Florence’s Story – Three Point Three

Today, as I write, I’m anxious. Not just because it was on my mind that I needed to continue to tell this story, but also because our girl has been on my mind a lot this last week or so. There are so many triggers – but one of them has been those ‘motherhood photo challenge’ posts doing the rounds on Facebook. I trust that those who know me well know that I try not to attach enormous significance to social media – yes, I enjoy it, and it’s sometimes part of what I do for work – but it’s not real life. So I say this without prejudice and with the caveat that it shouldn’t matter – but my lack of nomination was notable by its absence. The silence almost deafening. If someone had nominated me to post a photo which ‘makes me proud to be a mum’; I would have been torn because I don’t have any photos of my children together. I would have had to post two and most people – whoever they are, and myself included – find photos of stillborn babies uncomfortable so it offered an excruciating dilemma. It’s testament to the fact that my virtual and real life friends didn’t want to upset or remind me of my loss, but as I’ve said before; I’ve never forgotten. It’s forever a double-edged sword.

I was now around 22 weeks pregnant – too early to go on maternity leave, but noticeably ‘bumpy’ which frightened employment agencies when I walked through the door ‘just looking for temp work’. They didn’t know what to do with me; I was a walking health and safety risk with two versions of my CV, but the dumbing down didn’t seem to wash. I know they wanted me to go away because in their position, I probably would have wanted that too. The figures speak for themselves; Jobseeker’s Allowance is apparently £72.40 – I think it must have gone up very slightly since I last claimed – but still. Statutory Maternity Allowance is £139.58 but is only payable for a maximum of 39 weeks. I didn’t want to admit defeat and claim too early as this would have detracted from the time I would have at home with my daughter once she’d arrived. So I persisted, but in six weeks of searching for work, I got exactly two days temp admin work. It was now pretty much high summer and I was getting very uncomfortable, so I finally admitted defeat and filled in the terrifyingly complicated form to claim SMP.

In the meantime, I had the ludicrous situation of continuing to sign on. Once a fortnight, I had to wait on a phone call from a work advisor who would ask me what I had done to seek work. It turns out that the DWP were in the process of making redundancies so the guarantee of these calls was patchy at best, but I couldn’t go into the Jobcentre on the Monday and physically sign to receive my money on the Thursday until I’d received this call. And then, having waited in all day, the 5 minute appointment was usually just before school pick up when the Jobcentre was a 20 minute drive away. Frustrating doesn’t even cover it.To his initial credit, the chap who finally got tasked with speaking to me understood the irony of the situation – that I was doing everything I could to seek work but nobody wanted to employ me. And the Richard Whiteley lookalike in the Jobcentre itself was cynical about how well the system was working for people in my situation and always had an encouraging demeanour. I could almost hear the ‘Countdown’ music in my ear as I scribbled on his electronic signature pad…

The summer holidays began and my then 6 year old son was quickly getting fed up with his weeble-esque mum who couldn’t keep up and had to have a lie down even after a walk to the shops. I reassured him that things would improve once his sister had arrived and that we would be out and about with the pram on trips to the park and so on. A small part of me feared my recollections of the dark days of sleep deprivation and how that might impact on my parenting style for a while, but I was sure it was a period of adjustment that we’d just have to weather with the support of playdates and grandparents.

And so, the end of July came around and we were booked in for a 36 week growth scan and appointment with the consultant to discuss delivery. It seems irrelevant now but I was fretting about her due date of 24 August because of where the school year cut off dates fell. I didn’t want her to be at a disadvantage further down the line and wanted a reasonable say in where her birthday might fall. Also, my son’s birth six years previously had been traumatic; he was 15 days overdue by the time he arrived following a failed 4 day induction and emergency caesarean at 3am on Christmas Day. It had been long, painful and frustrating trying to have him naturally, only for it to end in surgery anyway. I’ve since learned that, as I have a tilted pelvis, that it was an improbable task attempting to deliver him ‘normally’ lying on my back on a bed. My mother’s words about ‘upright and mobile’ had rang in my head, but through the fog of gas and air and the monitoring which wasn’t mobile back then, I remained static for 9 hours – no wonder we struggled.

But I didn’t want history to repeat – I wanted to feel in control of how this birth would take place. What would be the point of another failed labour only for it to end in a c-section anyway? With all that in mind, I was resolved to have a planned c-section at 38 weeks and it was booked for two weeks’ time. We’d seen our little lady on the screen and she was measuring normally for dates; we could see her heart beating and her lungs practicing for the job they would do in the outside world. This was on the Thursday and as far as we were concerned, we were about to meet our little girl. The sonographer was happy, the midwife and consultant were happy and I was to all intents and purposes, having a healthy and low-risk pregnancy. It would be fair to say that at this point, we felt pretty certain that all was well. The cot was up, I had stocked up on nappies and arranged all her things and I just needed to pack my hospital bag. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare us for what actually lay ahead. 

Florence’s Story – Three Point Two

It is, dare I say, a cliché, but losing my brother so young has left me with a lasting indentation of the fragility of life. I’d learned through loss that nothing could be taken for granted anymore. Events don’t always take the course we expect – and I certainly didn’t expect to live my life without my little brother in it. I began to practice reinforcing my sanity somehow by assuming the worst so I could feel surprise and relief when things panned out much better. I realise that makes me sound like an utter pessimist, but in reality, I’m really not. I do however admit that I have latterly become the person who sees an ambulance on an emergency call and immediately feel concern that it could be rushing to someone I know. It’s a fleeting (and probably largely normal) feeling of ‘I hope not’ but still, it’s there; arming myself with a ‘what if’ for the future, hoiking up my belt and braces as I head into the unknown.

There are some commonly-held thoughts about pregnancy announcements and it’s generally the ‘done’ thing that you don’t tell too many people until you’ve had your 12 week scan. I don’t judge people who deviate from that, because it’s a completely personal decision. But, certainly for us, it was a sensible approach as statistics say that 20% of miscarriages occur before 20 weeks and 80% of those are before 12 weeks. We didn’t want to assume anything until we were absolutely sure. There was a small part of me that was a little cocky – I’d had a healthy baby before – I was good at being pregnant – so what could go wrong?

Our 20 week scan was both nerve-wracking and exciting, as it is for any parent, but things were progressing as they should and I had been passing all my check-ups with flying colours, so we felt quietly confident.  I freely admit that once we’d checked the baby was physically ok, we wanted to know the sex and were crossing our fingers that it was a little girl. The rather grumpy and ‘just the facts, ma’am’ sonographer took the sheen off it all with her manner, but we didn’t care – and cheered when our hopes were confirmed. I can’t remember how quickly we settled on the name; I’d heard it a few times and liked it so came home pondering it and mentioned it to G who immediately agreed. Florence it was. And Frances as her middle name – after both our Grandad’s Frank. It’s also my middle name. We tried to keep it quiet; the last vestige of secrecy these days when our Facebook friends knew pretty much everything else.

My pregnancy continued normally;  according to one friend I looked slimmer every time she saw me – well, I’m not sure about that, but I know that the best fix for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) symptoms is pregnancy as it regulates your insulin levels, so in the second trimester, I did feel pretty good. My bump was measuring correct for dates; the early signs of pelvic and back pain had disappeared and I was holding down a freelance job under quite a bit of pressure. I freely admit that my mind wandered, I took my eye off the ball one week and my contract was swiftly ended after three months. But in all honesty, I refused to crack over it because they had barely given a flying monkeys about my pregnancy in the first place (who doesn’t flippin’ ask their colleague how a 20 week scan went?!) and I didn’t want the stress to affect our daughter. My former employer then revealed his true arsehole rating by emailing me while I was sitting in hospital having my glucose tolerance test (GTT) to tell me I was forbidden from using any of the work I’d done for him in my portfolio. Suffice to say I ignored him – I am always honest about my element of input into things, so I had absolutely no intention of claiming to have done more than I had – and told him so. I can't control what he subsequently said about me to clients and whoever sat in my seat next; but I was beyond worrying about the details and amused myself with potential ideas for revenge. I didn't carry any of them out, I would swiftly add. 

By this stage it was early June and I was around 22 weeks pregnant – it was way too early to go on maternity leave but the chance of finding another contract didn’t look that promising either. I might as well have walked into employment agencies and the job centre with a ticking cardboard box in my hands. They couldn’t understand why the lady with the baby bump wasn’t just resolving to put her feet up for the next 15 weeks or so. The simple answer: money. I didn’t have more than a month’s salary saved – and would only be entitled to statutory maternity allowance – which is slightly more respectable that Jobseeker’s Allowance, but I was still perfectly capable of earning more. To put it simply; they saw the bump and not the person. It was pregnancy discrimination pure and simple. Nobody got it and it was depressing as hell.