Shattered Dreams

Ever since I was 11 years old I have known that I had been put on this earth to have babies and be the best mother I could be. I remember spending every spare minute at the Whitely's house, Monica had a baby and I couldn't get enough of him and helping her out. I was probably in the way, knowing what my 11 year old neice is like, but I fell in love with that baby boy and I knew, deep in my soul that this what what I wanted.

When it was time to choose a career before leaving high school I had only one preference. Mother. But I wasn't going to just go out and get pregnant, I had a plan. I had to meet the right man, get married then we would have a baby. So in the meantime I needed a way to pay bills and to give a little purpose to my life. I had two choices: hospitality or education. I went with education because I figured school holidays would be handy for when I had to go back to work when my children were school aged, and I loved children so teaching seemed like a good idea.

I hated university. I took some time off. I went back and finished it. I had one loser of a boyfriend who made me question everything about myself and took several years to recover my self esteem....then when I'd finally decided that I'd rather be alone than be treated that way again, I met the man of my dreams. He was a little damaged, but I could see he had a heart of gold and all he needed was love to heal his wounds and anger. He'd been married before. He had two beautiful boys. He'd had a vesectomy. I remember asking him very early on in our relationship if he would be willing to do anything that was necessary for us to have a baby - if he'd said no I'd have walked away or at least I though I could at the time - he said yes. We got engaged. His ex stopped his children from seeing us. We got married. We saved $3000 and got his vesectomy reversed. I started to lose weight so that I would be healthy enough to carry a baby. We waited...and waited...and waited...3 years later we still hadn't fallen pregnant.

We decided to start seeing a natropath who put us on a heap of supplements - to develop good viable sperm in him and for my body to support a pregnancy. We waited and waited. The natropath decided to get some tests done. Sperm count for him, blood tests for me. We found out we would have to go to Newcastle for a weekend for the sperm count....we put the tests off until after our holiday. We went to P!nk in Brisbane, then went to visit family in Toowoomba before heading to my parents farm at Stanthorpe.

My period was late - I did a test and those two perfect pink lines appeared. I couldn't believe it was happening. Over the next three days I did another 2 tests. More pink lines. Our excitement grew. When we got home from our holiday I got very sick. I went to the doctor and he ordered blood tests to see if I was pregnant and to test for a million other things. The results came back positive. I was pregnant, I didn't have glandular fever, but I did have tonsillitis and 7 mouth ulcers. The doctor said that it was still very early in the pregnancy and that he would send me for a dating scan in about 4 weeks.

2nd August - My darling husbands birthday
We drove an hour to our close friends to celebrate his birthday and tell them our news. We couldn't not tell them as she and I love to drink wine and she would have known as soon as I didn't drink any that something was up. 2 hours later, I started to bleed. She had to drive us to the hospital because he'd had too many beers. We were there for 6 hours. The bleeding got worse then lessened. The doctor thought it wasn't a lot of blood so perhaps things would be ok. I had blood tests and lay there and waited and waited, to be sent home at 2:30am.

The next morning the bleeding slowed completely and stopped sometime in the morning. We were so relieved. I convinced myself it was just an implantation bleed (which happens).

I had to have Monday off work to go for an ultra sound. They couldn't see an embrionic sac so they did an internal ultra sound...not pleasant I must say. I was told the signs of pregnancy were there but that there was no evidence of a developing sack or embryo. We were told not to worry too much that the blood tests on Thursday would confirm what was going on. I then went back to my doctor who was quite worried. He decided to send me for blood tests the next day in Singleton. I started to bleed very lightly again. I tried to pretend it wasn't happening, telling myself it's so light it will be ok. Waiting until Wednesday afternoon for my doctor's appointment to be told the results was pure torture. Until he told us that we had lost our baby.

I cried in the doctors surgery, I cried all the way home, I cried in his arms, I cried when I called my Dad - sobbing it out to him on the phone, I cried myself to sleep. How could something so completely loved and wished for have been taken from us so quickly. Our baby wasn't even big enough to be seen on an ultra sound yet - just a bunch of cells they tell me - but it was our first baby. How do I cope with this? How do I grieve for a soul I will never know? How do I grieve for a baby I can't name and could never hold? I know women go through this all the time, yet I have never heard even one talk about it.

The dream that had begun to come true for us has shattered....like fragile glass dropped on a tile floor and I don't know how to pick up the pieces. My grief is overwelming...