Life's Ups and Downs

Not long ago, I think it was in mid August, Maddie announced to me that I would have a baby in my tummy very soon and as usual, our little White Witch (Halloween Baby) was right on the money. When I returned from my work trip to LA I was a couple of days overdue, so I rushed to the bathroom as soon as I got home and was absolutely thrilled to see those two magical lines appear on the pregnancy test. I announced the news to Maddie and Simon as part of the 'return from the overseas trip gift giving ceremony' and we all cried with joy and excitement. As much as I tried to keep my trap shut, I let the cat out of the bag with a few close friends and of course with our families. That was definitely one of lifes "ups". I immediately started falling in love with the idea of adding to our little family and Maddie decided that we were having a girl and that her name was to be Rosie!

Everything was going amazingly well apart from the fact that I was completely knackered and feeling very nauseous, which I was lucky enough to avoid when I was pregnant with Maddie. The first 8 weeks of the pregnancy flew by with a busy work schedule and the craziness of day to day life. Then I went for a check up with my GP on Thursday 15th October and she suggested that I have a dating scan to make sure that the baby was developing as it should and that I had my dates all in order. That was when the "down" began.

About sixty seconds into the scan I could tell by the look on the radiographers face that something was not right. He could not find a heart beat and he said that the scan did not look regular and that he didn't think this was a 'viable pregnancy'. I went into complete shock. I had not even entertained the idea that something could go wrong. All I wanted to do was speak to Simes to try and make sense of the news. I was sent back up to my GP who did more tests and told me that it was likely that I would miscarry naturally over the weekend and that I would need to go to the RPA hostpital on the following Tuesday for further scans if that didnt happen. I can't describe how I felt as I walked out of the doctors surgery. I just wanted to be in Simon's arms and make the last two hours go away. I was convinced that the radiographer must have made a mistake... but in my heart I knew there was a problem. To ad insult to injury, my car had been towed from Oxford Street as the tests etc had taken so long that my parking spot had become a clearway. That was just too much. I started to cry hysterically and proceeded to weep publicly, like a mad woman possessed, as I snottily tried to find out where the RTA had towed my car.

The next 4-5 days were a blur. The GP called me to say that she was encouraged by my blood test results and that hopefully the scan at RPA would provide a clearer picture of what was going on. Simon was absolutely amazing from the second I told him what was going on. He was calm, kind, thoughtful and managed to find exactly the right words to comfort me even though I know his heart was also breaking. Once again, as soon as the radiographer at the RPA started the ultrasound, it was clear that she was concerned by what she saw and that things didn't look as they should. She left us in the examination room while she conferred with the doctors for over an hour and we were then informed that I had a condition called a molar pregnancy which is a rare complication of pregnancy. It happens when something goes wrong during the fertilisation process at conception, and there are abnormalities in the cells that grow to form the placenta, but the embryo or baby was never going to be viable. The news was heart breaking, but not unexpected at that stage... but then things went from bad to worse when the doctor explained that molar pregnancy, sometimes called a hydatidiform mole, is part of a group of conditions called gestational trophoblastic tumours. They are usually benign (not cancerous) and even though they can spread beyond the uterus they are curable. They would perform a D&C procedure the next morning which would hopefully completely remove the tumour but I would need to visit an oncologist (a cancer doctor!) following the procedure and I was sent off for a chest X-Ray to ensure the tumour had not spread!

I could not believe my ears. Not only were we NOT having a baby, there was a small chance that the tumour growing in my womb could be cancerous. We were also told that we would not be able to try for any more children for another 12 months! I was a complete basket case and totally incapable of working through the roller coaster of emotions. When we walked out of the hospital, I remember Simes saying 'everything happens for a reason'. At the time, I could not imagine a single reason why this was happening to our little family. I went home and cuddled our beautiful little ray of sunshine baby girl, popped her to bed and cried a river of tears.

It is only now that I have a couple of weeks distance from that horrible day I can start to see that every cloud has a silver lining. This whole experience made me realise how lucky we are to have such amazing people in our lives. The RPA hospital staff were incredibly kind, respectful and caring. I can't speak highly enough of them. And as for our friends, family and work colleagues... words can't describe how extraordinary they have been. We were showered with love and support from the moment we shared the news. The beautiful people at Fox completely removed all work stress from my life and put Simon in charge of when I should return to work. Our friends have been wonderfully generous with honesty about their own experiences of miscarriage and kind, reassuring words about the physical and emotional recovery process. Our dear friends Meags and Martin (who are basically family) helped us in every possible way from the practical things like dropping Maddie to day care, to the emotional things like listening and offering their support. Benny baked bannana bread (he always makes me fat in a crisis!) and was by our sides in body and soul. I don't know what we would have done without our amazing friends. And as for our families, well as usual, they found all the right words to say and made us feel completely loved and cared for.

I have to have weekly blood tests for the next 3 months to ensure that they have successfully removed the tumour and I have another appointment with the Oncologist this Friday to see whether things are moving in the right direction. I am incredibly positive that things will be OK and if they are not, I know our little family will work together to get through what ever treatment is needed.

As for my husband Simes and my beautiful little girl Mads... they mean everything. Simes showed such maturity, kindness and compassion throughout the whole ordeal and Maddie was just beautiful, innocent, funny Maddie which was all she needed to be to keep me smiling and positive. I fell in love with both of them all over again.

The light at the end of a dark tunnel was that the little lady turned 3. She is officially a 'big girl'. We had a beautiful party in Centennial Park attended by all Maddie's friends and some very special family guests from SA including Nanna, Grandad, Auntie Sue and cousin Brooke. We were also lucky enough to see Auntie Kathryn and my gorgeous cousins Christopher and Rob with their wonderful growing families.

Meags and Martin took some fab photos which I will upload to the blog soon, but in the mean time here are some snaps of little Mads enjoying her visit from Nanna and Grandad and hanging out with her mates. There are also some snaps from the wonderful weekend visit we had from Granny Rozzi just before I went to LA.

Ups and bloody downs! I'll take the "ups" in future... in fact, make mine a double "up"!