Pregnancy, stillbirth, I've written a lot...

So I guess I should say something.

I feel really exposed publishing all those pregnancy posts.  I am actually a really private person and I don't like discussing my feelings, certainly not face to face, although I can manage it online.

As I said in the first post, I published this stuff because people need to know that babies die, and that this goes on in the midst of the rest of life, and that somehow, the rest of life goes on, whether we want it to or not.  I still read comics.  I still piss about on twitter and tumblr.  I go to work.  I see some friends.  I eat and I shit and I sleep and I breathe.  My body forces me too.  Grief sits alongside all that.  Losing your baby... everything has changed and nothing has changed.  People need to understand that.  Just because I go on with normal everyday life does not mean I am normal, that I have forgotten, that I am not hurting.  I will continue to hurt and I will miss my son until my dying breath and I just have to learn how to deal with that.

The second reason for posting is that others with rainbow pregnancies, or wanting rainbows, are probably looking for similar experiences and evidence of how life continues with all this stuff happening too.  I know that's what  I wanted last year.  I didn't want specialist baby loss books.  I wanted to know how this rawness could fit alongside everyday activities.

I deliberately did not blog C's pregnancy, because there are hundreds of first pregnancy blogs out there and I had nothing to add.  I also wanted things kept private.  I still want things kept private. There are things I will never ever ever post on here.  But now, there is a need for people to talk about rainbow babies and to see how it fits with the rest of their lives.  I have not been able to find any blogs about this that are not exclusively about this, and so I want more. So there must be others who want more as well.  So maybe I can help.

Of course, writing like this, for others, gives me a more objective feel, it sets me outside of my situation, and that helps because then it hurts less, for a bit.

One thing this will not become is a campaigning blog.  My son is worth more than that and I will not have him reduced to a slogan or a movement.

So a few words on language.
Please do not ever refer to my son, or any other children, as 'a stillbirth'.  Say that he died.  Or say he 'was stillborn', or that he was born still.  Referring to him as 'a stillbirth' is dehumanising.  He is not an event, a thing which just happened to me and then left.  He is a person and he deserves to be recognised as such.

Also, the word stillbirth does not really convey what happened - people don't understand that it means the child died in utero.  By referring to him as 'a stillbirth' (a noun?) you are making the circumstances of his birth the important thing, and people can file it in their minds without really understanding.  By saying he was stillborn (a verb?) you make him the subject and you describe how he was born (except you don't really because children die at all sorts of stages, before and during labour, and after, quite regularly).  That's important.  But best of all, you should say he died and then say he was stillborn.

I thought quite carefully about how to title these posts.  I decided on pregnancy after stillbirth rather than pregnancy after loss, or rainbow pregnancy, or second pregnancy, because I wanted it to be absolutely clear.  I wanted there to be no confusion.  I want people to come across this and go 'oh, stillbirth, that means they died in utero, that means babies die before they are born'.  If I titled these posts pregnancy after loss people might think that he died at a few hours or a few days old.  Those situations are just as terrible, but they aren't my situation.

I'll just say something about miscarriage - I hate that word.  Everyone knows about first tri miscarriage, but very few know what it involves.  No one knows about second tri miscarriage.  You have to labour if your baby dies after 14 weeks.  If your baby dies and you deliver him or her at 23 weeks and 6 days, your baby is classed as a miscarriage.  If your baby dies and you deliver him or her at 24 weeks exactly, your baby is classed as being stillborn.

No one can tell me that the baby is less of a baby for being born a day earlier.

Miscarriage is a vastly misunderstood term and doesn't convey the horror of your baby dying.  As far as I'm concerned your baby is a baby as soon as you decide it is, whether that's 5 weeks, 15 weeks or 25 weeks.  'Miscarriage' seems to reduce them to being abstracts when really, if they die after 16 weeks you've probably already heard their heartbeat and felt them move.  And yet they are never legally classed as a person.  I realise the 24 week thing in the UK is linked to viability and also probably our abortion laws, and someone more sophisticated than me will have to come up with a solution, but it seems to me that the term miscarriage is a cruel one.

Pregancy after stillbirth: 9 weeks 0 days

I've not been sleeping well.  I've felt OK over the Christmas period (it's the 30th December today) but that's because we're in a new albeit safe environment and I feel like I've run away from my shit life.  I have had lots of Thoughts going through my head, usually from about midnight to 2am, and more nightmares.  I won't detail these - some things needs to remain personal - but it has led me to realise that I need to write something to get this stuff out of my head.

So, where to start.  Howabout my fears around when this clump of cells/blob/foetus becomes an actual real baby.  How do I express my terror about losing it before it's a real baby. I know what to do when it's an actual baby and it dies.  You go through labour, you hold it, you cry, you hold a funeral.  Everyone is very sad until the point when they're not and it's just me and my boyfriend left feeling empty and dead and despairing.

But you only go through labour from about 14 weeks.  Before that I guess it's something like a mini labour?  I dunno. Your cervix has to open and you bleed and pass clots and from about 9 weeks you could see the pregnancy sac and if you look really close you could see the foetus and oh my god this is the most horrifying thing I can imagine.  What would I do?  Would I look at it?  I don't think I could function if I didn't, because I deal with stuff by looking at them, analysing them and understanding them, but if I did look at it and understand it was my baby in the toilet or in the sanitary towel or my knickers or whatever I think I'd start clawing at my face and I'd go irrecoverably mad.

Then if we make it to 14 weeks and it dies after that what would it look like?  It would be tiny. Before 24 weeks they have transluscent skin.  Could I bear seeing my baby that is not a real baby?  When they are really small and you cremate them you don't get ashes.  How the fuck am I meant to hold another funeral?  Will anyone else care?  Is it that one is a tragedy but two is careless? And we're supposed to just get over it, because we've already done it and we know how these things go.

Better for us to get to 24 weeks and then it dies because then I can cope, then I can understand, then I know what I'm looking for.

When am I supposed to start bonding with it?  The 8 week scan showed that it has grown so I'm fairly certain that we'll get to 12 weeks OK.  Will it look like a real baby at the 10 week scan?  By 12 weeks they are real babies, swimming around.  Do I start bonding with it then?  Is it a real baby then?  How can it be a real baby if I don't need to labour to get it out?

I don't have anyone I can speak to in real life about this.  I can't speak to my boyfriend because he can't think about this stuff, and as much as the medical profession is geared around caring for me, it needs to care for him too.  This affects him - he is - will be - a father again.  This doesn't just happen passively around him, he is involved and key to the whole process.  My friends will get upset if I talk to them about it, so I sit here throwing everything down and hoping it will clear my head.  Maybe it is.  Perhaps it is bringing everything to the surface instead and I'll be a whimpering wreck by the time I'm finished writing this.

Or maybe I'll move on to writing about the physical stuff and pack the mental stuff away as over and done with and then not deal with it until it bobs up to the surface again.

So physical stuff - my nipples have been getting more sore over the last week, but my boobs aren't sore.  Not like I remember them being with C.  They felt like they were on fire.  I'm not showing yet although my clothes are tighter.  I suspect this is a mixture of mince pies adding to my reasonably substantial middle and the fact that I'm too early.  When I lie down I feel my belly is raised, and have felt that way for a week or so, but that might be wishful thinking.  I don't have any scales here so I don't know how much weight I've put on, but I do know I haven't been overeating.  I have been eating rich, fatty, sugary stuff, but I haven't been overeating.  Nausea isn't a constant, but I did wake up yesterday, have a shower, felt very hungry and then dry heaved once before I legged it downstairs for a fruit salad breakfast.  We went out for cooked breakfast half an hour later and while waiting for it to arrive I had to eat a fruesli bar, I was that hungry.  Mind you, my lunch consisted of a hot chocolate and a fruit scone so I guess it balances out. I feel tired a lot, but I think that is more being around other people, not sleeping well and emotions, rather than pregnancy per se.

I was wondering if this physical stuff would be interesting for anyone to read (when I publish it in about 3 or 4 weeks time), but I've decided it is useful for me to write down for me.  These days are dragging.  I need to mark them somehow.  We came down on Christmas Eve and I've just not been busy, so I've had time to think, all day, every day.  At least work keeps me busy.  The first two or three days I was barely thinking about pregnancy and babies, except for at night, but then my head started going all over the place and I was getting hung up on dates and scans and weeks and everything.  I had to keep reminding myself I wasn't past 12 weeks yet.  I've now decided to think about just the day I am at.  Today I am 9 weeks 0 days.  Tomorrow I will focus on being one more day along.  The day after I shall focus on that day.

One more note about physical stuff - I keep scaring myself thinking I've got cramps, but as they don't last long and go once I've visited the toilet I'm pretty certain it's just my bowels and not my uterus.  Thanks be to everything that I don't have the severe cramps I had with C.  If I did I think I'd be laying in bed going nuts.

And now, I feel lighter.  Jubilant almost.  It's good to write.

Edited to add: here is a link to the Miscarriage Association's webpage giving info on the likelihood of miscarriage throughout the first trimester.  This particular piece of text gives me hope:

"Research has shown that if you see a heartbeat at 6 weeks of pregnancy, the chances of the pregnancy continuing are 78%.

A heartbeat at 8 weeks increases the chance of a continuing pregnancy to 98% and at 10 weeks that goes up to 99.4%.

So things could still go wrong and sadly sometimes do, but as long as there is a heartbeat, the risk of miscarriage decreases as the weeks go by."

It's in the 'There's  a heartbeat.. I'm still bleeding' section.

Also, I hate the term miscarriage.  It's horrible.