Firstly, I’d like to apologise for my lack of activity. I really wanted to continue posting here frequently, but I have been so overwhelmed the last few months. I’m so much calmer now, so here’s to 2021.
Secondly, this is a lengthy post. I’m terrible at being precise and I tend to talk a lot (or write, in this case).
Reflecting on the last 12 months is such an emotional journey. For so many reasons, it has been a year that I will never forget. There have been moments that I wish had never happened, but there have also been so many moments that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Today marks one year since I first discovered Similar Worlds, but it was another few days before I had the courage to create an account. For those of you who haven’t seen me here before and don’t know anything about me, I joined here to document my journey through pregnancy. I predominantly wanted to find others who were in, or had been in, similar situations to myself; I would soon become a young mum to a beautiful daughter. While I believe I did meet some that I could relate to, I was stunned by the love and support that so many people offered me. I recently starting revisiting some of my old posts and was full of emotion to relive elements of my journey and see your comments and reactions.
This year has been an incredibly difficult year for everyone. I was more than halfway through my pregnancy journey when the COVID pandemic reached my country. I was having a difficult time adapting to being pregnant and struggling to prepare for motherhood. When the UK went into a national lockdown, I was 30 weeks pregnant. My only sense of normality was that I was able to continue attending school after becoming pregnant, and this was taken away from me when the pandemic closed all schools in the country. I felt isolated, alone, and far from everyone and everything that I knew. Seeing my friends and my teachers was such a stress-reliever for me. It gave me a sense of normality at a time when I was preparing for a whole different lifestyle. Being suddenly unable to see them brought me to tears on so many occasions. They were giving me the strength that I needed to keep going. When everything closed down around me, my mindset changed and I convinced myself that I couldn’t do it and that I wasn’t going to do it. I broke down so many times.
The pivotal moment for me after having nearly a month of doubt and refusal to accept that I could carry on was a health scare. Until now, I haven’t covered this element of my pregnancy. I was in my 35th week and had been struggling with false contractions and her being so active in the womb. It was early morning (on a Tuesday, I think) when I had a particularly intense pain in my back and my stomach. I believed it to be an unusually strong false contraction, or Braxton-Hicks. In the hours following, for the first time in weeks, I couldn’t feel her moving. I fell straight into panic-mode and immediately had the worst-case scenarios running through my head. I was a mess and my mum couldn’t console me at all. We had an ambulance at my house and I was taken to hospital so quickly. There were nurses taking readings of so many things that I didn’t understand and nobody would tell me or my mum what was going on. It wasn’t until nearly two hours after I had arrived at the hospital that a doctor finally came in, sat me down and told me that she was going to be alright. I was able to listen to her heartbeat and it filled me with so much happiness, love and strength. Hearing her heartbeat filled me with the confidence that I needed to finish these final few weeks. The cause of her sudden decrease in movements was never really known, however they did tell me that I was in early labour, or the latent phase. This was a bit of a concern, but they allowed me to leave hospital and keep track of everything myself at home. They were hoping that this stage would last a few weeks, rather than days, to avoid potentially delivering my daughter earlier than was planned.
The COVID pandemic threw so many of my pregnancy plans out of the window. I was hoping for a water-birth with my mum being my birth partner; I was hoping for a really nice maternity photoshoot; and I was hoping to have a few days away somewhere with my family in my final weeks, all before welcoming my daughter into my world. I managed to have a maternity photoshoot, although it wasn’t the professional one that I had wished for. My mum was so amazing at preparing it all and taking the photos for me. (There’s an album on my profile with some of these photos). When the time finally came, I was also able to have the water-birth that I had hoped and planned for.
My last couple of weeks were exciting and scary for me. I had been fighting through contractions since before the health scare, and had been in early labour for an extended period of time. I was taking so many precautions to avoid inducing my labour further until I knew she would be safe. Thankfully, she waited on in there and the days rolled by. Something I never expected to reach was my 39th week. Having been in early labour for several weeks already, I completely expected to have given birth by this stage. It was a bittersweet moment for me. Despite having so many difficult moments and such a lack of confidence, I felt that I would miss feeling her wriggle and watching my bump grow over time. I was so excited to meet her, but emotional to see that my time carrying her was over.
Finally, on Friday 22nd May, Emmie Grace was here.
I feel as though this post has been a lot longer than I anticipated, so I’ll write about my first few months of motherhood in a separate one. Thanks so much for reading, and thanks so much to everyone who has offered me advice and supported me this past year. I couldn’t have done it without you. 💛
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It's so good to see you back on here and it's good to see you and your baby doing well I miss getting to talk to you because of how similar worlds has done
