LetterstoLaila

 Saturday Saturday   February 2024 Nothing significant happened on this day. The first Saturday we were just in waiting mode. We were waiting to speak to the specialists in Bristol. We decided to try to have a “normal” weekend, whatever that meant. Your sister spent some time with Nana, and mummy and daddy tried to distract themselves with other things. We seemed to be in a suspended reality: nothing felt normal, but we weren’t ready to settle into something really being wrong. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach all weekend, yet every time you kicked me, I wondered if it was all just a strange dream. Nothing felt real.    The following Saturday, it very much felt real. We were still in a weird state of being: playing a different kind of waiting game. The day before, I had taken a pill to end my pregnancy. Today I was carrying you, knowing I would feel your kicks for the last time tonight.    Again, we tried to have a “normal” day. We tried to keep th...

Friday  February 2024  Friday will always be the day I stopped growing you. It was the day I signed a consent form to stop my pregnancy and the day that the end of growing you officially began.    A week before that, it was the longest morning of my life. I was irritated and anxious, with my phone in my hand all morning, waiting for the call from Bristol. I couldn’t concentrate on your sister. I felt like a terrible mother: in worrying so much about you, I wasn’t paying any attention her. I waited all morning, feeling sick. I called the hospital, I emailed the consultant and I heard nothing until 2pm. Fortunately your daddy was home from work by then and that was the first time I had cried. The relief that we had an appointment mixed with the sadness that we had an appointment made it all so so real. And we had to wait 5 more days. 5 agonising days, not knowing what would happen to you, or to us. 5 days of thinking through scenarios and not knowing the answers. 5...

 Thursday February 2024 Thursday will always be the day that it all came crashing down around us. The appointment was at 12:30 and I had a lot to do that morning but nothing went to plan. I was anxious. Your sister was poorly. Preschool rang me and I spent time trying to make sure she was ok and organise a GP appointment for after our scan. I didn’t know how bad our own appointment would be and how much it would affect the rest of the day and the rest of our lives.    We sat in the waiting room, with the fish tank. I was replying to work emails on my phone, your daddy was replying to work emails on his laptop. We both kept ourselves busy. I was excited about seeing you again, getting another photo and having a specialist tell us that everything would be ok. I didn’t expect her to tell us that everything wasn’t ok and would doubtfully ever be. She spent a bit of time looking at your other organs before she looked at your heart and she gave nothing away. I laid there looki...

  Wednes day   February 2024  This will always be the day that should have been so wonderful. I was so excited that morning. I didn’t realise how wrong it could all go. I didn’t think about the possibility that there might ever be something wrong. It had all been so seamless with your big sister: we wrongly assumed it would all go the same way for you.    The sonographer was very jolly and made jokes about you being in cahoots with the other babies in the waiting room because all the babies she’d seen had been in difficult positions that morning. She looked at your heart, and decided to come back to it because your arm was in the way, apparently. She checked everything and listed all your perfectly measuring, perfectly formed body parts and organs. She came back to your heart and still couldn’t get a good view, so she asked me to go for a wee (to my relief) and see if you might turn around. I didn’t know that the next time I used that loo I would be in tear...