The Birth, and Other Thoughts

As it turns out the birth of the boys was relatively uneventful. There were a couple of moments in theatre when things got a little bit hairy. One of the twins was very blue and refused to breathe for what felt like an eternity but was almost certainly less that a minute and the surgeon had a little trouble controlling my wife's bleeding after the placentae were born. Fortunately neither problem was anything major and the staff all did their thing and got everything under control. I had expected that the whole experience would be very clinical and unfriendly but, in fact, while the staff were all professional in the extreme they also understood how incredibly special a moment it was for us and did everything that they could to ensure that we had fond memories of it.

And that leads me to another point, which is to say that almost nothing bad can be said about the care my wife, my sons and I received whilst in the hospital. Perhaps it is because we are used to getting what we want from medical professionals or, more likely, they are all simply wonderful people who care enormously about what they do for a living. Whatever the reason I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them all for giving us both such great memories. They will, I'm sure, last a lifetime.

Other than that I'm feeling a little sleep deprived, although last night they slept solidly between their 4 hour feeds, giving us a chance for a good rest and setting us up for the day. It is funny how the most mundane of tasks take on huge significance and you suddenly don't mind having to do the washing or the shopping or anything else for that matter. It is like these things, and life in general, has a purpose. It is a truly wonderful feeling and something that I hope all of you will one day get the chance to feel, whatever route takes you there. I know that you have never doubted it but, in case one day you do, let me tell you now that it is worth every tear and failure and loss and heartache along the way.

And now I face a new dilemma that all of us in the IF world face when we finally have our children. Leaving our friends in the IF world behind with their pain because we're afraid that our joy makes their suffering more painful. I do not want to leave you. I want to support you and remind you that it can happen and I hope that it happens for all of you soon. My thoughts are once again with Max and Vee and Bea for their recent losses. And, once again there is nothing to say other than that I am thinking of you. For a while you and hope will part company but know that hope is still here as we, your friends, guard it for you, waiting for the time when you are ready to welcome it back into your hearts.

Boys Boys Boys

My boys and their mum are home today and one of my sons is cradled in my right hand as I type with my left. His huge eyes staring up at me no doubt wondering what on earth is going on. Tonight will be my first night with them and no doubt it will not be easy but I will savour every moment. Their tiny features are wonderful to behold. There is no sadness. These are my sons, the ones I was always destined to have, and I love them more than life itself.

Very Very Quick Update

Mother and both babies are fine, born at 11:01am, weighing 6lb2 (2.82kg) and 4lb14 (2.22kg) respectively.

I am exhausted and ecstatic.

Thank you all for your wishes and thoughts.

Will post more when I have come around :-)

Richard

T Minus 12 Hours

Twelve hours from now I will be in the hospital with my wife preparing myself for the arrival of my sons. I am excited. I know I am. If I dig deep enough I can feel the hint of excitement buried deep amongst all of the other feelings swilling around in there.

I expected to be worried about all of the donor stuff and yet strangely I am not. Perhaps I have made my peace with it. Time will tell. But today my feelings are layered. As Shrek would say, I'm like an onion. On the outside I am serenely calm and have been so since I met my friend for lunch today. It is unusual for me to be calm. Calm is not a state that I do very often. Doing my job well relies on me being firm and in control. Decisive and proactive. If I just sit back at work and watch the world go by, everything around me rapidly just grinds to a halt. But today that is what I did. The last few days have been spent handing things over to others to look after during my paternity leave. And so for most of today I could just sit back and watch.

But underneath the calm layer lies the fear and anxiety. The two overwhelming feelings that make up my core being. Over time I have generally learnt to tame them and direct them to positive things. Taking control helps ease them and gives me an edge over a lot of the people around me. They drive me to get things done and find solutions to problems. Without them my boys would never have existed. But today and for most of tomorrow I have no control and nowhere to direct them and so they quietly swill around making me think of all of the unthinkable things that would be best avoided. I am frightened of losing one or all of the things most important to me in this world. I know that this almost certainly won't happen but still the thoughts are there.

I will not write much more tonight, for there is not much more to say. Tomorrow is the day that I have waited my whole life for. When I thought about the day I would become a father, myself a child at the time, I never imagined the hoops through which I would have to jump and the sacrifices that I would have to make to get here. But jump and sacrifice I have and I would do them all again twice over if I had to. And perhaps the thing I expected the least is the people I have met on the way. You are all a part of my life that I would not want to trade away for anything. Had we been able to have children the normal way our lives would have plodded on in a totally different direction and I'd have never met a whole range of people who are now central to my life.

Life and parenthood is about experience and the experiences that I have had over the last two years have made me who I am. Looking back now I would not trade in my boys or the experiences that I have been through in the last 2 years for anything. I was never a great believer in fate but for once in my life I can't help but feel that this was somehow meant to be. In spite of everything, I have my children, my marriage is stronger and I have found a cause. A purpose. A reason for being. My cause will take a little bit of a back seat for a while as I focus on my family but I know that it will be there for me to take up the torch again when the time is right.

So for now I shall say farewell. I will certainly not sleep tonight and I will do my best to post news here tomorrow night if I get the chance.

Wish us all luck and I really will see you all on the other side.

A Moment of Reflection

In all of the excitement of the preparation for the arrival of the boys there are a few things that I have carefully pushed to the back of my mind. There are things in life of which we are all aware but do not really like to think about. By that of course I mean how awful it is when things go wrong. Of course I am aware of the risks in both childbirth and caesarian, I just don't like to think about them because statistically the chances of such awful things happening are small.

But there are times when these things, lodged at the back of our minds, are forced out for us to face against our wishes. This morning was one of those times and it knocked me for six. We have been attending antenatal classes and today we received the very sad news that one of the couple's babies was stillborn. Just looking at the words I have written is enough to bring that feeling of wanting to be sick back again. When I read the words in an email this morning I froze for a good five minutes and then just began to shake. Eventually I managed to drag myself up to the bathroom and stand over the toilet in case my desire to vomit actually came to fruition.

Sadly this is not my first encounter with stillbirth. My youngest brother died at birth when I was eleven. I remember writing a few weeks ago that I must have some idea of what it is like to lose a child but today I realise that that was just an insult to all of those that have. I feel a loss but it is nothing to what our friends must be feeling right now. I thought that my experiences would give me some guidance about what to say or do and yet I find myself with no idea of what is appropriate and what is not. A part of me feels like it is not our place to invade in their lives with our hopefully healthy babies. The pain that that could cause to them is immeasurable. And yet the pain of being left alone in a time of need and sorrow is also something horrific.

My heart goes out to them and my thoughts are with them. Were I a religious man I would pray for them, but I am not. And so all I can do is to say that I am thinking of them and their son at this most difficult of times and ask for all of you to do the same.

Richard

Some Choices

If I thought things were a bit crazy when I posted yesterday things have become even more odd since then. It started with a phone call from the journalist who wrote our article saying that she had arranged a payment for us from the paper for our story. Neither of us had any idea that a payment would be involved at the time of the interview and was not something we had ever considered. It was certainly not the reason that we put our story out into the world.

Now we have to decide what to do with the money. Do we keep it for the boys, give it away to the NGDT or do we keep it for ourselves as a contribution to what it cost us to have them. Now, I suppose, is not the time to decide.

And then the post arrived this morning with a letter from a press agency asking to sell our story to a magazine for a sum. The Daily Mail journalist had already said that she would be trying to pass our story on to a magazine and that she would suggest we ignore any other offers but I suppose I'd naively thought that people wouldn't really be all that interested in us. After all there are lots and lots of people out there that have had their kids by donor and noone has offered them money for their trouble.

Unsure of what to do, I rang my media savvy friend at the NGDT and pleaded for advice. She suggested that we just say no to pretty much all of it and call it good. We've done our bit for the cause and it's now time to focus on us. As she rightly pointed out, a good story is what these people are after. Nothing more. The fact that this is our family story that is being plastered across the papers doesn't worry them. They will push and push and push to the point where they will be standing with us in the operating theatre taking photos of my wife as our babies are born and then hounding us for pictures of the babies.

ART conceptions are public enough. Once these babies are born it will be time for me to focus inwards rather than outwards. For a time we will take the chance to simply focus on our new family and each other. A little bit of private time.

But what that also means is that there will be no baby pictures posted here and no baby names made public either. My sons have a right to privacy and I have a duty to protect what is, from now on, as much their story as mine. Do not, however, fret. I am more than happy to send names and photos to those of you that would like to receive them. I have email addresses for some of you but I realise that sending out birth announcements is an awkward thing in the IF world. If you would like to have details and a picture then please post a comment here letting me know, together with an email address. I shall remove all email addresses once I've noted them down.

Other than that we're just going to rest this weekend. We've done everything that we can to prepare for the arrival of our children and so now is a last chance to rest before the big day.

I'm very very excited.

A Media Frenzy

Is the best way to describe this morning. Unbeknown to me our article went in this morning's Daily Mail and the response has been almost frightening. For anyone who would like to read the article you can see it here:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=448255&in_page_id=1879

The article itself is pretty good and I'm generally very happy with it. The headline is tackiness incarnate but if I'm prepared to put my name behind a campaign called GiveAToss I can hardly complain.

Slightly scary is the fact that the local BBC radio station came knocking on our door while I was at work asking for a live interview there and then. I am slightly unimpressed but the whole point of stepping out of the shadows was to attract attention to our cause and that has certainly happened.

Aside from the media interest we're into the final stretch now. Our section is booked for the 20th April, so a week today and I must admit to being very nervous at the prospect of finally being a dad. I'm sure noone is ever really ready for it but I'm a bit of a control freak and this is something that I have very little control over.

Anyway, this was just a very quick update. My thoughts are with Max and Vee at the moment, hoping that everything will continue to go well for them. I shall keep everything crossed. My heart goes out to both Bea and Nina and J for their recent disappointments. It really really sucks. There is nothing more to be said.

Take care and if I don't get a chance to post again before next Friday then please think of us and I'll see you on the other side.

Richard