Mum of two..err five!!

 Hello all the moms, mom-to-be’s and women out there!! 😇

So I have been trying to write this blog from past 2 years, but looks like I am not only a mother of two kids, I am also the mother of procrastination. Although recently I met few ladies who seemed to be depressed or sharing similar stories like mine, so finally took courage and time to write my journey from happily married woman-> depressed child-less mom -> busy mum of two!

I got married almost 10 years ago and decided to enjoy life for the first two years of the marriage and then plan for a family. Although god had different plans for us. I got pregnant unexpectedly during the second year of marriage but after 8 weeks of pregnancy, I started bleeding. After all the hassle of waiting for 4 hours in the hospital emergency ward and going through all the procedures, I was completely broken down physically and mentally. Both me and Dham were all alone in UK without any family members to support. Almost after 3 months of gap, started again our trials for baby, as now that when we don’t get what we actually were not even planning for, we got curiosity and anger to get things right away, which could be human mentality most of the time I feel. 

Again got pregnant after a year of first miscarriage and within 6 weeks of pregnancy, I started bleeding and this time I assumed for the worst and was very well prepared for it. It was natural miscarriage, which was more painful and terrible. After this our confidence levels were going down, especially for ladies it is not easy, as we will try to monitor every single symptom in our body and then google about it and for god’s sake never google any symptoms along with “pregnancy” word, it will definitely raise all our hopes and kind of convince us we are pregnant. Every month when I used to get chums, I used to get angry and upset for first 2-3 days of the cycle and then again start planning the cycle and monitor my ovulation/fertile days. I spent half of the salary on those expensive ovulation and pregnancy test kits.

The hospitals in UK did not consider our case, as they could not find any issue either with me or Dham, and recurrent miscarriages unit takes up the case only after 3 recurrent miscarriages, so ideally I need to have one more miscarriage before I could be monitored which sounds very frustrating but that how things work and nothing much we could do about it. It was almost 3 years since the first miscarriage and now I completely lost hope of getting pregnant. All our friends had babies or were pregnant, which was way more frustrating and depressing that we think. We started avoiding birthday parties or any social gatherings, as the first question we were asked about was “when are we planning to have kids?”. To avoid all those awkwardness, we completely isolated ourself with others and just used to try alternatives ways on getting help with out fertility problems, which we aren’t even aware of! 😔

After all this, somehow our GP got convinced on helping us by recommending to NHS sponsored 2 cycles of free IVF treatment. The paper work and all the formalities took more than 6 months and finally as the waiting list was too long, we decided to go to Cambridge hospital and get it done. But unfortunately the first cycle failed and second cycle ended up as early miscarriage again!! 💔This may sound silly, but I was kind of happy that I completed 3 cycle of recurrent miscarriage so that now our case can be considered for further analysis. I guess by now I was thinking more practically than emotionally. We registered our case with recurrent miscarriages unit and got the first appointment after 3 months. 

Meanwhile I decided to visit India for a short trip so that I could visit Shirdi, no idea why even I got this thought, but one morning I woke up and said to Dham I want to visit Shirdi and just booked my tickets for 10 days holidays to India and visited Shirdi with my parents. After I was back from my trip, we decided to start private IVF too and booked our first appointment with CRGH clinic in central London. They wrote a huge list of tests which both me and Dham had to get done and costed us around £5000. Also they decided to do a scan for me just to verify if I am ovulating regularly or if any cysts or any blockages are there in my ovaries and fallopian tubes. Oh yeah, by now I have got full PhD on conceiving process and knew all the fertility terms. During the scan, the doctor said it looks like I might ovulate in next day or so and everything seems to be good and no concerns for them not to start the IVF cycles. Again after 15 days I had to get TB test done, as it was pre-requisite before starting private IVF treatment, and the receptionist who called me to book me in for TB test asked if I am pregnant? As pregnant ladies should not be tested for TB apparently. Just because she asked, I decided to test the next day morning before going for the appointment as only then I remembered I was late for the period.. which never never happened for me! The test came positive! Both me and Dham were completely shocked as our main thinking was again a miscarriage would delay our IVF cycles. Luckily I called CRGH and asked if they can monitor me even if I got pregnant naturally, and yes, they agreed to do so with some fee. Thereafter they monitored me for 3 months and we literally cried when we heard our baby heartbeat at 7th week scan. I was on lot of steroids and progesterone injections, as CRGH did not want to take any chances with my pregnancy, considering my history. Finally we had our baby boy, all happy and healthy at 40 weeks. 👦

As I had c-section, our GP asked us not to plan for second baby at-least until we finish 1 year. So we followed the advice and started our trials for second baby just after our child 1’s first birthday and voila, I got pregnant on first time itself. We were completely shocked and surprised, as we again were expecting it to take at least 2-3 years before we can have our second baby. The whole pregnancy was so much more easier with second one. 👧

All those people who think we are so lucky to have perfect family, 1 boy and 1 girl, it was not easy for us either. We had our share of sorrow, pain and grief. I have no regrets or complaints on why God did this to me, as I am sure if I could have got baby the very first time, I could not known the value of it. Now I just count my blessings and enjoy every moment of motherhood. I keep reminding myself of my bad days or all the struggle I went through in my past, so that I don’t take things for granted!! So let's not judge a book by its cover, and let's not get depressed looking at some happy couple or happy parents in social media, as we have no clue what all things they could have gone through or going through. Be like a swan, paddling madly underneath the water but appearing so graceful and elegant on the surface. Do not let things get to you, and thus find a place of peace. I just hate myself for suffering through all the pains and feeling ashamed for all the failures, as it was not my fault and rather than going down the rabbit hole, I could have openly spoken to my friends or family about all the things I was going through. Once I started sharing my miscarriages, I realised almost 1 in 3 mothers I met so far, could have had miscarriage and it is more common than we think! ✌