The story so far...

It has taken me a long time to right this post, mainly because I was not sure how much or how little information to put in.  In the end I decided to keep it brief.  I will expand on the details in future posts if it seems important.

My husband and I have been married for 11 years now.  Our first two pregnancies went without a hitch.  I had to have an emergency caesarean with the first and an elective with the second.  We were very happy with our two beautiful daughters but wanting a large family we tried for number three.  This is where our lives took a detour.

On the 30^th December 2006 two days after we had announced our third pregnancy, I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks gestation.  It was during my miscarriage that I discovered that I had been carrying twins. Two months later while still grieving our loss I accidentally fell pregnant again.  Our fourth pregnancy was successful, resulting in our longed for son.

Two years later we decided to try for a fourth living child.  Conception took a little longer than previous times but eventually two pink lines appeared on a stick.  Unusually I was not as excited as I thought I would be upon seeing a positive result.  Instead I was filled with something I can only describe as dread.  The reason for this was explained a week later when I miscarried again, at 6 weeks this time.

We continued to try again after a short while, but nothing.  Two more years later there was still no pregnancy.  We had begun to except that it was not to be.  We had 3 beautiful happy children and we were thankful for that.  Then amongst most of our friends announcements I realised that I was suffering from the same symptoms they were complaining about.  I was finally after all that time pregnant again.

Things continued on smoothly until my waters broke at 17 weeks and I went into spontaneous premature labour 4 days later and delivered our second son at home.  He was born alive but died within minutes in my hands due to severe prematurity.  Because he was born alive it has been medically classified as premature labour and neonatal death rather than a late miscarriage like they are normally called under 20 weeks gestation.

So that is where we are today.  Six pregnancies, three living children and four little angels.

I know it's not really all that brief but it is hard to sum up 11 years.