So what happened? Well, the last 6 months has been the most difficult 6 months of my life and it has been full of extreme ups and downs.

In November I moved to Dubai. In December I gave birth to my baby boy prematurely at just under 25 weeks and he died when he was just two weeks old. I may write a post about this in more detail in the future but right now I am not ready to share. I am actually a pretty private person and so writing this blog is a big learning curve for me. It’s therapeutic but also quite an intimidating process as I am sharing much more than I would usually.

I’ve seen/spoken to loads of doctors since this happened to try to understand what went wrong and was surprised at the varying advice I was given in regards to treatment. The diagnoses wasn’t clear but everything pointed to an ‘incompetent cervix’ aka ‘cervical insuficiency’. So my cervix was incompetent/insuficient. Lovely. My cervix is a part of my body that I had never previously paid attention to. I knew about cervical cancer and had regular smear tests but that’s the most I had thought about my cervix. I also didn’t know the massively important role this small piece of my body would play in pregnancy. After a ridiculous amount of research I now feel like I know everything there is to know about my cervix.

January and February passed in a blur and I don’ feel like I was really present during those months. Then in February I found out I was pregnant. We were delighted but also petrified.

My obsessive research continued and after a huge amount of discussion in April I had an operation in the UK to basically sew my cervix shut in the hope it’ll help me get to full term this time. I can’t believe it is now mid May. I am almost 15 weeks pregnant and feel like I have been pregnant forever! I worked out the other day that if (god willing) I go full term with this pregnancy I will have been pregnant for around 15 out of 17 months. That’s a long time.

It’s bloody scary and extremely emotional and I am just trying to tick off the weeks whilst attempting to keep myself sane by keeping my mind as occupied as possible.

So what’s next? Well I’ve stopped looking too far into the future and don’t let myself look much further forward than the next week or so. The biggest adjustment at the moment has been to keep myself busy whilst doing very little (no exercise, walking far, swimming, baths, fun. etc. etc.). I am not on bed rest as such but plan to put myself on bed rest in July and August which will be the time I am most at risk (between 22-30 weeks).

Any ideas for bed rest would be greatly appreciated! So far this is what I’ve planned:

1. Sewing. I’ve bought my first sewing machine to keep myself busy whilst I can sit rather than lie down. If I don’t feel comfortable sitting my mum has given me a hand sewn patchwork quilt which she started many years ago that I plan to finish.

2. French. I am going to try to improve my GCSE French via Rosetta Stone’s online subscription.

3. Website/Blog. I will keep my mind busy by blogging as well as keeping my website up to date with book and film reviews, recipes and reviews of things to do in and around Dubai.

4. Box sets. I need programmes which are lengthy and have plenty of series to watch. So far, I have been recommended Grey’s Anatomy and the West Wing.

That’s about it for now!

x