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.
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