6 months ago: “Mummy, why are you crying?”
I looked up at my two-and-a-half-year-old looking at me with eyes filled with concern and something else – love.
What was I doing? Was I crying again? I didn’t realise I was, until little Ian asked me, and I suddenly felt a trickle of warm tears down my cheeks. In my hand, I was holding a pregnancy test kit stick.
It had been more than two months since that fateful day when little Jamie left us. He had failed to be perfect enough to grow within my womb to leave the world, and at nine weeks – he went back to God.
We had always wanted children. But after four years of marriage, there was still no sign of children, so we decided to go for further tests. I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), which means I do not ovulate regularly, if at all. That explained the erratic menstrual cycle I had been enduring throughout my adult life. A few rounds of Clomid, a type of fertility drug, (and a lot of sitting on the toilet bowl crying over negative pregnancy test results) later, Ian, my miracle child, was conceived.
We almost lost Ian when I was 23 weeks pregnant. After a week-long trip to Singapore, my “babymoon” and a session of strenuous step aerobics workout the following day, I started to bleed. Another diagnosis shocked us – incompetent cervix. An emergency procedure to stitch my cervix and bedrest for the rest of the duration of the pregnancy resulted in the birth of my beautiful baby boy two and a half years ago.
I was advised by my doctor that every subsequent pregnancy would require such a procedure and a certain amount of bedrest and restriction of activities as well.
When we decided to expand our family, I resigned from work to set up my own firm and practise law from home. At the same time, Ian had just turned one and I wanted to spend as much time as possible with him before No. 2 came along.
Being a full-time mother and a part-time lawyer has its own challenges, mostly financially. And with PCOS still hovering over us, getting pregnant the second time around wouldn’t be easy. It was a full 12 cycles of Clomid later when there were still no signs of Ian’s sibling. I became the desperate, irrational mum-wannabe, getting unreasonably envious of other pregnant mothers, sinking into depression and as a result, my marriage suffered. I started to neglect my beautiful child and instead obsessively calculated the days I was supposed to ovulate and incessantly started taking my temperature.
My poor husband tried to ask me to relax, only to get a sharp rebuttal that he didn’t care to have another child.
And then it happened. The faint line that appeared on the pee stick was the most beautiful pink line I had ever seen. I geared up for another round of surgery and bedrest. I was so overly excited that I did not notice the subtle signs – when I went for my six-week scan, my doctor did not state a due date; when I went for my eight-week scan, he did not mention, much less schedule, a cervical stitch procedure. At nine weeks – he confirmed that I had already lost my baby – he never developed, and there was no heartbeat detected.
I was devastated. I cried for weeks, selfish suicidal thoughts constantly entering my mind. It was three weeks later when I decided to name my little angel, say a prayer for him (I was sure it was a boy) and even wrote a little article for him to be published in The Star that I was finally able to come to terms with the loss.
Rest in peace, my little Angel Jamie. It was also from that point onwards that I discarded all my charts, thermometer, fertility drugs, and mechanical baby-making sessions. God will give when He decides to, and if little Ian was to be our only child, so be it. I should be thankful enough for this beautiful child.
Today, January 2012: The strong feisty kick within my womb was a reminder that this article was supposed to be about him. My yet-to-be-named baby boy is doing very well and he is due to meet daddy and big brother Ian in April 2012.
I have been on bedrest for months now following the necessary cervical stitch procedure at Week 14 of my pregnancy and we know God wants us to keep this one this time around.
Ian had never understood why I was crying holding the pregnancy test stick six months ago. They were tears of happiness of the new baby that God had granted upon us, mixed with a sudden reminder of the loss of little Jamie just seven weeks before I suspected something amiss and decided to use the leftover pregnancy test kit from my previous obsessive baby-making session.
Infertility, cervical incompetence and miscarriage became part of my life, but towards the end of the journey, I will be a proud mother of two little boys (and God willing, one or two more healthy siblings for Ian and his soon-to-come baby brother).
KL Quah