Feelings.

I’ll be honest, I have a tendency to eat my feelings… and I had an excuse when I was pregnant. No one bats an eye lid when a pregnant lady eats a massive piece of cake… so why not!

I had a lot of different feelings when I was pregnant, some of them good… some of them bad.

I was shocked at the feelings I had when I took the first pregnancy test. The two little pink lines formed so quickly, I hadn’t even finished my wee. I was obviously delighted. We wanted this baby long before it was conceived, long before we even started trying! But at the same time my brain went ‘f#@k!!!’. And I was gob smacked by that reaction. I think it was the realisation that from that moment, my life would never be the same again… ever!!

Annoyed… was another feeling. We found out I was pregnant 3 days after getting married. We were going on a mini moon to Loch Lomond in Scotland and had booked a spa day! Spa days are useless for pregnant ladies, no hot tub, no steam room, no prosecco with my afternoon tea and no full body massage. I had to settle for a facial while Rob lay their next to me getting the full works! Fuming!

Fear, was another feeling I had in those early days. Early miscarriage is always a possibility and I felt talking about being pregnant too much was going to jinx it. This especially came to light when I started getting lower stomach pain at just over 5 weeks pregnant. The Doctor said I was constipated. 3 days later the pain was worse than ever. So bad in fact, Rob phoned an ambulance at 1 am after finding me on the bathroom floor doubled over in agony, sweating and retching. After 45 mins and no ambulance, we phoned to cancel as the pain had subsided with a hot water bottle and pain killers. The next day I was told I had one hell of a urine infection. I was so relieved I almost cried. Even if it was the worse pain I had ever felt. (This still stands, even after labour and child birth.)

The feelings I find most guilty about are the ones I felt straight after finding out about the heart defect. I was angry. Angry at my body for failing to produce a perfect little human. That’s what it was supposed to do and it had messed up. I even apologised to Rob. Resentment to the baby I was carrying. This is the feeling I feel most shameful for having. At this point we weren’t 100% sure we were having a boy, it was still just a baby. And I felt like this little baby was sucking the happiness out of what should be the most amazing time of our lives. I feel awful thinking about it now, it wasn’t this innocent little beings fault, but I also realise that admitting to it is also a massive step to moving away from it. That’s when I knew I had to find out the sex for sure. This little baby had to become our son or daughter, they couldn’t stay just a baby.

Grief was another massive feeling. When your told news like we were, it’s like being told someone has died. And in a way they have. The future you imagined, is no longer, the baby you thought you were having doesn’t exist anymore. You have to grieve what you have lost. And we did grieve. We all did. Me, Rob, our family, our friends. They all cried as if someone had died. Saying goodbye to the future you imagined is the only way of accepting the new one your presented with. Some people may say ‘it’s the same baby.’ But it’s not… it doesn’t mean you will love this ‘new’ baby any less than you would have had you not had this news. But everything changes… completely. Take Rob for example. He thought our little boy was gonna be a professional football player. No such luck now. We’re gonna have to push him in to snooker… or maybe the next Ed Sheeran, but he’s never gonna be the next Alan Sheera.

After the initial shock, we came round pretty quickly. I think Rob accepted it a lot easier and before me. Something I’m immensely proud of him for. He spent the weekend walking round saying how much he loved our baby, how much he loved me and what a special family we were. By this time I was having quite a lot of movement from the baby, so it was a constant reminder for me, which is why I was probably about 10 hours behind Rob in the accepting stage. When I did accept it, my initial reaction was wanting to keep our baby safe. Family were saying how much they couldn’t wait to meet our special little boy. All I knew was that while he was inside me, he was safe. A part of me would have kept him that way forever. Even if it meant never having a tequila shot ever again.

Embarrassment??? I put question marks because I’m not really sure if this is the correct feeling, but the exact feeling is difficult to put into words. I never shared a 12 week announcement on Facebook or Instagram. There was something deep inside telling me not to. I asked my family members not to either. When we had the news I felt people may judge me, that I hadn’t produced a perfect little baby. Which is strange cause as I’ve got older I’ve learnt not to care what people think about my life or the choices I make. But this was different and the feelings I had about sharing our news to a wider group of people scared me. I didn’t want to know their reaction. I didn’t want pity. I think and knew people would feel ‘sorry’ for us. Also explaining to our nearest and dearest had been an exhausting process. People would ask if his heart would correct itself, I still had 20 weeks worth of cooking left!! But I explained if he hadn’t grown a hand by this point, it would never grow… the heart was the same. It may change slightly but the defect was there and it was here to stay.

Jealously and bitterness. These feels were fleeting. I’m not by nature a jealous person. I admire people for the work they put into their lives and all that they gain. Especially other women. We need to prop everyone up and applaud and congratulate people for their achievements and the great things that happen in their lives. It makes you feel good about yourself. But I couldn’t help but feel envious of other pregnant people, and at this time I knew a lot of people who were pregnant and at around the same gestation as me. And they were pretty much all having boys!!! I would never, ever wish this on anyone… not even my worse enemy, but I found myself asking why me, why us? We made a conscious decision that jealously and bitterness would be counter productive and would just create so much negative energy. This happened when on the way back from our first appointment, we stopped at some lights to see a pregnant women with two children. They were misbehaving and looked unkempt and the mother was smoking and screaming at them. Rob said ‘I bet her baby is alright!’ Almost immediately he corrected himself and said he never wanted to think that way again. Our baby was lucky… he was going to have more love and care than he could handle.

Greatful, lucky, thankful. People say you know who your friends are when the going gets tough. I’m happy to report that every single one of ours rallied for us. For this I’m so grateful! They have all been there when we needed them. Both me and Rob can be a bit reclusive together. We’re best mates as well as husband and wife and for the most part he’s pretty much the only human I want to spend all my time with. After the initial share of information we did this often, I’m grateful that our friends let us. I have never previously felt closer to Rob than when we were given the diagnosis. It completely took us to another level that I didn’t even know existed. For about a week we spent 24 hours a day with each other (bar toileting and showering.) And we were physically close, always maintaining physical contact with each other. I’m thankful that it went this way, for so many other couples it can easily go the other way. It helped that we were completely on the same page regarding everything. And I know we are lucky. When ever I felt my inner two year old about to burst out, throw themselves on the floor and start screaming ‘I don’t want this’ like trying to say you didn’t want the sky to be blue!! I’d remind myself to count my blessings. I have an amazing loving husband, supportive parents, inlaws and siblings. I have great friends and I’m lucky that I had a relatively easy pregnancy. We didn’t struggle to get pregnant, it happened a lot quicker than anticipated. I’ve never had to go though the pain of miscarriage, I didn’t suffer badly with sickness and remained well (sans UTI) up until my induction date. I know a lot of women arent that lucky and would take what we have experienced to have a baby in a heart beat. My thoughts are with those families and that is why I am determined to stay grateful for what I have been lucky enough to have.