From as long as I can remember I've always wanted to be a
mother. I remember being a child and
playing with my dolls - dolls were always my most favourite toys. I would happily push around my toy pram
pretending I was already a mother. I
didn't stop playing with them until I was about 12 years old which is a lot
older than most of my friends.
Later in my teenage years whenever I imagined my adult life
I would have children around me. I daydreamed
I'd have a lovely husband and 3 or 4 children.
When other kids my age had big dreams and ambitions deep down my real
ambition was to become a mother. When I
finally met a boy I wanted to have sex with I was responsible enough to use
contraception but I was waiting and hoping for the time to come when I was
settled enough to have a baby of my own.
I was lucky enough to meet someone special when I was 20 who
was happy to settle down with me and start a family. We bought a flat with 2 bedrooms and at the
age of 20 we stopped using contraception.
We were young but very much in love. It was such an exciting time. Back then I really believed that all my
dreams were about to come true. Months
past and nothing happened. Each month I
would wait and pray that my period was late. If it was even a day late I'd enthusiastically
take a pregnancy test. Every month it
was negative. Months turned into a year
and I realised that my dream of having my own family might not be so easy to
achieve after all. After 18 months we
got medical advice and we went through a barrage of tests. Each
test would come back normal and in the end we where told that the infertility
was unexplained. We where put on the
IVF waiting list and told to "keep trying on your own and hope for the
best". I was devastated. I stopped taking pregnancy tests all the time
and just put all my hopes in the IVF working.
The IVF waiting list is long, 3 years plus and in Edinburgh
you get 3 attempts on the NHS so we where prepared for a long wait.
Another few years passed and at this point we had been
having unprotected sex for 5 years. I
had lost all hope of ever conceiving a baby naturally and it didn't even occur
to me to check if I was pregnant anymore. Randomly one day my breasts started
to hurt and over the next couple of weeks started to get bigger. I started to feel sick all the time and in
the end I was convinced by a good friend that I should take a pregnancy test
just to be on the safe side. I have
taken LOTS of pregnancy tests over the years and every single time they had
been negative so I was not hopeful at all.
I waited till morning when I would be alone. For some reason
I always tested alone, because then I could cry my eyes out at yet another
negative result, pick myself up and get on with my day without having to face
anyone else. I sat on the toilet with my little dip stick and
collection cup. I placed the stick in my urine and then put it down
on the side of the bath trying not to look at it because like the many times
before I would wait the 5 minutes until the test had finished then go back and
check. However out the corner of my eye I saw it already looked
positive. I took a double take, held it up and looked at it
again. Then got the instructions out to double check that I wasn’t’
seeing things. I started to physically shake the test was definitely
positive. I was so happy I was crying, I
couldn't believe it after 5 long years finally we where going to have the baby
we had dreamed off and planned for so long.
It was not an easy pregnancy I was sick constantly and there
was bleeding off and on but I was happier than I had ever been. However at 13 weeks I started to bleed really
heavily and I just knew something was very wrong. I went back and forward to the hospital and
each time they would check the baby's heart beat and then send me home. I would be back a few days later still in agony
and still bleeding but they refused to give me another scan. At 16 weeks gestation I decided to visit
another hospital to try and get some help.
In the end it turned out that my waters had already broken
(something I had suspected but the other hospital hadn't taken seriously) I
also had a massive infection. The baby
was still alive but could not survive.
I had to go through the whole process of labour which took 2
days and in the end I gave birth to a tiny little boy. He was born still but he was perfect. We called him Samson. At first I was to afraid to look at him and I
asked the nurses to take him away but a few hours later I had a desperate urge
to see my baby. The nurses brought him through in a tiny Moses
basket. He was wrapped in a little white shawl and to me he really
did look perfect. I looked at his little face, and eyes and I fell completely
in love with him. The fact that he was dead did not stop me wanting
to hold him. His skin was very delicate, a reddish colour and
transparent but he looked like a baby. He was not just a bundle of
cells or some kind of alien he was my baby just very tiny. I held him in my
hands and all I could think was how badly I wanted him to wake up. We buried him in the baby rose garden and every
once in a while I still visit him and leave things for him. I would still give
up everything to go back in time and change what happened.
Sadly about 18 months later I split up with Samson's father.
I was lucky enough to meet Rick (my current partner 3 and a
half years ago) I explained to him about my loss and how hard it had been for
me to conceive and we decided from pretty early on that we would not use
contraception. As expected I did not conceive
and after a year we went for the same barrage of tests as before with the same
outcome "unexplained infertility"
I was put on the IVF waiting list again and since then we have been
waiting.
During my life I have always had mental health difficulties
but things had been manageable up until 2 years ago when I experienced a severe
mania. I was diagnosed with bipolar and
then 6 months later schizoaffective disorder - (along with a dissociative condition). Since then my symptoms have been
chronic. Hearing voices, seeing things
that aren't there, depression, hypo-mania, mania, the list goes on. Recently I spent 5 weeks in a psychiatric
hospital. Lately I've had to think very
hard about how I would cope being a mother.
It's what I want more than anything in the world but could I cope with a
child when my symptoms are so severe? Sadly the answer is no, in which case I need
to ask myself if IVF is the correct thing to do.
I've come to the very difficult decision that pursuing IVF is
not the right thing for us. IVF is both
emotionally and physically hellish and there is a good chance that even trying
to go through the process will trigger symptoms of my mental illness and then
at the end of it all I might end up very unwell and unable to care for my
child. After talking to Rick we have
agreed that IVF is not for us which means there is a very good chance that I
will never be a mother.
We are not going to start using contraception because if it
did happen naturally we would be happy. We
both have a feeling that if its meant to be then it will be and if not then that's
ok too.
I am lucky enough to have amazing friends, some of who are
parents, and some who are not. I've been
able to see first hand that it is possible to have a meaningful life without
being a parent. I have also seen first
hand how difficult being a parent really is.
I feel very sad to be giving up on a lifelong dream but I also feel
relieved that there is no pressure anymore to get pregnant. I don't have to arrange my sex life around
when I ovulate and I don't have to wait and pray that my period is late every
month. I just have to let things be. In the end I will always be a mother to Samson,
my little angel baby. I hope wherever he
is, he knows how much he was wanted and loved by his parents.
