Hi everyone,

It's been ages since I posted. It's just gone 20 weeks since Matthew
was born and died. It's amazing to me that that is half the time he
was inside me. It's gone so quickly. The 3 month mark was
particularly important for me, as it happened to also fall on a
Monday. Since then we've had Christmas, the 4 months, and more
Mondays. I miss him, and I feel like I "feel" his loss even more now.
Part of the reason for that may be that I am pregnant, and that makes
you emotional anyway, and I am pregnant, so I see now even more
acutely just what I have lost in losing Matthew. It happens to be
exactly one year between pregnancies. One year since I was feeling
queasy and tired and wondering whether Matthew was a boy or girl. One
year since I was innocently looking forward to that 12 week scan
which changed our lives. This baby (known as "D3" in our family – we
nicknamed Anabelle "Dubbie", so Matthew was "D2" before he was
Matthew, so this is "D3") is due on 9/9/09 (Matthew was due 11/9/08).
We found out on 5th January, the first Monday that I missed going to
Matthew's grave because we were holidaying in Coffs Harbour. We are
excited and very thankful for the speed at which this has happened,
but it will never take away from the loss of our boy, as I know you
would all understand. For the first 2-3 months after Matthew's death,
I knew that I was not ready to have another baby, so we were actively
avoiding falling pregnant. At around the 12 week mark, something
really changed in me. I had just been through the lowest of the all
the lows I've had to date, and came out the other side feeling really
different – optimistic about life, feeling like I could go back to
work one day, I could have another baby one day, I could take photos
of my daughter and our family and that was OK. So Chris and I decided
just to stop avoiding pregnancy and see what happened. We didn't
actively plan it (in fact I would NEVER have planned it for this time
of year and I still feel a bit nervous that this baby could be born
on Matthew's birthday), but that made it so much better in my mind.
It was in God's hands, and this was his timing.
According to my calculations I'm 9 weeks tomorrow, but my cycles had
obviously hardly had a chance to become regular since Matthew's
birth, so I'm off for a dating scan on Thursday at 4.30 pm. I've not
had a scan at this stage before (although I did have a 6 week one
with Anabelle due to bleeding), so I'm not too sure what to expect,
but still feel concerned that a. there might be something drastically
wrong, b. that the crown rump length might be way out thus raising my
suspicions about anencephaly, and c. that i'm just going to find it
all too emotional! I cry just at the thought of going. Anyway, I know
that God is in control and that it is normal for this to feel very
emotional. I am praying that I will be calm over the next 48 hours,
that our little D3 would be safe and healthy, and that no matter the
outcome that the scan will be handled well by the sonographer. The
midwife at the antenatal clinic was going to speak to the sonographer
in person prior to the scan to discuss my history and situation, so
hopefully that will help.
I would be interested to hear of anyone's experiences with early
scans in their subsequent pregnancies and even how early anencephaly
could be ruled out (no-one has been clear on this with me yet).
Thanks for your thoughts,
Love Vanessa