The Arrival Of Boo!

Two weeks ago today this happened…

Boo arrived.

He was a secret, not to Mr L and I but to most people we knew.

He came a little early, with his due date actually being tomorrow (18/12) and he was 7lb 11 ounces which is a massive size for our babies.

He was quick, my waters broke at 5am and by 7.41am he was with us. It was all a little shock, I should have been going to hospital to discuss an induction date, instead I went in to have a baby.

It was a shock, a relief, and damn right scary to be honest.

It was also a massive surprise.

Only a handful of people knew that I was pregnant, and it wasn’t a decision we made lightly or one that we even knew we were going to make to be honest.

You see, when Rhianna died, I never thought I would hold another baby in my arms, I dare not think it would be possible and Mr L felt the same. It was something that was never going to happen to us, and we became ‘that family’ the ones that get stared at.

The family that lost their baby.

That had a stillbirth.

The day we found out we were pregnant, I was scared and I didn’t stop being scared for the whole pregnancy and have still not stopped being scared.

I couldn’t dare to believe it, dare to get attached, or dare to dream.

We had so many plans for Rhianna, ideas of what she looked like, what she would like and none of them came true. We couldn’t do that again.

We instantly decided that we would get to 12 weeks before we told anyone.

The 12 weeks came and we saw Boo’s heart beating in his first scan, and then in his 12 week scan, (as I was scanned regularly) and we walked out of the scan room in a daze but still unable to tell anyone.

You see I couldn’t tempt fate.

We waited until we were safe with Rhianna, we waited to tell Baba about his sister until we were 20 weeks, and then she died three weeks later, and I couldn’t jinx this pregnancy by telling people. I still wasn’t showing so we decided to wait a little longer.

The weeks went by, we had another scan at 20 weeks and again Boo’s heart was beating away and we still walked out of the scan room not wanting to tell anyone. I just could not bring myself to tell people and something happen again and again I have to tell people the bad news.

I couldn’t have people fussing over me because I was pregnant as the hospital and Mr L were doing enough of the fussing.

And I could not tell people as then I would have to become attached and I couldn’t because what if something went wrong.

We were going to the scans, going to the consultants meetings, watching and listening and then walking out of the hospital and not mentioning the baby again. We couldn’t dare to get excited.

Mr L really unattached himself, it was horrible to watch but he did explain why, he was so scared something was going wrong that he had to remain completely distant so that he could support me.

We were on our own, we couldn’t get excited, we were living in a state of 24/7 fear and stress and it didn’t matter what people said to us, what the midwife said, what the consultant said or what the scan showed the whole experience was hell. Loosing Rhianna was such a shock there was no warning and that was the biggest fear I had. I brought a doppler and I listened to Boo while pregnant at least three times a day.

First thing in the morning, lunch time, and just before I fell asleep.

There was one night when the doppler didn’t work. I was hysterical and didn’t sleep a wink as I couldn’t listen to Boo’s heartbeat before sleeping. I cried all night.

The next day I phoned every pharmacy, baby shop and department store I could think of near us to get a new doppler and we ended up driving over 45 minutes to go and buy a new one as I hadn’t heard the heart for over 12 hours. It was the only attempt I had at getting some comfort. There literally was nothing else.

It was really hard not to get so wrapped up in your own fears, that you couldn’t see each other fears.

Mr L remained distant so I never really got to the bottom of his biggest fears whilst I was pregnant I can imagine what they were, and would say they were the same as mine. But neither of us could do anything to take the others fears away.

We managed to keep the secret until I started to show around 28 weeks when we decided to tell our family, and tell the few friends that we were seeing, I was getting very good at hiding away so that people didn’t see me. Or the people who did see me only saw me in Mr L’s clothes so they couldn’t tell that there was a baby!

But even though a few people were told I still couldn’t physically tell people, it was easier to hide away, rather than explain to them we were having another baby. So people weren’t told.

But we still had the task of telling Baba.

And I have to admit I was terrified.

I was terrified with what he would say, how he would cope, and what would then happen after.

After all we hadn’t had good experience of this.

We didn’t know if he would be excited or scared and we were worried.

We waited as long as we could and didn’t tell him until I was 32 weeks pregnant, and luckily he was so excited we couldn’t contain him, once he found out the baby was a boy he was even more excited. It was lovely to see and from that moment on it was very hard not to get wrapped up in Baba’s excitement.

But it would only go so far.

I still couldn’t get anything ready for Boo arriving, so in the end my mum and sister took over and did our hospital bag, and got the childcare sorted for Baba and kept everything away from us.

It was really helpful, and meant that a little stress was taken away from me.

But it didn’t stop the stress.

At 36 weeks they stopped me from taking aspirin, (I had been taking it from around 9 weeks as it had come to light that I had issues with my placenta, Rhianna’s failed and they think Baba’s was failing as well by the time he was born and influenced him being so small) so once I got to 36 weeks they stopped the aspirin to make sure I didn’t bleed a lot in labour and I cried.

I cried nearly every day.

My body failed me once for certain in pregnancy and quite possibly twice, and I was convinced the only thing that was stopping me from failing again was taking the aspirin and I no longer had my comfort blanket. It had been taken away and I was the so scared that it would happen again.

I was worried that I would get this far but only this far

As I had taken aspirin all pregnancy and had no issues with my blood pressure, I had a consultants appointment at 36 weeks and they decided that the best thing would be for me to be left and see what naturally happened. My stress levels rose, and I just cried.

I was stressed, I was lonely, I was scared and I was so worried.

I was also feeling sick everyday, couldn’t sleep, and could barely walk as I had really bad SPD throughout the pregnancy.

I just thought everything would go so wrong, and really felt a bit of a failure, as I couldn’t do this pregnancy lark properly, and I hated it!

No one seemed to understand, no one seemed to listen and having Mr L trying to remain strong incase anything happened made me feel even worse. There were moments at the end of the pregnancy where I felt so very alone, but I still couldn’t tell anymore people, unless I saw them, I couldn’t tempt fate.

It was a totally irrational feeling, but one that I could not shift all pregnancy so one that I had to follow.

So we kept quiet, Mr L remained distant about the pregnancy but also really strong. He battled the bad days with me, and he put up with me falling down around him, he knew that I couldn’t go out much as I was in so much pain and he didn’t moan. He would come back from work take over the house and try to keep on top of everything while still doing all the work.

When I came to 37 weeks it all finally came to a head when my midwife could see how stressed, and upset I was and managed to get me another appointment with my consultant to discuss an induction at 38 weeks.

And I was so pleased there was finally an end in sight, but it didn’t stop me from being scared. But there was a little light.

Although it was the first appointment that Mr L couldn’t come to and I was distraught.

I kept on at him all evening on the Monday night about how upset I was that he couldn’t come with me, and made him feel rotten.

And then Tuesday I woke up a few minutes before Mr L had to get up and realised that my waters had broken and the rest they say is history!