No no…. I am not thinking about having another baby. Emily will be 15 in 2 weeks….. I am done!
Seeing my friends get pregnant and seeing their babies reminds me of my pregnancy.
We wanted a baby and tried for a couple of months before we got a positive result. We were sooo excited and Jon told everybody he knew way before the safe time… You know the so many weeks you should be waiting for before you tell… 🙂
Quite early in this process I ended-up at the hospital with major cramps, because of the pregnancy, we had ultra-sounds done and the hospital staff was ready to terminate it all as they couldn’t see the fetus in my uterus. They assumed it was in one of my fallopian tube. They couldn’t see it anywhere but the bloodwork said I was pregnant. That day I learned that we were probably a good 3 weeks less advanced than we though.
I told the doctors that until they could prove that my life was in danger, they were not going to terminate my pregnancy. We scheduled a follow-up ultra-sound…
2nd ultra-sound! – they can see the fetus in the uterus but their is no “c.f.” ….. don’t you like it when doctors are talking about you but don’t want you to understand??? So, I asked, what’s a “c.f.”? The conversation was in French at the time and a c.f. stands for coeur foetal… my fetus’ heart…
From the previous ultra-sound, we knew I was at least 3 weeks behind the original delivery date but it wasn’t changed anywhere… so again I asked, is it possible that it is not formed yet? The answer was yes but we shouldn’t take a chance, we should terminate your pregnancy…. Wait what??? No!!!…. We should not terminate anything…. we should schedule another ultra-sound and see if the c.f. is there …
3rd ultra-sound! – here it is…. my fetus is in my uterus and has a tiny beating heart!
What a relief! We were so happy!
Emily arrived a couple of weeks early when comparing to my original delivery date but when factoring in all the ultra-sound, she was born at least 5 weeks early and she was really tiny (5lbs 6oz). Should my delivery date had been changed, we would have been transferred to another hospital, Emily would have been considered premie… Maybe she would have been diagnosed there…. But that didn’t happened…. we were sent home with our perfect little baby!!!!
The rest is history.
Fast forward a couple of months after Emily was diagnosed…
Someone at work had the …. audacity??? to ask me if I regretted not letting the doctors terminate my pregnancy at the beginning when I had all those ultra-sounds going on…
I can’t remember exactly what I said but it must have been something like …. WTF??? You did not just ask me that….? Emily is the love of my life regardless of what is going on now!
Even in my sleepless full of stress state of mind, I never one second thought I should have terminated my pregnancy. I am not opposed to terminating a pregnancy under certain circumstances… I think it is a decision to be taken between you, your spouse and your consciences…..
At that time, Emily had already taught me the importance of love, care, patience, repetition, …. and more! She had taught me to slow down and not turn into a workaholic…. she had taught me that a cuddle is worth more than anything….
How can someone felt it was ok to ask something like that?
How would you have answered that question?
Lessons from my daughter 
Wow….the nerve of some people!
Oh, that looks wrong. They were not advising an abortion at that point, but advising us to “consider” it down the line if tests came back unfavorable. Regardless, we knew that we would not do it.
We know better. I am my daughter’s best advocate and I was already doing it before she was born…. without even knowing that’s what I was doing.
My son was born 6 weeks premature at 3lbs. 3oz. OMG, what an emotional time that was. To plow through the long story of my pregnancy, I’ll say that my baby’s body was not growing to their expectations and I was told that we had to think about getting an abortion. Well, we knew that we were not going to abort, but what saved my baby from being neglected by the doctors was that the size of his head corresponded to the dates I gave them for the age. Well, he is eight years old now and healthy and amazing!
I remember those appiontments and how stressful they were and even if it was to happen again knowing what I know now I still would never decide to terminate my Emily even before she was Emily
Pascale,
thank you for sharing your stories, and experiences.
I think a lot of people ask ignorant questions because they haven’t been faced with life changing decisions like this themselves. I would probably not react graciously if someone asked me that kind of question, I would probably come back with something very inappropriate. Emily is a very sweet girl, and she’s lucky to have a mother that fought for her.
Your blog is very humbling, and touching. Keep it up.
Jess
Thank you Jess! I’ve spent almost 15 years protecting our privacy but Emily is ready to tell her story and by association, I am ready too…. I’m glad you are enjoying my blog! Please feel free to share it away! 🙂
Pascale