For the last few days I have been remembering our unborn
child from my 12 week pregnancy. A name
kept forming in my mind. Sophie. I’ve named her. Sophie Z.
I can picture what she looked like on the screen at our 10 ½ week
ultrasound sound. I remember her kicking
her legs and waving her arms. I remember
watching and listening to her heartbeat.
It was such a happy and amazing experience.
I have wondered why I have been thinking about her so much
in the last few days. Today I have come to
the belief that it is probably as a result of our decision to discontinue treatments. Now I am remembering her as the only child of
our own that I will ever know.
Genetic testing told us not only that Sophie was a girl, but
also that she had Trisomy 18, also known as Edwards Syndrome. Trisomy 18 is similar to Downs Syndrome in that
it is an extra chromosome. While Downs
Syndrome children have an extra chromosome 21, Edwards Syndrome babies have an
extra chromosome 18.
It is unusual for babies with this condition to make it to
full term. Those that do are either
still born or die within the first week of life. Occasionally some make it further than that, but
it is rare. While there were also other
reasons for my infertility, a large factor is the age of my eggs and the resulting
genetic damage that occurs as they age.
Our chances of finding a good egg are so minimal, but with all the
medical assistance we were getting, Sophie was able to battle on for a little
while.
Looking back now, I know the moment that she died. I had started to feel little flutters in my
uterus which the doctors told me were her moving. Obviously it was too early to feel any solid
movements but I was told that these little flutters were common to feel in the
early stage of pregnancy.
One day, whilst I was laying down resting, I felt the
strongest flutter of all. It brought a
smile to my face and I was so happy. As
the days passed, I didn’t feel it again and I also no longer felt a connection to
the baby. I didn’t think too much of it
though. I’d never been this far into a pregnancy
before. I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe I had been imagining the early feelings
I had of conversing with Sophie and being aware of her energy inside me.
I started feeling that the whole pregnancy was surreal. With all that we had been through, I thought
perhaps it fairly normal that I felt that way.
After all, it had been four years of failed attempts. It was a dream come true to have finally been
successful. What I didn’t know
consciously, was that Sophie had died.
But I believe that someplace, deep inside my soul, I did know, and that
is why it had all started to feel surreal.
After the dating scan and then the post mortem testing, I know now, from
the bottom of my heart, that the last flutter I felt, was the moment she passed
on.
....................
It has been 24 hours since I wrote this memoir to our baby. Thinking of her has given me something to
hold on to through this grief and heartache.
I have held her close to my heart and remembered how much I loved her in
just the short time that she survived. I
think how wonderful it would have been to hold her in my arms, to watch her
play with her father and to see her grow up.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
DH and I met too late in life and my ability to have children has passed
it’s used by date. Thinking about Sophie
and all our other lost embryos is painful. We had a nickname for our last frozen embryo –
Nemo. Our last loss.
It is so important for us all to acknowledge what never came
to be. In order to heal we can’t keep
inside us what a big loss it is. Our
embryos and pregnancies were the early stages of life, the early stages of our
children that never had a chance.
It is important to talk to others about our journey in
trying to become parents, the depth of the emotions at our failure and the desperate
heartache in losing, not only our potential children, but our dreams of
parenthood. It hurts so much that what
was created never came to be, that we never got to spend time with our offspring, to hold them, to care for them and to have created warm and
special memories of them. Our nests were
never full. My heart aches for that.
To Sophie, Nemo, and all the others – you will be in our
hearts forever.
