PREGNANCIES AND GYNAECOLOGY HISTORY
My third daughter Fleur was born in April 2003. I always believed that I would have another baby as I’ve got a bit of a thing about even numbers! Three babies was never enough (does that sound greedy?). So, I breast fed Fleur till she was 1 and for about a year afterwards I had fairly regular periods. With my other babies, I’d fed for a year, and within 3 months of stopping I became pregnant.
I’ve always been a 28 day cycle girl so when in 2005 they started becoming a little irregular (35-40 day cycles) I made a private appointment with the consultant who’d looked after me throughout my pregnancies to find out what was happening. I wasn’t very happy with the result. I didn’t learn anything. He said that as a woman’s body gets older it kind of becomes a little out of sync – a bit like an old watch! He said I needed to decide whether I wanted another baby and he could investigate. I wasn’t desperate for a baby, I just wanted to know what was happening to my body.
MENOPAUSE THOUGHTS
In 2006 I only had 3 periods – by the end of the year I’d started having hot flushes and sweats. During this time I’d become friendly with a nurse who had gone through an early menopause and it seemed to be that perhaps I was going through the same? I was 37 years old.
I left it until June before making an appointment with a Consultant Gynaecological Surgeon who was personally recommended by the nurse friend who was also seeing him.
He gave me a full ‘female’ medical, physically examined my uterus and gave me an ultrasound scan. This showed that I had a perfectly normal uterus and ovaries but that there was an insignificant 10mm cyst on my right ovary – which was perhaps the remnants of an old follicle. Apart from this the scan showed that there was no ovarian activity.
FSH LEVELS
Furthermore, I had blood tests to find out what my Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) levels were – the first test showed the level to be 147 and the second – 2 weeks later showed a level of 136. Extremely high. My understanding is that a normal menstruation levels for fertile women are between 2 and 25 approximately and that they become almost 0 when you are pregnant. Post menopausal levels are anything from 25 to 100. (Please note these are approximate figures).
IDIOPATHIC PREMATURE MENOPAUSE / PREMATURE OVARIAN FAILURE
My diagnosis was idiopathic premature menopause / premature ovarian failure. The consultant wrote to me and told me that there was no prospect of achieving a natural or IVF pregnancy and that he recommended that I begin HRT treatment until the age of 55. I was now 38 years old.
Something then took over me. I’ve never been depressed but I had an overwhelming feeling of loss. It was like grieving for all the babies I could never have. People kept telling me to think about how lucky I was to already have 3 beautiful daughters and believe me I’m blessed and thank my lucky stars every day to have them but the devastation was immense. It’s so hard to explain but I felt like I hadn’t finished my family – that we weren’t quite complete. And no-one seemed to understand. That was a very dark time for me – I felt completely alone. I looked for information on the internet to see if there was anyone who was going through the same but there didn’t seem to be anyone like me.
My sadness took over me for a few months but after a lovely Christmas with my very patient , handsome, fantastic husband and my gorgeous girls I “gave myself a shake” and decided that 2008 was going to be a new start. I was going to get a job, go to the gym and enjoy my family.
HRT SIDE EFFECTS
So, in February when I was feeling dreadful- bloatedness, headaches, spotty complexion and no sex drive I went back to the Doctor to see what was wrong. He suggested that we change my HRT. It didn’t help. I felt like my tummy was swelling and I had dreadful wind. I felt enormous. Once again I looked on the internet and found that this was probably a side effect of the HRT. So I just tried to remain positive. I was going to the gym 3 times a week and doing 30 sit ups a day and dieting. However, I’d begun smoking again – and was smoking around 10 cigarettes a day. I also enjoyed many a glass of white wine and found myself a little worse for wear on a few occasions during this period! We went to Disneyland Paris with the girls and for a while I forgot. The Tower of Terror was certainly terrifying! We had such fun and I was actually enjoying and appreciating all the goodness in my life.
Now for the interesting bit ...
Friday 16th May 2008 – once again I was at the gym. I had to stop the treadmill as I had an urge to wee – I went to the ladies and one of the mums from school was in there – she asked me if I was pregnant. It felt like something inside of me just cracked. The poor woman – I gave her my medical history in a nutshell but was so very upset. I got home and wept. That evening I was playing on the floor with the girls and felt my barren tummy. I pushed the fat belly down, feeling cross with my body and myself for being so upset. Strangely I could feel something hard just pushing up above my pubic bone. I asked the girls to feel as well thinking that it could just be my imagination, but they felt it too.
Saturday 17th May 2008 – I spent some time on the internet searching for answers – what on earth could this swelling be? All the sites I found pointed to either pregnancy (which of course couldn’t be possible) or fibroids. I asked Adrian if I should get a pregnancy test just to rule that option out but he knew what I’d been through so told me not to.
I have a lovely friend who is also a GP so I sent a text to her saying how awful I was feeling and about the lump I’d found in my tummy. She called later that day and arranged to pop over to examine me once she’d got her children to sleep. She arrived at around 8pm. I answered the door and showed her my bloated tummy. She laughingly asked if I was pregnant. She was also very aware of my history. My girls were still awake and watching X Factor! Ruby and I went into the sitting room and she felt my tummy. She also felt the swelling. We called Adrian into the room and Ruby asked him to go and fetch a pregnancy test. Adrian and I just looked at each other – surely this was impossible but just to humour Ruby off he went. She thought I may have a bladder infection?
PREGNANT?
So, after a very confusing 15 minute wait, Adrian returned equipped with a Tesco branded pregnancy test (we’d always spent a little more and bought Clearblue for the others). Ruby and I went into the loo, I wee’d into a specimen bottle and Ruby unwrapped the test. She said she just needed to rule out the pregnancy possibility but would also check my urine for infection before prescribing any drugs. Can you guess what happened? I handed her the bottle, she popped in the pregnancy stick and instantly the positive pregnancy line appeared. She said congratulations, you’re pregnant. I was dumbfounded. We called Adrian and told him. I think we hugged and I started crying. Surely this couldn’t be true. Ruby was visibly worried about what sort of pregnancy this could be (the words molar pregnancy were used) and phoned one of her colleagues who is a consultant at our local hospital. I was advised to stop taking my HRT immediately and booked in for a scan at 12.30 on Monday.
Sunday 18th May – Oh boy – I spent the day in a complete state of shock. It was really odd – I looked up my ‘symptoms’ in one of my old pregnancy books which stated that to feel the swelling I was feeling so far above my pubic bone I would have to be 16 weeks pregnant. Ridiculous. I’d read stories of people who never knew they were pregnant till the actually gave birth and never believed them. For goodness sake I’d had 3 babies already – each of which I knew of the pregnancy before I’d even missed a period. I also started worrying about the cigarettes, alcohol and exercise, plus the fast rides I’d been on in Disneyland.
GYNAECOLOGY SCAN
Monday 19th May.
I had a normal routine morning with my girls and dropped them off at school. I came home and lay in the bath trying not to build my hopes up but wishing and wishing that this all wasn’t some medical prank. Adrian and I looked at my naked body in the mirror and suddenly I looked pregnant. But I was still squeezing into my size 10’s. How could we not have known. We arrive early for our scan appointment and whilst we were waiting a young woman, her boyfriend and an older woman who I assumed was her mother, came out of one of the scan rooms. The young woman was crying. I guessed that she had miscarried.
My turn – we were called into a side room to answer some basic gynaecological medical questions and were then taken into the scan room. Honestly I’m sure this is when I started holding my breath. I lay down on the bed, lowered my trousers and waited. The radiographer squeezed some jelly onto my tummy and spread it out with the scan probe. She was obviously very experienced. Without any exaggeration – within 15 seconds she said that there was a healthy looking foetus in my uterus and it measured 18 weeks and 2 days old. What? I’m crying as I write this. This was all my dreams come true. I allowed myself to breath again and started crying with unequivocal joy. How? So many questions.
Even the 2 nurses in the scan room with us were delighted – we were in the gynaecology department, not the normal maternity unit. They usually deal with bad news here – our obvious delight and disbelief rubbed off and during later scans (which I’ll tell you about later) we were remembered as we’d made their day.
SHARING THE HAPPY NEWS
We came home, and discussed when to tell our girls. Jean, our number 2 daughter had wished for another baby in the family. Every birthday, every candle she blew out she’s wished for another sibling. It was a relief to get home from the hospital and find some more comfortable clothes to wear – I got changed and went to school to collect the girls.
When we arrived home, we sat the girls on the sofa and asked them if they could make one wish what it would be. Jean immediately shouted out “a baby”. Adrian told them that we’d been to the hospital so the doctor could try and find out what was causing mummy such discomfort in her tummy and that they had found it was all being caused by a little baby! They were delighted. You must bear in mind when you read this that we’ve always been honest with the girls, gentle, but very honest. They knew that I’d been sad, poorly and had to take tablets every day. They also knew that I wanted another baby. It’s funny isn’t it, although I’ve always worked and been moderately successful, the only thing I’ve ever wished for since being a little girl was to fall in love, get married and have lots of babies. I come from quite a dysfunctional family and have always had a belief that I could create a wonderfully wholesome family. All of my pregnancies have been a dream and each birth, although very different, has been a fantastic experience for me, if a little painful!
That night we went as a family to see Paul Weller. We met some dear friends there and shared our news. They of course were delighted if a little shocked! I’ve never kept my menopause a secret.
The following day at school, the girls shared our news amongst their friends and teachers. The reaction was surprising. The children were all excited but the parents reacted weirdly. There was a real sense of disbelief that I couldn’t have known. In fact people actually confronted me with that. Other women who I’d classed as friends stopped talking to me. It was all very shocking but to be honest the pregnancy itself was a shock. I’d gone from being on HRT with premature ovarian failure one day to being almost halfway through a pregnancy the next. Of course I was delighted but it was odd because I’d kind of been grieving for all the babies I couldn’t have and I’d got halfway through a pregnancy without even knowing. I needed to bond with my baby. I’d missed weeks of talking to my baby, rubbing my tummy. I’d missed my dating scan at 12 weeks, it was too late to have any of the usual blood tests.
