Past, future imperfect

Past

I found my 12 week scan overwhelming. I was incredibly nervous, having had all sorts of terrible nightmares, that there would be something wrong with the baby, that there would be no baby. I had a slightly worrying early pregnancy with numerous bleeds and constant nausea.

Despite all this, I had a very strong feeling of certainty about my pregnancy. Like a large rock in a fast flowing river that looks indestructible and has not yet succumbed to the pressure of water around it. Something deep inside me, something holding still and certain at my very core, told me that this pregnancy was going to be just fine. It was meant to be.

Because I had planned for it. I had taken prenatal vitamins, exercised, stopped drinking alcohol, tea, coffee and diet coke, I had studied the list of foods and activities considered too risky for pregnancy, I had checked my immunity status. I felt really healthy, the healthiest I have felt. I am a fairly robust kind of gal anyhow but I felt so strong, so ready.

Because it happened so quickly. As if that meant anything.

Because the previous year had seen a number of deaths in the extended family including my beloved Ouma (my maternal grandmother) and my husband's maternal grandmother. These deaths resulted in both our extended families scattering to the winds, without these central matriarchal figures to pull us all together, we were lost.

Because I found out that I was expecting around Easter, which was early that year. A time of rebirth, new life.

Because I had just got a promotion, my husband had just changed his job, we had settled into our new house.

Because we were ready.

When I found out I was expecting twins at the 12 week scan, I felt even more certain. Despite the fact that twin pregnancies are often more fraught.

I know many sets of twins and twin mamas very well. None of these pregnancies had any major complications. All of the twins were born at term and at good weights. In fact my SIL probably gave birth to some of the biggest twins ever seen in the local hospital. So big that nurses were summoned to witness their enormousness. I probably had some of the smallest twins ever born in the local hospital.
I called my SIL straight away and told her that I was also to be a twin mama. I phoned my friend and left a garbled message on her answering machine telling her that I was also going to be having twins. I told my neighbours and their twin boys, we joked about possible future double dates. I bonded with a work colleague also expecting twins.

My parents were on holiday in Namibia so it was difficult to track them down but I finally did. They were elated and got lots of jokes from the other tourists with them on that trip, one chap was calling my father 'Granddad, Granddad' for the rest of the holiday.

My younger sister and her boyfriend were on holiday in Bratislava. When I finally managed to get through to them on her mobile, she had just been to a stall to buy her first niece or nephew a Christmas angel decoration. She told me that she would go back and buy another one. One of those angels made it on to the Christmas tree. The other is still in its packet, in a box, in the back of my wardrobe.

This is going to sound a little strange but, although there are no twins on my side of the family, my husband's grandmother lost twins to premature birth. Somehow, I thought that these babies were her twins 'coming back' to us.

What a ridiculous list. 'Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.' Looking back it was absurd, I was absurd.

It all seemed so very strange to me. Perhaps reading all these 'signs' into things was just my poor old brain's way of trying to assimilate such a shock to my system. The whole pregnancy took on an 'unbelievable' quality following that point.

I was so very, very pleased to see the girls. Shocked and pleased. I went white and had to go and collect myself back in the waiting room. I had a little cluster of people around me, congratulating me on the twins. The other mothers, the administrators. Then I went back in and the sonographer continued with the ultrasound. I remember crying. One baby was very active and seemed to be relaxing on her back, with her feet up in the air. The other was stiller, hunched and looked as though she were praying or contemplating. I think that I asked if I should be concerned about her relative lack of movement but was told not to worry.

Guess which baby I think is which now? But I don't know. It could so easily be the other way round. Perhaps Jessica was the quieter baby that day.

For some reason, this really upsets me.

That I don't know which of the scan pictures is Jessica.

That I don't know which of the scan pictures is Georgina.


I also managed to get the first and last picture of my twins together. I love this picture so much. They look a bit alienesque but you can see them both and the dividing membrane.

It only feels like yesterday. It feels as if I could touch my belly and they would still be there. Sometimes I think I can almost feel kicks. But they aren't there.
I can't believe that my one and only pregnancy started.
I can't believe that my one and only pregnancy ended.
I think I'm still trying to catch up with what happened the day of my 12 week scan, let alone what happened since. Something peculiar seems to have happened to time, since that day. It sped up, it slowed down to a crawl, something has gone wrong with time.

Future imperfect

My manager came round to visit on Friday to discuss going back to work. I am so frightened. I don't think I will be able to manage. I have been sideways shuffled into a project management type role, which is brilliant and they have been very supportive of me. But, but.

But I'm frightened. I don't want to have to manage the database that contains the records of my dead daughter and my living daughter. I used to imagine that my management of those databases would somehow protect against a scenario such as this. Surely life wouldn't be cruel enough to hand my children back to me as a record in a database? I didn't know how cruel life can be and it has been kinder to me than to some.

I don't want to see those birth weights. I don't want to see their names. Alongside all the others. Is anyone ever going to ask me to provide low birth.weight birth numbers? Infant mort.ality numbers? Stil.lbirth rates? NI.CU costing? They are going to have to ask. I am going to have to collate, analyse and talk about these things. These things that make me so very frightened. I don't know how on earth I would cope if I had to go back to work as a midwife or a NICU nurse. But people do. At least they are doing something useful.

I always used to be a great one for contextualising data, for keeping its humanity intact. Remembering that there are people and terrible sadness and fear and joy behind all these numbers. Diagnoses, procedures, births, deaths. Now I know it in the very marrow of my bones.

I want to take all those records and transmute them, all those lost souls, into gold. Make them something dazzling, something perfect, a tribute to all the love that keeps pounding and pounding in the heart of someone, somewhere. Someone who I will never meet but whose sad, sad story I can see. Amongst all that cold data.

I want to take each name and wrap it up, in a soft electronic blanket. To treasure it. To cherish it. Somehow. But it will remain cold, black and white, factual.

Georgina's name will be listed there, amongst them. The code for extreme prematurity will be assigned to her. The code for pulmonary insufficiency. The code for twin pregnancy. All these are listed as factors against her cause of death. I don't want to see it. I can't bear it.