💜 #14: Part 2 of Letty's Story
My own 'Go Back Happy' story: Part 2. Pregnant (finally!), building a biz, some anxiety, and a breech baby
Morning everyone!
Another personal, blog-style one for you.
I had a lot of incredibly kind feedback on Go Back Happy #12 (My Go Back Happy Story Part 1) where I shared the first bit of how pregnancy / miscarriage shaped my career .
But really, that was the first section on how motherhood in general has led me to where I am now.
I promised to share the next bit if there was enough demand.
Lo and behold there was. So here we go. Part 2.
The pregnancy that ‘stuck’
After the miscarriage in May 2018, I handed in my notice at the job I hated. I did the obligatory 3 months as per my contract. I then went on holiday, and just to be a total cliche - got pregnant 😱.
I was about 5% excited… And 95% terrified. I was also supposed to be starting my own Coaching business, and all I could think about was when I was going to have a miscarriage.
Unhelpfully, I had constant cramping, in the exact way I’d had during my miscarriage. So I spent a disproportionate amount of time touching my bo*bs (to check whether they still hurt) and checking in the loos, to see if I was actually still pregnant.
Anyone who’s had a miscarriage knows the crippling anxiety of a positive test. Mine was no exception. I couldn’t accept anyone’s congratulations, and would gravely raise my eyebrows with a, “Well, we’ll see…” I think people didn’t quite know how to respond 😬.
It got so bad (I can’t believe I’m admitting to this 😟) that I ended up daily checking a website called miscarriage reassurer (sent to me by a brilliant and understanding friend, who’d had 3 miscarriages herself. She’s now had 3 beautiful babies.) It quite literally gives you your odds of miscarrying that day, and shows you in numbers the chances of this decreasing as time goes on. This actually helped a lot - I think because I am truly weird. My husband would say “Every day is a victory”. It helped me to see numbers behind it.
…Whatever floats your boat right. You have permission totally judge me on this.
Breech babies
I’ve always said to my husband since we met 12 years ago that I’d only have boys. And at 20 weeks - “it’s a boy”.
I had an awesome Jamaican midwife, Hanat, who was a grandma herself by that time, who’d been so kind and reassuring throughout. She noticed before any scan told me, that baby seemed breech. A scan confirmed her view.
Breech?
I’d had a very ‘natural’ birth in mind - hired a doula - and had visions of candles, breathing the baby out, and no pain relief. Ha. Ha. Ha. (if this was you though - KUDOS and I am SO envious👏).
I was offered an ECV at my South London hospital: a procedure where they essentially push on your stomach to turn the baby. My instinct was screaming at me to not take it - I was terrified of it hurting the baby, and the pain.
When I asked the (male) doctor whether it would be sore, they said that:
“Some women experience discomfort. You’ll be given gas and air”.
“Isn’t that what they offer as pain relief in labour?”
“Yes.”
“So wait - it is actually painful then?”
“Erm… sometimes…”
Hanat the Midwife sagely proffered her opinion with a warm smile and a shrug, which I appreciated:
“Baby is probably where baby wants to be. If you don’t want the ECV, don’t have it 🤷♀️”
She gave me the confidence to ask for what I wanted.
C-section ‘shame’
I cannot tell you how embarrassed I was at having a c-section booked in. I felt like I ‘wasn’t trying hard enough’ by not having the ECV. My own Mum had a vaginal breech delivery for my sister. However - she had suffered PTSD and PND as a result - so her opinion loomed in my mind.
A family friend was a midwife for 30 years. I called her and asked what I should do. She said:
“Letty, you can totally try. But I’ll be honest, there won’t be much ‘natural’ about it. You’ll most likely have an episiotomy, you’ll be deemed high risk, certainly won’t have the lights off, and you’ll probably have a squad of medical students in with you watching, as it’s so so rare. Obviously, it’s also more likely to end in an emergency c-section, with a partially descended baby.”
Nope. I didn’t like the sound of that 😬.
As a last resort I tried moxibustion, a Chinese acupuncture way of getting the baby to turn, that has clinical evidence to occasionally work by stimulating the baby to move. I was absolutely convinced it wouldn’t work 😂. I went to a very random clinic in Clapham (London) for it, where some elderly gentleman held a burning herb next to my little toe for an hour. Genuinely. (I’m laughing as I write this, as it was honestly so weird. I was so pregnant that I could barely get onto the table and couldn’t see my feet). To my absolute astonishment baby went bananas in my uterus throughout but… no turning.
“Baby is where baby wants to be”.
Ok baby, decision made.
Butt first or not, they’ve all got to come out somehow 🍑.
C-section was booked in at 41 weeks - so late because my hospital had a bed bugs outbreak and were staggering operations as a result. Yes, seriously.
Building a business and a baby from scratch
I’d been working throughout the pregnancy, flogging my coaching business by going to every single WeWork in London 🥴 doing talks on Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, and Team Personality Profiling.
I loved it but it was hard, and so lonely.
The first talk I ever organised, not a single person came. Other than my husband. Who’d happened to be working in the same building. He got his phone out, and took a picture of me (before you ask, I cannot for the life of me find this photo now 😫 ). Alone, with my presentation on the screen. I was annoyed. I didn’t want this moment of humiliation on his phone, thanksverymuch. But he said:
“Just you wait. We are going to look back on this and laugh. You’re going to get there. It’s going to be hard. But use this. You can do it.”
He was annoyingly right. Forever my greatest cheerleader / the eternal optimist in our house 🌞.
The WeWork talks were a huge physical effort commuting all over London. I did 30+ of them. The money came from the free talks showcasing my services to people in the room, who would then (hopefully) buy - but the talks themselves were a huge effort.
I am the world’s biggest extrovert, and I loved them once it all got going and money started trickling in. However I was visibly and self-consciously pregnant whilst presenting, and had terrible cramps if I did too much walking, which would then end in panicky hospital visits.
I was also very much alone and missed having colleagues. But the loneliness of my consuming anxiety about the pregnancy and birth was the toughest part. I didn’t want to share with the people the level of my worry, as I felt they didn’t understand, and also none of my friends was in this life space. Most couples I knew weren’t even living together - yet there I was with one miscarriage and a pregnancy on the go.
We’ll be here all day if I keep going
Ok guys, that’s part 2 and I’ve spent an hour longer than I should writing this and I have emails to reply to!!
Part 3 is so emotional for me that I need a bit of time to think about how to convey it.
(it was the darkest period of my life - but it ends so happily 🙏).
As ever, I’ll just ask you guys.
If you liked it, or like my vibe, you can share it with a friend.
If you made it to the end again then WOW and I hope it’s given you some food for thought about your own pregnancy experiences. Please share them with me!! OBSESSED with birth stories.
If you’ve been affected by anything I’ve written, then you know where I am.
Letty x