Florence’s Story – Three Point One

There are so many parts of my life that I struggle to remember; some simply due to the passing of time and others because I suspect, like so many, I just wanted to forget. Our memories are so specific to us – and I know that in any given situation, people will always recall different facets of a day or experience. And, the more traumatic the experience of course, the more we want – or need to forget. That’s if we can. But, when it comes to Florence’s story, I am torn between remembering the detail of our little girl’s all too brief existence and forgetting the pain and trauma of what eventually occurred.

I met my now husband G when my son H was three. It would be fair to say that his permanence didn’t initially go down too well with H. G vividly recalls one early encounter when H turned to me and said, quite loudly and deliberately “when is he leaving?”… he’d more or less had me all to himself up until that point, so in his mind, it was a fair question I suppose! I had always wanted another baby and was always amazed when, as a single parent, people asked me if I was planning to have any more. The answer was, no, I’d like to actually be married to someone next time as my son was an unexpected but very wanted ‘happy accident’ and it had, at times, been a massive struggle. Fortunately G was on the same page as me when it came to marriage and babies, so it didn’t have shades of bunny boiler when those important conversations about the future were happening quite early in our relationship. I knew that while a resentful toddler had the potential to scare him permanently off parenthood, actually G was excited about becoming a dad.

Without going into icky specifics, we found out we were expecting just two months into trying. We were thrilled – especially as our fertility wasn’t guaranteed for a number of reasons. It had been the best part of 7 years since I’d last been pregnant, but I thought it would all be quite familiar. The truth is, it couldn’t have been more different. I was older for a start and my starting weight was heavier (the post-wedding dress pounds had snuck back on but I had been a good size smaller than that last time anyway). But nothing prepared me for the constant feeling of nausea – it was literally all day. I pretty much ate nothing but potatoes, pasta and cheese for three months and fell asleep on the sofa every night. G began to think he was married to some kind of carb zombie with the attention span of a goldfish. 

The week when we were due our 12 week scan arrived and we were pragmatic about the potential outcome, but what I really didn’t expect was the meeting at work announcing that there would be redundancies – most likely in the (small) marketing department where I was working. I remember getting back to my desk and immediately bursting into tears. I was an old hand at redundancy so it was perhaps a heady mix of hormones and realism that hit me in that moment. I had been there exactly a year and in a permanent contract with a good salary, so it had felt like a ‘responsible decision’ when we decided to try for a baby. Suddenly all that was thrown into question. I looked around me and knew that, ultimately, it was most likely me that was going to be leaving and what employer would take me on permanently knowing I was pregnant? 

I immediately wanted to take control of the situation rather than wait for the inevitable outcome of the consultation period; partly because I was worried about stress affecting the baby and also because I figured I was more employable if I could leave sooner rather than later. As it goes, I managed to secure something else quickly (which didn’t turn out so well either) but the initial worry of the financial situation didn’t entirely help matters. So we attended the scan with some trepidation – we had agreed to be pragmatic and not take anything for granted because I had already spent a night in hospital with bleeding at six weeks. But there it was - she was, although we didn’t know it yet – a tiny heartbeat on the screen and the little person we hoped would complete our family. For the first time, we had the first glimmer of hoping – daring to hope – that it was going to happen. And it felt perfect.

Florence - 12 week scan