Moving forward with a smile :)

I haven’t written recently as I was worried about tempting fate after my early bleeds… however I am happy to report at 14 + 4 that baby is doing fine 🙂

This has been a horrendous few months of pregnancy healthwise. I can’t even pretend otherwise! The physical symptoms have been debilitating enough, but the mental health has been even worse. I am stable and my bipolar isn’t playing up, but that doesn’t mean I am not suffering. Every morning I wake up in panic that I will be bleeding, every evening in bed I cry in case when I wake in the morning my baby is gone. I know how irrational this sounds, but when you know it’s your last chance to have a baby panic sets in. Then you look to Google for reassurance and it does the opposite. I never knew how increased the risks are to become a mother and carry a child at 36. It’s scary! Then put constant nausea and extreme fatigue on top of that and life becomes interesting.

Anyway, this is a positive post as I am out of that stage!

I am relaxing and starting to believe that I will have this baby and my family will expand. I am starting to see my happy ever after with my children. I have found a strength I forgot I had. I am grasping it with both hands. I am never letting it go. This is me now; strong forever.

I haven’t heard from my family still, and nor do I expect to. I have also had friends that have been let downs. Does this upset me? No. It would have done before the pregnancy, but now I see what matters in life. My family disowning me because they don’t approve of my pregnancy is their choice; let them get on with it. I can find my own happiness with my little family. You are better off without people that drag you down and don’t accept you for who you are. The same goes for friends. Is a friend a true friend if they aren’t happy for you or only have contact on their terms? If they don’t support you when you believe you are going through a miscarriage, why would you want a friend like that? That’s not a proper friend. I would rather have a handful of true friends than many fake ones. The ones that have proved themselves have stepped up and helped me realise this.

I do like being in a position of clarity and feeling that I can move forward with my life having filtered the good from the bad. One of the hardest things with my mental health is that I have bad relationships with people because I don’t value myself enough. Well now I am valuing myself and in the process making better friendships. It is liberating and I feel I am being true to myself.

I can feel my little bean swimming in my womb in the evenings. I already feel so proud to be its Mummy. I feel that we can overcome any challenge that comes our way so long as we have each other. I can’t wait to continue on this journey and see my bean develop and grow until the day he/she can be swaddled in my arms 🙂

Limbo Land

I have lied. I have lied to everyone. I have lied because I can’t cope with the potential truth.

I had my scan the other day. I was due to be 6 weeks and 4 days. The ultrasound didn’t show up much due to me being so early so she did an internal scan. She told me that she could see a 11mm yolk sac and a 2mm fetal pole but it was too small to see a heart beat. 

I have told everyone that there was an obvious flickering heartbeat. I lied.

I have been booked in for another scan in 2 weeks to see if the pregnancy has progressed or if what she saw was a sac and cells that have already stopped growing.

I am in complete denial. The bleeding has stopped, my boobs are sore and my blood pressure is low. I keep telling myself that for as long as I have symptoms I have  a live pregnancy. Not true. Symptoms can be psychosomatic or they can be there due to pregnancy hormones still being in the system.

I went to lunch with a friend today. I refused a glass of wine as proudly said I couldn’t do that to my baby. I didn’t add I didn’t know if there still is a baby.

I want to believe it’s still there so much that until the next scan I refuse point blank to think otherwise

2 Become 1?

Woke this morning and the pink spotting had stopped – yay! I took myself off on bed rest for the day and was extremely excited when at around 3pm I felt nauseous. I know most people hate a pregnancy symptom, but at the moment they are all I want to feel. I want to feel sick all day every day and know that it’s because my baby is alive and well.

I had decided we were going to be alright; we were going to make it. I spent the day chatting with friends, arranging a hair appointment and even dared to browse at baby clothes in a shop on a trip out. 

This evening I had a stressful call with the ex, had been to police and dropped charges and could feel my stress levels rising again. I sat down, had another vitamin drink and tried to think calm thoughts for the baby. 

Then it just happened. The blood came back. This time it was red, not pink. We all know fresh red blood is not a good sign in a pregnancy. Once again I am thinking this must be the beginning of the end. However I am more certain than ever. Bleeding doesn’t get heavier and darker for no reason.

All I can do is hope against hope that my baby is safe and well. I can’t even begin to think about what I will do if it’s not. This is my last chance. Cells to everyone else, this is MY baby and I love it with all my heart. With every drop of blood I lose, the crack in my heart deepens.

31st December 2017

Not sure I should have been worrying so much about the impact potentially being a part time Dad would have on my ex. My New Years Eve parting comment from him was he wishes it had never happened.

It being Eggy the Embryo growing nicely in my uterus.

That will be 3 put of 3 men I have fallen pregnant by completely letting the male race down then!

Apparently I’m tired, sick, emotional, dizzy and keep saying I’m scared I’ll lose it. Funny that. I think that’s called pregnancy.

He looked at me with contempt and threw at me ‘You said you couldn’t have kids anyway!’. Nope. I have never said that. I have said I have tried AI and have struggled to conceive.

There is no empathy or understanding for what is going on in my body at the moment. He really is a disgustingly selfish human being. All it does is put me off and off. I would rather do this on my own than with someone that chops and changes when they feel like it. Especially as the only reason he is in my home is my guilt at him potentially being a part time Dad!

What I am amazed at, is that my bipolar is pretty stable. I haven’t had any dark moments, except for ones justified by a situation or circumstance. It makes me believe I can actually do this. I can do it on my own and I can do it successfully. 

The best part about all this however…. when I wake in the morning it is a whole new year. It is up to ME what direction to take my future and my happiness.

30th December 2017

So the ex arrived today. It appears he thought that we are now back in a full blown relationship just because I’m pregnant. It doesn’t work like that. More importantly we don’t work.

I am resenting him being in my bed; I just want to starfish.

Nothing has changed. He watched me do all the domestic chores knowing I have nausea and dizziness and just carried on reading his book. That is a step up to be fair, he would normally have full control of the remote but my daughter has decided to put her foot down! Not sure even he could sit through hours of American teenage crap.

This is where I have a real moral dilemma. He never wants to be a part time Dad again. He wants this for keeps. But I don’t want to be with someone just for the baby, it will only trigger my mental health issues even more and resentment will grow. If it hasn’t already. His snoring annoys me, his laziness pisses me off, his inability to do jobs around the house drives me insane and let’s not even start on his unhousetrained dogs.

But what right do I have to not allow a father to have a family life with his child? How is it fair for me to end things permanently knowing that him being a part time Dad will break his heart? Not having me will break his heart too.

All I want to do is focus on my pregnancy and baby. I need time out and space. I just want to nurture this life growing inside me and keep it safe. The reality is, I don’t currently have the emotional or mental capacity to consider a relationship of any form. 

29th December 2017

4 years ago my Mum died. It was really tough as she had been a huge support to me through all my mental health battles, and later on as a second parent to my children.

Every Wednesday we would meet for lunch in town whilst the children were at school. She’d then pick them up whilst I worked and relished in spending a few hours playing games with them, going to the park, reading stories and sharing hugs. She adored her grandchildren. She only had mine so relished the role, especially as she received a cancer diagnosis age 55 in 2010 and knew time wasn’t on her side. 

My father fell apart when we lost her 3 years later. In the 4 years since I can honestly say he has failed on a grand scale as both a father and Grandfather. Something I know would have caused my mother great distress. Would my father have had children if my mother hadn’t wanted them? I doubt it. He would rather have lost a child than his wife. As a mother that is incomprehensible, but true in many cases. My children (including eggy the embryo) are my world. Nothing comes before them. In his world nothing came before his wife. He resented that she wanted to spend time with her children and grandchildren.

My Mother was amazing when it came to my mental health, it was as if she just knew what to do. If I was feeling low she’d offer help, I would decline so as not to feel like a failure (there goes that negative thought process again) and she would turn up at the door and just call out ‘Just taking the children to Pizza Express, saves you cooking!’ They broke the mould when they made her. The children and I were truly blessed to have her in our lives as we did. My Father severely lacked understanding. When he knew I was low he’s ask ‘I trust everything is fine.’ as a statement, not a question. He looked at me and made me feel as if I were a freak.

I know I’m waffling, but I promise there is a point! 

I told my father I was pregnant yesterday by a text. He was due over today for a family Christmas dinner. However instead I received a text from him. These were his exact words: This I cannot support. It will be devastating for S and A and their education will suffer excessively, ultimately taken into care, i wpuldn’t be surprised. It is totally irrisponsible and you need to consider others ahead of your wishes on occasions. Regrettably, I will not be over today, of which Alex is aware. Regards you morher, she would have been totally broken by it and contrary to you belief would not have given support to you eirher. 

So here I am, alone and pregnant, with my Father telling me I am a disappointment to my dead mother and that basically I myself am an unfit mother. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so ironic given the state of his parenting. As for my children’s education; both are gifted and talented. Where is the relevance there?! Why are my children suddenly going into care? Do I need to call social services?!

As you can imagine, my bipolar welcomed this text with open arms. It told me in no uncertain terms that I didn’t deserve to be a Mum, I was rubbish at it anyway. I rang the ex in tears screaming about my father. He in turn shouted at me for shouting at him when it wasn’t his fault. This went round in circles for a while until we well and truly established that he has no understanding of mental health, how it can be triggered, how my negative thought process eats away at me; justified or not.

We calmed down and had a chat. He asked me to explain more and was quite aghast at how I can feel about myself. The upshot of that is that he is coming tomorrow for a chat. The downside is I am cutting my father out of my life. His repeated criticism about my mental health and letting my children down has only served to make me more guarded. If a partner or friend made you feel that way, you’d dump them. Why should I put up with it just because it’s a relative?

I feel more determined than ever for this baby to survive. To show it love and a good life. To prove that although the sun goes down every night, it rises again each morning.

28th December 2017

Sent a photo of one of many pregnancy tests to the ex. He made a good joke about how I couldn’t say he didn’t get me anything for Christmas. For the record; he didn’t get me anything for Christmas.

Maybe I should give a bit of relationship background. 

We had been together 7 months. It was very lust based and we are very different people with completely opposite backgrounds. More importantly, we have different moral standards and acceptable behaviours in life. An example being drugs aren’t acceptable in my world; they are in his.

A month ago we moved house together. I did all the packing, all the dismantling and re-erecting furniture and he just sat on the sofa watching TV saying he’d do things ‘tomorrow’. We’ve all watched Annie and know how that turns out. I think this is when I started to get put off him. My frustration triggered a bipolar episode. When I am like that I can be mean and evil. I was constantly in tears, he was belittling my mental health, arguing daily so after 2 weeks of this I asked him to leave. Which he did. As far as I was concerned the relationship was over. Completely done and dusted; no looking back. Tinder already downloaded! 

Then I discover I’m pregnant.

I have been here before. My darling daughter (12) was rejected by her father before she was born. He came into her life briefly when she was 11 and left just as suddenly. My darling son (11) had an even worse father who rejected him on the basis it would upset me as he knew how upset I was my daughter had been rejected. Neither are a loss on a personal level to my children, but they are on an emotional one. However, I have proven I can cope as a single parent.

I know I have coped fine. More than coped. My children excel at school and are well rounded. So why is my mind so consumed with fears right now about my inability  as a mother? Sleep is impossible. 

I am terrified for my mental health in pregnancy, anyone with bipolar lives with the fear they could develop postpartum psychosis or something similar.

Most of all I am concerned about losing my baby. I don’t feel I have done anything to deserve this gift, yet it is all I want. My all encompassing negative thought process is ruling my brain. I just want to shut it out and feel a flutter of excitement. I then think that by being negative with my thought process I am somehow hurting my baby and feel guilty. For the record it is a 4 week and 4 day embryo. We are yet to make foetal stage, let alone baby.

All I want is to relax, enjoy the blessing that is inside me and hope against all hope that I can do this. If anything happens, I really don’t know how I’ll cope.

27th December 2017

4 days ago I ended my relationship. I am not good at or made for relationships due to my bipolar. I am sure many can relate to this! I am irrational, up and down, intense and overbearing.

I had, however, been feeling even more emotional and up and down than usual. No surprise really, I was due on. Even the sanest of women can show signs of insanity when her time of the month is due!

I decided to do a pregnancy test. Mostly to reassure myself that overindulging in alcohol over Christmas wasn’t going to do any harm. The other part of me was because I have been desperate for a baby for the last 2 years. I tried 3 rounds of AI with an anonymous donor in 2016 without success and have been convinced my eggs have totally gone off. After all, I am the wrong side of 35 now!  

2 lines appeared on the test.

With my negative mindset, there is no way I believe this.

I borrow my 12 year old daughter’s Christmas money to buy more tests. We’re still positive!

I then borrow my 11 year old son’s Christmas money to buy more tests. We’re still positive!

And now all I can think is FUCK. I am terrified of losing this thing that I have wanted for so long. The fear is overwhelming. The irrational thought process is so intense I can feel my anxiety trying to push me into hyperventilation.

The fact I am single is not even crossing my mind at the moment. I have been a single mother my whole life. I am sure it will have more relevance soon.

I shall sleep on this. If I can.

All I know is I am terrified of losing this beautiful being that is growing inside me. The size of a poppy seed. Yet my love for it could fill Flanders Field with them.