What timing, bang smack in the middle of Baby Loss Awareness Week. How sickeningly apt.
I am sorry things didn't work out. You had your mothers sense of direction plus her determination to keep going regardless. You were just in the wrong place and we know that it simply wasn't meant to be.
Thank you for the 3 weeks we savoured knowing you were here. Her 2nd round of IVF, we were excited, ecstatic, nervous and aware that we had to remain positive yet realistic in equal measure about your demise for the coming weeks and months. Being realistic doesn't prepare you though, nothing can - for the torture of having you pulled from under our feet. This isn't about me of course, but I have held your mummy’s hand through this and watched her fragility and strength mould to create the perfect setting for you to flourish. I watched her pour her heart and beautiful soul (and bank balance) into doing everything she could to grow you and get it 'right' this time. And all alone. There is no 'getting it right', it just happens when it happens and that comes with an abundance of luck, something she’s long overdue.
The day you made it clear you weren’t to stay is a bitter twist in this cruel fate. Bent double in pain during a lesson at school, another member of staff urged her to call 111 which resulted in immediate ambulance, due to the risk of ectopic pregnancy. I arrived in A&E 3 hours later to find her wincing in a bed (managing the odd joke), curtains open taking in the chaotic scene around her - synonymous, I imagine with all A&E departments across the country. Reactive and buzzing by its very nature. She was still awaiting the 'immediate' visit of an obs and gynae doctor recommended on her arrival assessment. Despite numerous requests for information, passed via nurses - nothing was forthcoming and we sat and watched as other, emergencies flitted around us. 6 hours later in a new ward, with no explanation for the move, a doctor came. Not to confirm pregnancy nor to discuss anything other than a clear opinion that there was no ectopic pregnancy and that a scan would be done in the morning. We assumed, with no other information, that she was still pregnant, that you were hanging on in there and perhaps her gut had twisted or something benign had caused that pain. She had learned to embrace a phenominally positive mindset, it worried me at times but I understood why she had to. The power of positive thinking can, I understand, be very effective. Except when you have to pick up the pieces and rebuild from disappointment.
Morning came, another ward move, no explanation of why she was there or what might be going on. Another 10 hours of anxiously waiting alone, querying the validity of needing a bed or being in hospital at all. At midday a porter moved her to a corridor outside radiology where she relayed her timeline since arrival/confusion about what was going on - to someone who seemed to have the nouse to do something. Within 30 minutes she sat looking at your ultrasound and there you were; clinging in your egg sac, close to her right ovary, flooded by swathes of blood as her fallopian tube waved its ruptured tendrils. 4 hours later you and the Fallopian tube were removed. My darling sister left numb, exhausted and heartbroken.
You were so tiny I suppose you weren't considered ‘viable’ but you were so viable to us, 7 weeks into this ‘world’ and tantalisingly close to making her life journey so very different. That shambolic 30 hours in hospital just made your demise all the more painful to swallow, we will never know if that right fallopian tube might have been salvageable with quick identification, the anxiety and fear alone in that hospital for hours on end were totally unavoidable - not to mention the threat to a mothers life of ectopic pregnancies... but I am just angry at the desperate sadness if truth be told, and perhaps at letting myself be excited for her. I should know better. We know and appreciate that the NHS is an insitution, people are working so hard to help others but morale is clearly low and people are being pushed to their limits. It is sad to see.
My anger lies in the injustice, sure she had an avoidable shitty experience but it doesn't change the fundamental cause of inexplicable grief. This was supposed to be my sisters time, it feels like no one deserves it more nor has more love and energy to give. When dealing with grief - trying to find someone to blame for this ultimately heartbreaking outcome, is normal but there is .... no one. It is plain and simple cruel, unfair and shit. My heart feels completely crushed, shattered and beaten when I consider the pain she will be harbouring at this moment. I want to take some, all of it; away. I feel an enormous sense of guilt that I have 3 healthy children, whom she adores and embraces completely. I also grieve the niece or nephew I never got to meet. It all sounds incredibly dramatic but it hit hard how cruel and unfair life can be.
So, we will bid you farewell properly in a couple of days, we will talk about you if my sister wants, I will cuddle her for as long as she needs. Whatever it takes to mark your tiny, brief existence. Then we will work on restoring her confidence and faith in herself and in this world. She is the kindest, sweetest, most loyal, fragile and yet strong person I know. I have no idea why life gives her a merciless and unjust battering as it does, but there is something to learn from this and there are things to take away from this all. One day we will find out what that is. In the meantime; it is one foot in front of the other as I hold her hand in this next part of life’s rich tapestry.
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