Marmite is looking like making it to a major milestone, that of ‘viability’. It’s odd to be thinking like that. I never gave 24 weeks any thought with the girls and then with Freddie all I could think about was that if we got to 24 weeks and he died, at least he’d be a stillbirth and not a mid trimester miscarriage. I have no idea what triggered that little thought process at all but I know it was there and I think that it must have stemmed from some sense that all was not well. While I’ll be relieved to get to that point next week, it doesn’t seem to have the same sense of importance. For one thing 24 weeks means no more in terms of take home baby than 40 did I suppose, for another, Freddie shared a room with very preemie babies and I’m under no illusions about what trials and realities it involves to be born so early.
Honestly though, I just don’t feel the same. While I could be proved to be wrong yet, while we could be tripped up by a car accident or a knot in a cord or one of countless other terrible things, I just don’t have a sense of anything being not okay. I haven’t stood in a room and thought “he’s not going to watch rugby with you” or “maybe he’ll die” or “please don’t talk like he is coming home” or? had dreams about babies who won’t open their eyes. Either I’m in denial, or my brain won’t let me hear – or everything is fine right now. I’m thinking bout 24 weeks as being more to do with Marmite being a baby who can have decisions made about him for his survival, about him becoming medically separate from me in terms of a being who could be saved. Not about him being a stillbirth with a death certificate. That’s an important distinction for me. Everything about this pregnancy, despite the inevitable fraughtness of it, is making it clearer that I DID NOT feel okay about Freddie. I enjoyed being pregnant with him passionately – maybe because I knew deep down it was all I would get.
Fran and I found this in a supermarket cafe last week. We had to buy it.
This last two weeks has been about gradually more kicks and wriggles and a baby who will boot my arm if it rests on my tummy too long. It’s been about beginning to trust to ‘asleep’ and not ‘dead’. It’s been about more heartburn and either being just a bit more filled with energy or completely knocked sideways. It’s been about a tummy I occasionally see move if my t-shirt is tight or I’m in the bath.
If I’m honest, it’s also been about worrying about birth; I desperately want a baby who lives and I desperately want no unexpected traumas but the more the possibility looms, the more petrified a c-section leaves me. I don’t want that. I have no idea how to achieve not having that with my sanity intact. So the big question, the one I need to talk about and resolve, I’m leaving to the gods.? I can’t quite manage not to think about it, but I am trying. I’m not going to resolve anything inside the next ten weeks, for one thing. For another, 5 births have left me quite sure that one thing you can’t do is control it or plan for every eventuality. Somehow I’m either going to have to resolve my fears about one version or another. It’s ironic that the version that ought to be the safe one now feels dangerous to me and the one that I might, some might say, have proved to be the riskiest, still feels the most safe and desirable.
This week I had another scan.
He still appears to be a boy (I still don’t believe it) and he still appears to be in fine fettle. Once I get to 28 weeks, we’ll go back to fortnightly scans but I’ve said I want to stretch the time a little now till the next one. I feel the need to get just a small amount of normality back into this, reclaim just a fraction of normal pregnancy. This is the last time (no really, it is, I have a completely overwhelming sense of DONE!) and it seems a shame to spend all of it lurching from one check up to the next. My hospital are completely fabulously supportive – and what a difference supportive maternity care makes, I will have a very different memory of it thanks to these last two pregnancies – and their door is open any time I need reassuring. Right now I feel like I need to rely on myself a bit and listen inwards.
If ever there is an illustration of making myself believe in the future being hopeful, this is it.
I’ve started knitting his blanket.
I am loving these updates, loving how Marmite is more and more real with every passing week. I hope he continues to behave himself, and that soon he’s digging you in the ribs, giving you unbearable heartburn and making you wish he’d just move his head/bum from whichever nerve it’s pressing on!
Merry I am so happy for you! Big smiles reading this! 🙂 X
I love the heart shaped Marmite (despite disliking the taste of it!!). I felt the same with Toby’s pregnancy. Despite the inevitable stress and tension, I felt far more peaceful about the outcome than I ever did with Emma’s – and he is here. He is SO here! Hoping and longing for the same for Marmite.
I’m another who understands how different it feels to be wary, scared even, but to know that this time it’s different.
I also understand that feeling of being DONE, and I never thought I would, at least the old me didn’t.
The blanket is going to be beautiful I’m sure.
Beautifully said. I’m so glad your lot of HCP are being supportive.
I can’t wait to see ‘Marmite’ when he is here- with his blanket.
I long for the ‘done’ feeling 🙂 so I’m glad it is out there! eeeettttttttt (message from my 3 yr old)
Merry,
It is so lovely to hear you so positive, and enjoying the pregnancy. Happy blanket making, it looks very intricate and organised? What did you think of the Beekeepers Quilt I sent? Quite a good way of using up oddments or just another stash increasing enabler? Cx
I too was glad for the extra special care I got in my last two pregnancies, but I hate that I had to go through something horrific to get that, because the care at the end of my first pregnancy was totally unacceptable, and as a result, someone died. That someone being my baby.
And I can relate to wanting to feel like a normal preggo person, at least for a while. The extra scans and everything are great, but even if I had scans daily, it didn’t necessarily alleviate all of my fears as I knew something could go wrong on any moment of any given day. I did have to try and trust my own instincts.
Love to you, Merry. Love to Marmite, too. xo
Cant wait to see ‘Marmite’
hugs x