No, I Dont Want To Hold Your Baby.

A record of my journey to start a family and find my baby Glow Worm. *Now with added IVF & Frozen Embryo Transfer!*

[makingbabyglowworm]

I’ll never understand why things happened the way they did with Eli. And likewise, why we were then blessed with a completely uneventful pregnancy and healthy baby afterwards.

In an amazing turn of events during July 2019, I found out I had fallen pregnant naturally with our third baby. It was unexplainable.

6 years of trying naturally for a baby and in that time we had never had a positive pregnancy test.

One round of IVF.

18 eggs retrieved.

12 eggs fertilised.

9 embryos frozen at day 3.

An abandoned embryo transfer due to OHSS.

5 embryos grown to day 5.

Three frozen embryo transfers.

One blastocyst arrested.

Two pregnancies.

One stillborn son.

One rainbow baby.

One embryo left.

The weekend prior to finding out we had fallen pregnant naturally we had agreed it was time to go back to the fertility clinic and transfer our final embryo. I had been dragging my feet on making the phone call, and following our decision had asked hubs to lead that process.

Later that week I waited for my period to start. Three days past it’s expected date I took a pregnancy test. Two pink lines appeared immediately.

It was a long pregnancy. I was very unwell with morning sickness until 22 weeks - taking medication in order to function on necessary days.

I went to work.

I made a wedding cake for a friend’s wedding.

I held my breath going into each and every appointment, waiting for something to go wrong.

Heartburn and insomnia were companions for the long nights.

Morning sickness reappeared at 37 weeks.

Pelvic pain had me restricted to the confines of my house.

At my 39 week appointment I was 1.5cm dilated and the baby was not engaged for delivery at all. My mental health was starting to feel a little fragile and we booked an induction for 39 weeks and 5 days.

Labour was a truly beautiful experience; slow to start, my waters were broken and an epidural line put in as I anticipated I would want one towards the end of labour and didn’t want to be caught out if I made the call too late. The contractions started a few hours later and stalled for an hour. A new bag of pitocin was mixed to kick start things again. I started bouncing on the birthing ball at mid morning & listening to music - both of which I never had the chance to do with Oskar’s labour due to having trouble tracing the baby’s heartbeat.

Lunch was served at 12:30pm. By 1pm I had asked for gas and air. By 2pm I asked for epidural medication and shortly after I was roaring my little girl into the world.

It was raw and it was powerful.

I surrendered.

I knew my body was made for this.

I knew I wasn’t going to die.

By 2:29pm she was here - before the epidural had a chance to kick in!

In a textbook labour Emilia Joy Glowacki joined our family on Tuesday 17 March 2020. Our impossible girl; our little miracle.

[makingbabyglowworm]

I keep wondering how can you move forward when part of you will never be the same but I guess it’s just taking a deep breath, calming your heart and reminding yourself that the grief and sadness you feel is a manifestation of the love that you have. And the love that you have will never diminish.

[makingbabyglowworm]

I have a confession

4 August 2018

On 1 May 2017 I underwent a Frozen Embryo Transfer. We had just passed the 6 month mark of losing Eli, and had returned from our trip to New Zealand. The trip, you might recall, was a great way for Hubs and I to reset and reconnect. Disappearing from our everyday life was one of the best things we could have done.

And then we came back.

Before we went on holidays we had been in touch with our fertility clinic, and had decided we were ready to try for a sibling for Eli. So, we underwent a transfer - one of four frosties we had waiting from our egg collection back in early 2016. It was in the midst of a particularly busy month. I was a bridesmaid for my best friend’s wedding, my brother was getting married so I was asked to cater for my soon to be sister in law’s hen’s party and I was also asked to make their wedding cake with only a week notice.

We found out a week and a half after the transfer that it had failed.

I remember sitting in our bathroom sobbing. I couldn’t figure out how the transfer hadn’t worked. I then proceeded to eat an entire wheel of soft cheese and drink half a bottle of red wine. On a school night. And then dealt with a hangover at work the next day.

We decided to try again and amongst the frantic wedding cake making & my brother’s wedding we went into the clinic almost daily, managing to keep it a secret from our family and friends. Our transfer was set for the next weekend, and as luck would have it I picked up a throat infection the day before our transfer.

I received a call from the embryologist on the Friday afternoon. Of the three frosties left, one didn’t survive the thaw. My heart sank. A second embryo, our second last, was defrosted leaving us with one frozen embryo for the future.

We transferred the next day, & then I went straight to my doctor who prescribed me some antibiotics to fight my now well colonised throat infection. I ended up off work sick for the whole week which saw me watching lots of Great British Bake Off, taking lots of naps and drinking lots of hot lemon drinks. I started spotting a week after transfer and decided to take a pregnancy test. The hubs had already left for a run that morning, and so I peed on the test, left it on the counter and prepared my breakfast. I went back to the bathroom and looked at the test.

Two pink lines. Could it really be?! Was I pregnant?! And did the spotting mean I was losing the baby?

I called the Hubs and the words came tumbling out. “I’ve done a pregnancy test and there’s two lines on it...”. He laughed and told me the human body was an amazing thing. I called the clinic who asked me to come in the next day for an early beta blood test. I obliged.

The clinic called me later in the day with strong beta and strong progesterone levels. We were pregnant again.

I’d like to say we sailed through the pregnancy and everything was fine, but it was the most anxious, stressful time for me. We kept the news to ourselves for as long as possible, only sharing it with family once we couldn’t hide my growing bump any longer (at 15 weeks), and then usually shared with friends once we saw them face to face. There were no happy announcements on social media. I even still have some friends who we haven’t seen so they don’t know. We saw the same obstetrician we had for Eli and went to the same specialist - the one who had helped us decipher his post-mortem, genetic and chromosomal testing. We waited in the same waiting rooms, alongside pregnant women who were blissfully unaware that in some alternate reality there was a chance they could leave hospital without their baby. Of course, that would probably never happen to them. What happened to us was one in 100,000. Literally. And by the third trimester I was measuring small from the outside, so we were sent for specialist scans several times to check the baby was growing ok. So it was fair to say we were pretty anxious to welcome our babe into the world. By the end of the third trimester we were so anxious to have our baby safely in our arms that we had scheduled an induction. Our baby had other ideas.

At 4:36pm on Wednesday 14 February 2018 our second son, Oskar Felix Glowacki, was placed pink and screaming onto my chest. He’s one of 5% of babies born on their due date - and he was born on Valentine’s Day. The perfect day for this much loved and much waited for baby to join our family; now a family of four.

It’s an incredible story, and I’ll elaborate on welcoming Oskar into the world and our life with an almost 6 month old in a later post... but you’ve made it to the end of a very long post. One which, for some reason, I found it very difficult to write, and difficult to share. Is it guilt of some sort? I’m not sure. The feelings I am experiencing are very conflicted, but my heart is full of love for both of my boys, my heart stretched between heaven and earth.

[makingbabyglowworm]

The ebb and flow of grief

16 September 2017

I've been absent for a little while, and the break was necessary for some soul searching and emotional healing.

I've said it before - grief ebbs and flows - and right now I'm being inundated by countless waves of grief, crashing down on my head. Eli's first birthday is only a few days away.

How do you prepare for the anniversary of the best and worst day of your life? When nothing seems good enough for the memory of your little boy, and nothing captures the love you have for him, how do you "celebrate"?

We should be planning a cake smash. We should be planning a family meal. Eli should be here.

[makingbabyglowworm]

The Limbo of Motherhood

Sunday 14 May 2017

Mother’s Day.

It’s a confusing day for a mum whose baby lives in their heart and in heaven, but not physically in her arms. It’s not an identity that any mother wants to know, and it’s certainly not one I ever thought I would have.

When the post man arrive to collect the mail at work on Friday and asked “who is a mum then?” The pit of my stomach dropped out. Do I put my hand up? Do I not? I awkwardly looked around and the other mums had their hands in the air. I didn’t raise my hand, and although I know sometimes it will be easier to say I don’t have kids, I do feel like it is so untrue, and so unfair, to have to hide Eli’s existence for fear of making things awkward for someone else.

I’m a mum. But by societal standards I’m not a mum at the same time. I’m stuck in some sort of awkward, bittersweet and cruel limbo between two worlds.

My mum gave me a Mother’s Day present yesterday and while I’m filled with gratitude that she has acknowledged my existence as a mum it’s also so hard for my heart to know that I’m a mum to a baby I’ll never get to hold again, whose cries I’ll never hear, whose eye colour I’ll never know. I always felt that Mother’s Day was very commercialised, and up until the point where I had been given a gift to celebrate being a mum I had never felt that this day would have had much of an impact on me. I guess I was wrong.

There are mothers all around you. Some are mothers in the conventional sense, and then there are mothers like me.

[makingbabyglowworm]

Cheers!

9 May 2017

Cheers to perspective, and cheers to all of you wonderful and brave women and men. Cheers to you who have survived the unimaginable, broken down, picked yourself back up and tried again. You can all do amazing things.

[makingbabyglowworm]

Understanding grief

3 May 2017

Grief is such a personal journey. Your grief will never look the same as someone else’s. The way that we, as humans, deal with a deep and crippling loss and the flow-on of living with grief varies so differently from person to person, family to family. It’s unfair to set your grief side by side with someone else’s and compare them. The two will never look the same. Likewise, even though your grief is different that doesn’t make the way you are experiencing it, or coping with it, wrong; and it’s not anyone’s place to tell you that it is.

This concept can be so difficult for some people to grasp and I have recently experienced this inability to comprehend the differences in living through profound grief first hand, from my own family. Their lack of understanding, or perhaps it is confusion, has resulted in aggression from some, and intervention like confrontations from others. There have been accusations that I’m depressed and need help, and despite telling them I feel the best I have since Eli was born, I’m then told that I’m lying.

The thing is, you should never have to defend the way that you feel; nor should you have to convince someone of the way you feel. The only person that knows how you feel is you. It’s not for others to dispute or analyse, and certainly not for them to make an assessment on your mental health or what they think that you need.

The truth is that I actually do feel the best I’ve felt in the last 7 months. Hubs and I headed overseas to New Zealand for Eli’s 6 month birthday. We had 3 weeks with no phone, no plans, and minimal internet, and it was the best thing we could have done. We took time to love, laugh and go on random adventures. We took time to just be, drinking in the quiet. We took time to remember our son.

I can feel myself starting to heal, the jagged edges of grief wearing away like a stone that has been tossed around in rough seas. I recognise that grief and healing is never a linear path, but for now I know that my heart will always have an Eli shaped hole. I know that I will always love him, and I will always miss him. And feeling like that is ok.

“Where tears live, Love loved first.”

[makingbabyglowworm]

Easter

Sunday 16 April 2017

I chose to spend Easter Sunday lunch alone. Being alone wasn’t particularly what I wanted, but I didn’t have the emotional strength to attend lunch with Ryan’s extended family, so alone was the only other option. It’s not even the extended family that I was reluctant to face, it was having to face reminders of the life that I don’t have, and seemingly can’t have. Holidays like Easter and Christmas after your baby has died are so tough. They are full of what ifs and longing for what should have been.

I’ve learned that it’s ok to take time out for myself. It’s ok to stay home instead of putting on a smile while I’m broken inside simply to keep other people happy. Only people who have walked my journey will ever be able to understand where I am coming from.

When I look back on the time immediately following Eli’s birth, it’s mostly a haze. Ryan and I painted the house. When he went back to work and I was still home I continued painting the house. I barely ate, barely slept, and barely stopped crying. I lost so much weight that despite being 22 weeks pregnant at the time I gave birth, I was back in my normal work uniform 3 weeks later when I went back into the office.

Since then I’ve learned the importance of self care, and that includes not feeling the need to make any apologies if I need to take time out for myself.

[makingbabyglowworm]

Sharing Eli's Memory

16 March 2016

This past weekend I went south to the wine region of Western Australia on a Hen’s weekend. I am among 3 bridesmaids and together we put on a busy and fun weekend for our soon to be married friend.

I say “we”, but there were many times during planning where I was not up to doing anything. There were many times where they had to book, plan and coordinate without me because I was not in the right headspace to give some of myself when I had nothing left to give. I am so grateful for these women, who allowed me to do what I could when I could. Over the weekend they also let me have a proud mum moment, where I shared photos of Eli. We laughed together, and we cried together. It’s the first time I’ve shared Eli’s photos with anyone other than a few family members and it warmed my heart that I could brag about how beautiful my little guy is.

Being in a house full of women who don’t know your story is a challenge. There was lots of talk about their kids. FaceTime to children in the morning and afternoon. One woman was even pregnant - her tiny bump poking out from underneath her clothes. Yet another woman had a little boy with a name very similar to Eli.

Naturally the conversation comes around to “do you have any kids?” To which I reply I have a little boy. Then they ask “how old is your son?”, to which I reply he would have been almost 6 months old but that he passed away. I explain that his name is Eli and that he was born when I was 22 weeks pregnant.

Silence.

There’s nothing that pauses a conversation more than telling someone your child died. Then there’s the awkward apology. Some people go as far as asking why it happened, but there aren’t many brave enough to go down that line of questioning. Then the conversation abruptly changes.

Personally, it was the first time I’ve deliberately put myself in this situation, with a bunch of people who don’t know my story. Eli’s story. It gave me huge anxiety but it also gave me the chance to find a way to respond to those questions that is true to Eli’s memory, and true to his life.

[makingbabyglowworm]

Tiny clothes, a big future

1 March 2017 When I was coming to the end of the first trimester of my pregnancy I was gifted some baby and maternity clothes by one of my sisters. I had been reluctant to take them too early on, and Ryan and I had so excitedly gone through when I was 13 weeks pregnant. They were hand me downs from my nephew, who is now 11 months old, and I hadn't dared go through these clothes before that point because I wanted to know we had made it to the "safe zone" of pregnancy. I hadn't even bought any baby clothes until 12 weeks, and even then it was only 3 onesies. I remember being so happy I felt like I could burst. We laughed about how tiny everything was, and teased each other about whether our baby was a girl or boy. Little did we know that 9 weeks later we would labour and birth our baby, saying hello and goodbye at the same time, and our hopes and dreams would be packed tightly into a box and bag and relegated to the darkness of a closet in a room that was supposed to be a nursery. This week I went back into the closet and packed these clothes into my boot. I gave them to someone close to me, and then had to sit and listen to her excitement at being 5 weeks pregnant. Naturally I'm happy for her, but letting go of the clothes that I had lovingly sorted, the clothes that I had already made memories of Eli in, made my soul sink. I miss you little guy, and I hope that one day Ryan and I will feel the same joy at going through clothes for your little brother or sister 💙

[makingbabyglowworm]

One of the photos I took on Friday night

[makingbabyglowworm]

Flicking the Switch in my Brain

25 February 2017

We reached another milestone yesterday. Yesterday we reached the point where we have been without Eli for longer than he was with us. It is another date that I had feared.

I feared this point in our lives because it feels like people are starting to forget. People are moving on with their lives while I feel like I am standing still. All most people can think of to say now is that I “should see a counsellor”. Thankfully no one is yet saying that I should “move on” or “aren’t you over that yet?”. I’m not sure how I would handle that sort of statement.

I still feel just as fragile emotionally as when Eli had just been born, especially when those close to me ask how I “really” am, but I’m feeling stronger when speaking about Eli. I feel like I have been gifted with the most amazing story. I feel like I’m singing the saddest song I will ever sing, but it’s the most beautiful and powerful song I have ever heard.

Eli’s birth, the story that he and I share, is so big and I’m trying to make sense of it. How can I make it meaningful, not just for me but for others? How can Eli’s life impact others the way it has impacted me?

I’ve picked up a few hobbies to keep me busy over the last few months.

Baking has always been something I have enjoyed, so I do that quite often. Hubs and I have been doing jigsaw puzzles from the local library, and it’s lovely that we can do that together. I’ve also picked up photography. It’s something I have been doing with my Dad and has been a wonderful chance for us to bond. It has also helped to switch the direction of my thoughts. I’ve noticed on days where I’m not coping particularly well that if I can go out with the camera and focus on something, and even look at things in a different way, that it helps to shift my thought patterns. It helps to calm my mind and gives me a chance to find something beautiful in the every day.

I feel like the passion and grief and love that I experience is starting to flow out through these things. Maybe the song I’m singing, Eli’s song, will impact people through these channels.

[makingbabyglowworm]

26 January 2017 Happy due date my darling boy. Every part of this day feels wrong. I will never understand why you couldn't stay. I will never understand why we met in such heartbreaking circumstances. I will never understand why our house is quiet right now instead of filled with your cries; Why I'm exhausted from crying for you and not from you crying for me. The significance of today is one of the things I had feared since you were born. But here I am, still standing. The sun came up and went down. I bumbled through it with a lump in my throat and an ache in my heart. I didn't speak much today, for fear that all the brokenness inside would come tumbling out, but your dad knows me too well and can tell I'm struggling. Do I miss you? More than I ever thought was possible. The moment that your dad and I gazed upon your face was one of the most amazing moments of my life. That was when I knew. You have given me a gift that no one else can. You have changed my life. You have made me a mum. I just wish I could have been your mum here on earth.

[makingbabyglowworm]

By the bootstraps

15 January 2017

Not long after I had Eli, and when I had just started going back to work, my mum talked to me about my ability to “pull myself up by my bootstraps”. She was referring to my ability to pull all of my strength from deep inside, my ability to get back up, and put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

It hasn’t been until the last few weeks that I have an appreciation for what she means. It’s that intrinsic motivation. It’s the fact that although I want to crumple into a heap, to pull the covers over my head and not leave the house, I do. I get up. I plaster on a fake smile, and I go about my day while trying to function to an acceptable standard. Sometimes I win at that and sometimes I fail.

I now know that not everyone will understand the essence of what “pulling myself up by the bootstraps” is all about, and I sincerely hope that they never will.

[makingbabyglowworm]

Limbo

5 January 2017

At what point do we make a decision. At what point do we decide whether we are: - Ready to start trying for another baby. - Ready to do another FET with our fertility clinic. - Ready to give up on the idea of a family.

I know that only hubs and I know that answer, but I don’t even think I know.

It has become obvious over the past few weeks that hubs and I are in completely different places on this. We had been holding our breath; Waiting for our appointment with the Perinatal Loss Clinic to find out the testing results. Everything came back clear, with no chromosomal or genetic issues. The hospital gave us the green light to try for a baby when we were ready and they said there was only a 3% chance of it happening again. To me, though, that’s 3%! It’s a higher percentage than what it was to lose Eli in the first place. It’s that 3% that terrifies me.

Hubs has said he is ready to start trying again when I am. The problem is, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. I don’t know if I can willingly put myself through a pregnancy again knowing how broken it made me the first time.

[makingbabyglowworm]

The Year That Was

31 December 2016

It would be really easy for me to look back upon 2016 with anger, with sadness and with a broken heart. I am, in fact, all of these things.

The year started with so much promise - meeting my new nephew, falling pregnant with our little boy - and then my world came crashing down when I met and had to say goodbye to our much loved and long waited for little guy, Eli, in the same breath.

Indeed, it would be so easy to reflect on the year with an angry heart.

Instead, I’m choosing to look upon the year that was with love; It’s not often that people are lucky enough to meet their guardian angel - but Ryan and I have.

For 2017 I wish you all health, happiness, wealth and love. May you spend time on things that bring you joy, on people that make you smile, and on being present in the moment. Never take for granted that which you have, because even something you think is guaranteed could be gone in an instant.

Be grateful, be gentle and be kind. ☁️💙

[makingbabyglowworm]

Eli’s first Christmas

25 December 2016

Dear Eli, Merry Christmas, little cloud! ☁️ Family celebrations are in full swing down here, but it definitely isn’t the type of celebration that I would have ever pictured. I can’t even say I am “celebrating”. It’s hard to be happy when part of you is missing. By all rights, you should still be nestled comfortably inside me putting on weight and keeping me awake with your epic dance moves (which would have been awesome just like mine are). We would have been weeks away from meeting you, but I know that God had bigger plans for you - I’m just not sure what they are. I wonder what Christmas in heaven is like - I bet it’s beautiful and they let you stay up way past your bedtime and eat too much gingerbread 🙃 Your dad and I think about you each and every day and miss you so so much. We can just picture the excitement of the child who will be opening your gift under the wishing tree! Our wish is that you could be here with us but we are keeping you in our hearts, and I’m sure you can feel the love we send. Have some extra gingerbread for us ☁️💙 So much Love, Mum and Dad xx

PS your big sister, the Cat, didn’t get any presents because she ate the Christmas tree and then knocked it over. You would have laughed as much as we did 🙂