 |
| Bog Boy |
There’s a bit in the movie Marley & Me where they go to
the doctors because they have ‘not’ been trying to have a baby and Jen is
nearly 10 weeks pregnant. They’re having an ultrasound and he’s goofing about
wanting to know the sex of the baby and he says: “I don’t mind what sex the
baby is, as long as he’s OK”
The sonographer says that the heartbeat will sound a little
fast but that’s normal and then, then it's not so funny for you don't hear the thrum of the heartbeat, there’s no sound at all and she gets up to go
out and the main doctor man comes in and you just know it’s going to be bad.
I know that feeling.
It happened to me.
And so now seeing it all, and knowing what the character is
going through, I start to cry.
I hear my little boy pipe up from the sofa where he’s
engrossed watching to say: “They don’t get a baby this time but she goes on to
have three Mum!”
And still the tears drip down my face.
I remember every one of mine, the ones I didn’t have but
it’s OK I had two, two glorious boys but every now and then I wonder about my
lost babies.
It got to the stage when I didn’t go to the hospital when I
miscarried. I just carried on. The hospital couldn’t do anything about it and I
hated it there. I hated the atmosphere, the sterile empathy, the fact that I
had failed and there would be no baby. I used to glower at all expectant mums-to-be, I was so angry I wanted to know why me? Why not someone else. I am sure some of the women who saw me metaphorically crossed themselves to ward off the evil eye. But I wouldn't have wished it on them really, not really. But I was so jealous.
I had seven miscarriages in total. Three before The Boy and
four before Bog Boy.
In fact after the last miscarriage I said that was it, no
more. And then of course I got pregnant and do you know what? I didn’t want to
be pregnant. I hated it.
I railed to my friend, who so desperately wanted another
that I couldn’t stand to go through it all again. I was scared I’d lose it and
I was angry that I had got myself into a situation where I could be hurt.
It was a hideous pregnancy, I was as sick as a dog for the
first couple of months then I got pneumonia then they thought it was likely to
have Downs Syndrome. Do you know they wanted me to have an amniocentesis - with my history
of miscarriage??!!!
It was simply awful and the pressure I felt under to make
me have the tests which could lead me to miscarry was enormous. It was if they felt
that it was better to suffer the collateral damage of losing a healthy child
than to bring a potentially disabled one into the world.
Luckily we stood firm and when they allowed us to have a
scan with their new 'soopah doopah' all singing and all dancing scanning machine
they could see that all was fine and ‘normal’.
For us that was not the point, we'd talked it over, we didn’t mind, we were
just happy finally to be having another child.
And what a child he is…
