Fiona’s story
After three losses, Fiona was very anxious throughout her pregnancy with her daughter.
The anxiety definitely remained the entire pregnancy through.
I was definitely incredibly anxious being pregnant after 3 losses. Luckily because we were now under the miscarriage clinic and the fertility clinic we got additional support, which really helped to take away some of the anxiety. The biggest thing for me was that we got invited for an early scan, which took place in the fertility clinic rather than in the unit we’d had our previous scans and losses in. I was so glad it wasn’t there as I had such negative associations with it!
I felt sick the day of that first scan, I felt sick before most scans convinced that something would go wrong. I burst into tears the moment we saw the image on the screen, but this time, it was happy tears! The image was different to all the empty sacs we’d seen before, this one had a baby in it! I remember apologising to the nurse as my whole body was shaking from me crying tears of joy! She was so understanding and let me take a minute to compose myself before continuing her checks, and confirming that she could see a healthy heart beat.
The anxiety definitely remained the entire pregnancy though. I didn’t even get much relief once I could feel baby moving, as due to where my placenta was, movements weren’t very pronounced so I had to really concentrate to feel them. This continued to labour, hearing throughout that you are a high risk pregnancy due to your age, history and other medical conditions really makes it hard to relax. I was determined that I wanted as natural a delivery as possible. I think because of our losses, and the fact I’d had to deliver those pregnancies at home and felt every contraction etc, I just wanted to have a positive birth experience and feel life coming out of me this time.
As labour progressed though, I could sense the staff getting more and more concerned about my lack of progress, so when they came with paperwork to take me to theatre for a forceps delivery and possible C section, I signed everything without thought, as by that point I’d convinced myself we were going to have a still born baby. I have regret that I didn’t take time to think that decision through, as due to the drugs in case of section, I didn’t feel the contractions, I didn’t feel the birth. But I did finally get my healthy baby girl.