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.