I was loathe to ring the clinic and tell them since I knew they would want to run the bloodtests but eventually Mike convinced me and they came back lower than average but increasing none the less. At 7 weeks they asked me to come in for a routine check and it never occurred to me that it would be anything but a paperwork exercise so I went alone. However when I got there they were seriously concerned about the low numbers I was showing and they decided to run an ultrasound.
I was so excited that I was going to see my baby and really sad that Mike was going to miss out, but there wasn't a choice so I got on with it. However the reality was nothing like the television stories of happiness and good news, for me it was a slow moving 10 minutes of solumn sonographers and worried looks. I kept asking what was wrong and they eventually told me that my baby was smaller than it should be at this stage and that they couldn't find a heartbeat. None of it really sank in and I returned to the clinic for their opinion which hit me like a bolt of lightening. They didn't even consider the possibility that my dates could be wrong or my baby could be a slow starter, instead they presented me with options for the ending, both of which I refused, this wasn't happening again!
As I left the clinic I rang Mike to try and explain what I wasn't even sure I knew and told him we had to stay positive, this baby was going to be OK. When I got home, I have no idea how I made it there, I realised I was holding a bag of pills which I was to take to help the next cycle, I couldn't believe it and put them firmly into the back of a drawer. When Mike got home we decided that we had to have faith that this baby was going to be OK and that the doctors were wrong. I had found countless cases where babies had been small on early scans and declared unviable and yet gone on to be born as fully fledged healthy babies and I believed this was going to happen to us.
So on we went, our confidence knocked but our faith strong, for another week before at 8 weeks precisely I woke up to find I had miscarried overnight. My heart broke that morning. I couldn't believe that we had lost another baby and one that had seemed to have come as a miracle. We had no idea what to do but I knew that I wasn't going anywhere near the hospital so Mike and I clung to each other as if our lives depended on it. After a couple of hours I told him that I wanted to name this baby, he agreed and we quickly found the name Kendi (Kendi: African Name for Loved One) perfect!
Two days after our loss of Kendi we had my brothers wedding and we made the decision not to tell anyone in the family until after the wedding. I have no idea how I got through the pre-wedding meal and the wedding itself but as Matron of Honour I had an obligation to put on a happy face and make sure that they both had the most fantastic day. It was fantastic to see them so in love and to be a part of it but the pain was excrutiating and having to stay happy when all I wanted to do was cry my eyes out was almost impossible. Mike stuck to me like superglue and swayed me away from any groups that started talking about pregnancies or children as well as slipping me the odd shot to help take the edge off. The next day we told my parents and I just about collapsed from the relief and grief, finally I could let it out but it didn't provide the comfort I had hoped for.
The next month was the worst of my life but somehow I got through it day by day, even hour by hour when things got really tough. I have never been so thankful for the support of my friends who rallied around and made sure that I slowly got back into life despite my misgivings. And by the end of October I felt ready to go back to work and start thinking about the future and possibly even TTC again.
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