Time flies when you're having fun.
Time marches on.
Time is a healer.
How many sayings about time can I give?
I'm pretty sure there are a few out there about how time does not heal, it just helps us to live with the pain. Then there are those who say that grief is a process, stages to go through; or that it takes a year to get over losing someone, getting past all those significant dates.
After my first scan, I had other dates set up, another midwife appointment, the next scan, the due date. Those dates were firm in my head, I was excited about them, so I wasn't going to miss the appointments, or forget that date - although I never thought I would give birth on my due date.
Now the dates that are imprinted in my memory are 1 February 2017, the date I found out there was no heartbeat; 8 February 2017, the date I gave birth; 1 March 2017, the date our child was cremated in a service organised by the hospital.
As those dates passed, so did the others, I had a midwife appointment on Valentine's Day, of course, the hospital staff arranged the cancellation of that for me, so I didn't have the call to ask where I was, but the time passed and I thought about what could have been. I had the 20 week scan arranged for 14 March 2017, that one passed too, and I tried to imagine what size I would have been, tried to imagine people knowing that I was pregnant from looking at me, an experience I hadn't achieved. I had the post mortem results meeting on 15 March 2017 instead. We actually didn't learn a lot at that appointment, all the results weren't back yet, we learnt that our baby had a cleft palate, a missing eye, and a malformed left side of the face. Dr. Gordon explained what they were looking for as they continued looking at what cells they had kept, what had been found out, and what we might expect. He said that he could go over the results by phone, or we could have a further appointment, and noted that we may need some blood tests if they found any anomalies.
I kept phoning, asking if the results were back, and managed to get a call back from Dr Gordon, who explained the first part of the bad news, that there was some extra chromosome material from 13, and that we both needed to have blood tests to figure out if either of us passed it down. We went in for those on 7 April 2017. On 19 April 2017 we went in to be given more devastating news. Dr. Gordon explained that he didn't have a lot of information, as he was not a geneticist, but gave us the basics of our lemonade, beer, and shandy predicament.
After that, we had to get used to our new reality. The reality that our chances of a healthy child were 50/50 (at a basic level). The reality that it wasn't advisable to try naturally until we had more information from an expert. The reality that, if we had an accidental pregnancy, it was a lot riskier.
There are also the days that seem insignificant, the innocuous days, the ones that take you by surprise when they hit you square in the chest. I have a lot of car journeys to meetings for work; journeys with a range of people, some who I know better than others. I had a journey one day, I was talking with a colleague who asked how long I was married. I said we were coming up for one year, and that we were going to wedding that day; when I said I was "looking forward to it" I felt a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. There is a part of me that is not looking forward to that day, but I know I can't let it ruin our first anniversary. There are still some dates that are to pass: The first due date they gave us at the midwife appointment, and based on my last period, which was my mother-in-law's birthday; The second due date they gave us at our 12 week/dating scan, and based on the size of the baby, which was our wedding anniversary; The third date is one I picked myself, before I knew it was never to be, a date that actually holds no significance, but was the one I felt was most likely to be the birthday.
Before we learnt that we had the balanced translocation, I had hoped that I would be pregnant again by the due date. It was something that was offered to us as comfort by some... "If we hadn't lost x, we would never have had y."
I think I will find 2 August 2017 the hardest date of all.
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