I be at 30, 31, 35? It is just so painful to build up hope again and again, to have it shattered, again and again.

1 comment:

  1. Ruby who reads your blog10 March 2013 at 17:43

    Thinking of you today, Bertie's mummy, on this desolate Mothers' Day - your 2nd without your baby son to hold and my first without my baby son to hold (who died 11 weeks ago). It hurts me that so many people don't recognise us as mothers nonetheless.

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