Fingers crossed!

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments. We are so, so excited but also very nervous. This is my 5th pregnancy after all, and out of my previous four pregnancies only one ended in a healthy little baby. But, so far so good.. I am 11 weeks already!

So far this pregnancy has been a absolute roller-coaster of emotions. We ended up falling pregnant naturally just days before we were due to start IVF. I am so glad because I was really worried about going down the IVF path, although after a year of trying to fall pregnant since Grace died, I was prepared to do anything!

Because of my history, the fertility centre offered me a 'early pregnancy monitoring program' where they check your hormone levels every week until 8 weeks. At 6 weeks I started bleeding very badly and called Tom in tears, he rushed home and we called the hospital who told me that I could not come in until 7am the next morning. We basically spent the night in tears.. I had lost so much blood that I just had no hope of things being okay. Tom had said that just that very morning he had been hanging the washing out before work and thought to himself 'we just need this one thing to go well' and then that very day I called and said I thought it was all over.. we were devastated beyond belief.

The next morning we went to the hospital and had an ultrasound and were told that everything looked fine! We could not believe it! It was too early to see a heartbeat but apparently everything looked great and the bleeding was coming from a blood clot in my uterus. That sounded pretty scary to us but the nurses kept saying "oh, it's only a blood clot, thats great news" so we assumed that it was all okay. The doctors put me on progesterone supplements and injections of HCG to try and 'support' the pregnancy.

At 7 weeks I went back into hospital with bad pains, not cramps, but a really strange uterus pain. We were really worried but again an ultrasound showed that everything looked fine and this week there was a little heartbeat! I also started to feel really tired and really nauseous which was a good sign that everything was going well.

I spent the next few weeks in bed with severe tiredness and nausea, I was the same when I was pregnant with Sophie and Grace.. seriously feels like I have been hit by a truck! But I was still bleeding and feeling funny pains so I was very worried.
At 9 weeks I had my first appointment with my obstetrician only to find out that I had a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) that had been left untreated for 3 weeks and was put on antibiotics. I was also told that it can be quite risky to get a UTI in early pregnancy.. which was just what I needed.. something else to worry about! Tom and I kept saying "why can't we just have a normal pregnancy like everyone else?"

So here I am.. 11 weeks pregnant. And if everything is fine at the ultrasound I have this Thursday, then we will need to get through the biggest hurdle of all.. on Friday morning I go into hospital to have a cervical stitch. It's a very risky procedure and comes with a 10-15% chance that we will loose the baby. I am beside myself with fear. But I am trying my hardest to be positive.. we have an 85-90% chance of everything going well and I have to keep reminding myself of that. And if all does goes well, I will then be on full bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy.

It's been a pretty stressful few weeks and I am just so nervous and so scared. I really wish I had a time machine and I could just fast forward to a time in the future when all is well and I have a healthy little full-term baby in my arms. Please keep your fingers crossed for me on Thursday and Friday!

Tom took this photo of me at the farm on the weekend. I popped out at about 8 weeks this time around.. I guess everything is pretty stretchy by now!