1% Chance…. Couldn’t get better odds, right???

Nic Archer - 8 Apr 16

People often say, “What a lovely job you have, you’ve very lucky!”. But the reality is that working with newborn babies is the hardest job in the world when your a mother without a baby. I saw having children as a choice, you want them or you don’t? But what happens when you want them but you keep having miscarriages and the doctors don’t know why and have no answers. The thought that I may never have my own children was becoming hard to accept.

Last year I found out I was pregnant for the sixth time, there was no joy or excitement but fear. At six weeks I started bleeding, it was literally tearing me apart, why is this happening to me?. Friday 13th February 2015 was the date of my scan, these scans were becoming routine and then would follow the words “I’m sorry there’s nothing there”. But there was a heartbeat on the screen, I burst into tears. I had scans every week in my first trimester, and each time I was scared to look at the screen.

My little boy was a fighter, but at 27 weeks I woke at 5am feeling awful. I couldn’t feel him move, I sat for an hour or so in the dark downstairs waiting for the Antenatal Baby Care Unit (ABC) to open at 7am wishing I would feel him kick. I spoke to a midwife called Sue, who reassured me that I was ok and I attended the unit that day. Sue was there to greet us, and I don’t know how she did it but she made me feel safe. She gave me that feeling that a mum does, when you just need your mum. She was so kind and full of warmth. I attended the unit four more times after this, Sue and I were on first name basis and we even joked that my regular bed was available.

There was a 1% chance of me having five consecutive miscarriages, and during my pregnancy I had scare after scare. I was so scared and so anxious let I wasn’t alone because I knew Sue was at the end of the phone. The unit is small and always busy, yet you were always made to feel like you were the only one in their care. I couldn’t have got through the pregnancy without her. My little boy who we called Beau (because he’s a rainbow baby) was born healthy by c-section in September last year. I still can’t believe I’m a mum.

Midwifes are such amazing people, they have to form a relationship of trust with complete strangers very quickly. Sue was my strength when I had none, I was emotionally drained for the whole nine months but I made it because she was cheering me on. Im hard work at the best of times, and when you throw in my history and pregnancy hormones I have all the makings of one nightmare patient. So to have the support of a stranger at a time when I was so vulnerable is a blessing.

I wear my numerous “Selfish Mother” tops with pride, because the one thing I never thought I would have, has happened to me. Having to go to work everyday and see couples with their babies was heartbreaking. Now I have to face going to work everyday rather than being with my son.

l nominated Sue for midwife of the year at Nottingham University Hospital awards. Saying thank you doesn’t feel like enough for the peace of mind she gave my husband and I. Votes can be made via www.nottinghampost.com/lovenottinghamhospitals

Becoming a mother has been a long difficult path, but that’s going to be nothing compared to the journey to become Beau’s Awesome Mummy!!!

Nic Archer

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