Bex Flowers

My husband and I found out we were pregnant only a few months after our wedding and we were over the moon, back then i had no idea about all of the things that can, and do, go wrong for a lot of people. I couldn't help but feel uneasy going for my 12 week scan, i remember talking to my dad on the phone and saying "I'm scared they're going to say there's nothing there" and my worst fears were confirmed when the sonographer called for a second opinion.. we had lost our baby before they even had a chance, we were handed all the info on blighted ovam, what the hell is that!? Why is my body failing me. I was given a tablet and sent home to come back the next day for the second tablet that would "clear me out" I'd never felt so empty. Almost instantly after the second tablet I experienced excruciating pain that would last for 48 hours, then came the massive clots (which I was told was to be expected) except a week later I was still bleeding so much that it would soak trousers, I couldn't leave the house, I was passing clots that hurt and were as big as my hand. By the end of it I could hardly walk. An A&E trip confirmed I had lost a lot of blood and needed an operation to "evacuate" the infection that had developed in my womb. Luckily (or not as I see it now) I managed to avoid a blood transfusion and instead was on iron tablets for months. Just over a year later we fell pregnant again and we were anxious from the word go. We went for an early scan at 7 weeks to check things were ok and we saw the little heartbeat, she was OK, we had a baby, one that we knew was living inside me! At the 12 week scan everything was completely  normal, I thought this is it, all that pain and trauma was my body just getting ready for this.. but 10 days later, on Christmas Eve 2013 I started to get that feeling again and the pains began, the pains I had experienced after taking the tablets before. I rung the hospital only to be told the pains I was experiencing were growing pains in my uterus and I should relax, RELAX!? 

On Christmas Day the pains got unbearable so my mum took me to A&E, they kept me in overnight on lots of morphine for pains that came and went and would pull me to sit up in bed each time, I didn't sleep a wink. The next morning (Boxing Day) they sent me home claiming its "just constipation" they had done a scan and said the baby was fine, although she had very bad hiccups, I believed them. I went back to my mums and tried to enjoy what was left of Christmas (I opened my presents and then fell asleep) I was woken abruptly by the pains at full throttle, followed closely by bleeding. By the time my mum got through to anyone we'd decided just to go back to A&E but I desperately needed the toilet! What happened next is what will haunt me forever. As I sat on the toilet the pressure built up and everything came loose, my mum was rushing around getting some things together, I reached in to the toilet to see what was hanging out of me, it was our baby, still attached to the umbilical cord. I'll never forget how shocked I was at how fully formed she was as I held her in my hand, staring numb in disbelief, but what I really remember the most is my mums blood curdling scream when she saw. I was rushed to hospital. Another "clear you out" procedure. I couldn't help thinking our baby didn't have hiccups at all, it was hemorrhaging and there's nothing they could do about it. "Some people just can't carry girls" one of the nurses told me, she was a she? I told you we didn't want to know! because then it becomes more real. 

Leaving hospital and seeing other mums and dads leaving with car seats was torture. Finally in July 2014 we found out for the 3rd time that we were expecting and we prayed for third time lucky, my attitude had changed slightly and although I was terrified I believed that what would be would be, I became obsessed with counting the kicks and I ordered one of the count the kicks bands! There were a few days that I hadn't felt many at all and I went in to be checked, because I'd rather be safe than sorry. Everything was always fine. 

I gave birth to our little rainbow 16 days early on 11th March 2015, and although I had trouble with the placenta rupturing, a failed spinal, going under general, losing 2 litres of blood, contracting a womb infection and having 2 blood transfusions! I am so glad the problem was with me this time and not our baby! No matter how poorly I was, he was worth every second.

I went on to have yet another miscarriage after Jenson, but in March 2018 we had our healthy baby girl, the girl we were convinced we would never have. She was induced after 2 episodes of reduced movements and concern over her small size.

If you ever say to me that you haven't felt your baby move much today, I will never say it'll be fine, see how it is tonight, have a bath and a cold drink. Just go and get checked! 20 minutes on a monitor, is that worth losing your baby?

Thank you for reading ♥