Scan Update

My internet was down and that's why there was a delay in updating regarding our follow up scan but I was thankful for that in a way because I wasn't quite sure what to say.

Well, we found out that the smaller of the two babies has died. It was only 9mm, the healthy one is 23 so quite a striking difference and obviously it no longer had a heartbeat.

It’s hard though because it obviously did continue for a while because it did grow from 4.3mm,17 days ago, to 9mm on Thursday, I don’t know why but that makes me extra sad, almost like it fought that bit longer to stick but that's silly since it didn’t willingly do anything, thats down to nature.

As soon as the tech switched to blood flow ultrasound, I knew what she suspected and was looking for and I saw the lack of any colour over that area. That is actually the part that has played over again and again in my mind and gets to me every single time. I willed it to suddenly pick up some movement. The tech wasn't exactly empathetic and was very matter of fact about what she observed, it may be another day at the office to her but to us, she was delivering shattering news and the experience of how she handled that would stay with us and yet she chose to simply be blunt and cold in the delivery of the news.

Immediately my concern was for K & B, I actually felt OK at that point, which probably sounds heartless but actually was comforting to me because it meant that I’m doing a good job in separating my emotions from this pregnancy which is exactly how I want my surrogacy journey to be.

Even though we knew there was a chance that things would turn out this way because of the size difference in our last scan, we still had hope so it was definitely a sad moment. As the tech said, it happens often in pregnancy but unless you have an early scan, you would never know. I am mad at myself now for ever being so optimistic that things would be OK, I look back and think I really should of been more conservative with my thoughts.

My body will do what it will and the baby will be reabsorbed, I may experience bleeding and I may not, it’s just a wait and see thing. I’ve continued to have intense cramping again but the tech didn’t think there was a connection – whether she meant with the actual loss of the baby or as a side effect of the death, I don’t know.

Since, I've definitely noticed the level of morning sickness and tiredness has decreased. Whether that's psychosomatic or real, I don't know but it's upsetting because it reminds me that I no longer have two in there.

I’ve not experienced a confirmed loss before, having twins and Clomid twins at that holds a higher miscarriage rate anyway but I still thought that having seen a heartbeat in both and never having had a loss before, we would be OK. Nature had other ideas I guess.

We are still very thankful for the one fighter that’s going strong - that one measures spot on and has a strong heartbeat and we’re not forgetting how lucky we are to have even that. As I said to K, 9 weeks ago we didn’t even have a baby.

It does make me scared, I will admit it, it’s going to be a long almost 3 weeks until we hit the safer 2^nd trimester and I am sure that we’ll all be a jittery mess at the next scan but we just have to hang in there and have hope.

Honestly, if anything happens to the other baby....it just seems even more precious now and I feel like we’re teetering on a knife’s edge which is horrible. I never know if I should say things like that as a surrogate, I'm supposed to be eternally optimistic and not let on how I'm really feeling but perhaps it might help someone else experiencing the same to know that it's OK to think it and others do too.

I don't want the remaining baby to push my emotions to a deeper level, I'm ok with the level of detatchment I currently have about the whole pregnancy - you do not want to be fighting hard and building connections to a baby that you're going to give away. Did that make sense? I can't really explain what I mean succinctly but basically, the more you have to try for something, the more precious it becomes to you and in surrogacy, you do not want that ideally - or at least I don't.

I've gone through so many emotions, the only way I can describe it is that I feel like I'm free-falling now, not knowing where I'll land at this stage because we're still in that worrisome first trimester and as we've found out first-hand, anything can happen.

I see the guys again in 4 days for our midwife appointmentand I’m looking forward to it but having to explain what’s happened, although probably routine for her, is going to be painful for us.

I’m tired tonight which I’m sure isn’t helping either but it was my daughter’s 6^th birthday the day we found out and we had her party today and what should be a happy time has been tinged with sadness and I swing between fear, upset and anger - anger at myself, at nature and at the world in general.

I know miscarriage doesn't discriminate between who it strikes but I, probably naively, thought that it wouldn't happen to me since I only ever get pregnant and have a full-term baby, there's never been any issue and yet it has happened to me. There's the stupid blame game going on in my head at times - was it something I did, or didn't, was it something I thought, or didn't and it's crazy, I know that, I'm an intelligent person but it's all things that go through your head anyway, probably all just part of grieving I think.

No, it wasn't my baby and yes, we still have the one (for which we are all so thankful for) but that doesn't mean that I'm not feeling the same emotions as anyone else who has lost a baby. It's perhaps even harder in our situation because I'm supposed to be taking care of something so precious for others and I feel my body let me and my IPs down and also because I have nothing tangible to 'prove' I'm going through the loss of a baby - since I've not physically experienced the loss - which is a blessing to some degree but that makes closure a bit harder I think and I see people thinking that I should be grateful I am still pregnant and shut the hell up.

But, tomorrow is another day and we'll be one step closer to the next trimester…..One day at a time.