Wednesday 8th November 2017 was one of our due dates. When we found out I was pregnant naturally back in February this year both Phil and I really couldn’t believe it. Fast forward 9 months and instead of packing my hospital bag and preparing ourselves for the beautiful newborn haze we are navigating through the loss of not one but two miscarriages.

I am not sure how I am supposed to feel this week? Sometimes I am surprised how grief-stricken I still am and other times I feel proud of how strong I’ve become after the losses we have faced. I can’t lie though. I have a gut wrenching pain this week that brings such sadness every time I see a newborn or someone heavily pregnant. Austin of course is our saviour and my daily joy but I can’t feel guilty for wanting to hold the baby we should have met this week.

For five blissful weeks after having a positive pregnancy test we nonchalantly carried on with our lives enjoying this wonderful surprise mother nature had given at us. But that’s the thing; as quickly as she can give, she can take too and I still shake when I think back to the silent ultrasound we had at 7.5 weeks. So much so, I still can’t even face driving anywhere near the road in which the clinic resides. It’s just too painful.

When you loose a pregnancy early on there are so many unanswered questions that I think its hard to move on and deal with the pain. For me, I wonder was I carrying a boy or a girl? Would my pregnancy and birth be any different to Austin? Did I do something wrong? Was I drinking too much caffeine? Would we have coped with two under two? The list goes on. But now there are no answers to any of these questions and instead a whole heap of further ones surrounding why I miscarried again after and am I capable of carrying another child?

Austin is so wonderfully healing. When I picked him up from nursery last week the teacher told me he had repeatedly stuck both his fingers up the nose of one the boys from the older pre-school class from over the fence. I literally burst out laughing. Only Austin would spend his morning interacting with the older kids in such ways. He is so blissfully confident, which only adds to my hope that one day we can give him a sibling. He would love it, if for no other reason than to have some nostrils on tap.

On Saturday I attended the Fertility Show at London Olympia and I have several blog post’s to share over the next few weeks but one seminar in particular that really resonated with me more than ever was from Helen Davies about Secondary Infertility. Especially the guilt that as mothers we feel when we are longing for another child. I so desperately want to talk about the losses we have had this year without the worry that I am being greedy or not grateful for the miracle we have already received. Having been through Primary Infertility I know how hard it is to so desperately want a child and fear not having one but now I can’t switch off that desire to have another.

So here we are. What should have been the week of Austin’s brother or sisters birthday is now just a painful reminder that we have a missing piece to our family. I am not sure what the future holds, but I do feel positive and as happy as can be after the months of heartache we’ve encountered. My head and heart are slowly coming to terms what has happened and it feels right to acknowledge the date. I felt weird just carrying on as if it was another day. I know in the future it will become just that but for now I accept the sadness and aching feeling and wish so desperately things could have be different.

We continue to as always love and enjoy our gorgeous little boy Austin James and all his nose picking ways.

Kate xxx