Pause

Things have ground to a halt here.  I am resting up and recuperating.
I have a wicked head cold that A. had mutated and passed onto me - thanks darling!
It has also started to get cooler and wetter and so being wrapped up in a quilt on the sofa has been preferable to venturing out.  Plans have been changed/cancelled and the slobbing has continued in ernest.

We also had a scare.  There was blood in the toilet bowl, last thing Monday night - not a lot, but too much to ignore; I have a negative blood group and so would need the Anti D (only after 12 weeks it turns out, I was 6 weeks and a day).  So we made the command decision to wait it out until the morning and head to the hospital first thing.  That was after A. (being an emergency doctor) was scouring through the hospital website finding out courses of action to our situation (very handy having that website and him who could understand it all).  We didn't sleep a wink that night, we talked of Elizabeth a lot and we talked of our hopes and dreams for this new soul and just tired to comfort each other.

It was horrid going back to that hospital, going through the emergency entrance, waiting in those same uncomfortable chairs with all those other expectant parents - the last time I was right there, Elizabeth was alive and healthy inside...

We called ahead and they already had my notes, they took a short history and were sad for us - I just wanted to scream at them 'you can't do anything for Elizabeth now, but get your arses into gear now, there is still time to act with this one!'.  I know there is nothing you can do to prevent a miscarriage if its going to happen; it was just the look of pity she gave us and her inactivity - 'Do Something!'

More waiting.  Beta hCG was good so we went off for an ultrasound. There was no flashbacks to Taggpole's ultrasound, there was no real conscious thought or worries about molar or ectopic pregnancies - just a holding of breath, waiting.  Of course you can't see a thing from the position we're in and had to judge by the looks on the sonographer and A's faces.

After some clicking of buttons and moving the probe about, Viv said 'today, everything looks good'.  She turned the monitor around and began showing us what was what; the gestational sac, the yolk sac, the fetal pole and to our amazement the flickering of a heartbeat.  Our new soul was just 3mm and it's heart was beating 95 beats per minute; all bang on for just over 6 weeks.   She checked my tubes and ovaries (I ovulated from the right side this time and saw the corpus luteum), but there was no evidence to say where the blood had originated from; there was a lot of it pooled around the gestational sac.  While she said everything looked good today, she couldn't say how all that extra blood would act on the pregnancy - it might get reabsorbed, or not...
All being well, we are to go back for a follow up scan in two weeks.

I wanted to get this all down here, as I can't really talk about this in real life.  We're not telling anyone, especially our families before we have to and that won't be until my father comes out to visit next month - might be able to keep it secret still?  I'm sure many don't want to know about all the ins and outs of this pregnancy, but this is for me; this is My Space.

I must admit that now I am seeing things in daylight again - the greys and shades of twilight have been banished.  When I saw all that blood, I just thought 'game over' and was back to a place of dark desperation.  We huddled together and talked openly about Elizabeth, something that doesn't happen all that often really and it was good.  Since having seen all that we have now and having reached and opened up in the darkness again, I can only conclude there is only an upward motion to go in now.
 
I feel closer to this new soul, its not just something happening to me and I feel some what connected.  This is not Elizabeth; this is her little brother or sister and I'm so in love with him/her already.  I think this is as good as its going to get, I've not got either on my mind all the time - dare I say it, but I feel this is a 'normal' for me now.  Elizabeth will always be in my heart, she will always be in my past, my present and future - but she is not here physically.  Neither is this new soul yet and life strides onward.

So here I will sit, cozy in blankets with a big box of tissues and a hot black current juice, keeping my fingers crossed and hoping.