I have often sat on the plane leaving London to come back to Hong Kong in a slightly melancholy mood but excited by the prospect of going home. We adore our life here in Asia and we are extremely fortunate in all that we have, but the one thing that the ex-pat life cannot provide is family. Our trip to Nottingham had been another example of how much I miss mine and wish I could be closer to them. My sister had extremely kindly given birth to her first son a week early so that I could see him, which I like to think was Mother Natures attempt at making amends. My sister might say that it was Mother Nature swapping her dislike from one sister to another as she had the most heinous birth, but nonetheless we were incredibly fortunate to meet the little man who bias as I am, really is adorable. It was poignant as my sister and I had shared a due date, as I had so often wished for (to the point where I was trying to get her to plan her conception at the same time as us. She steadfastly refused for many months which is nothing short of selfish, but then as luck would have it, we had exactly the same date. Now how about that for spooky?!) but as we know, for us it wasn't meant to be. I think it becomes easier as time goes on to see the babies - the 'could have beens' and it also makes it easier if the baby is born to a close friend or relative. I no longer look at them and think, ' I wonder what ours would have looked like,' or 'that could have been us,' as I did so much in the beginning, but I would be lying if there isn't a touch of sadness and a little reflection. Having said that, when the new babies start screaming and I see the familiar tired lines etched on the faces of the mothers, I do wonder if we should be doing IVF at all or just being happy with the fact that we at least get sleep these days?!
On this trip which had frankly been an emotional roller coaster, I was so very sad to say goodbye to my family, knowing I would miss out on seeing the baby achieve so many milestones, and sad that our son who for some reason loves babies would miss out on being close friends with another cousin. My sister in law has a son 6 months younger than ours and I often wish the boys could play together. If we can't have another child for whatever reason, a cousin would be the next best thing.
Still, you can't spend your life wishing and we do have a great life out here in Honkers as the local expats affectionately call it, and I must remember in times of self pity that I do have a live in helper and haven't picked up the iron for 5 years, so life isn't really that bad. But on the flight back I did feel very sad and low. I must interject here that it wasn't helped by the airline upgrading my husband and leaving my son and I to turn right, which just about had me running for the emergency exit. Seriously, what kind of person decides that its ok to split a family up and move the husband to the top of the hierarchy and into business class? I was so cross I promptly cried, then unleashed my full anger on my jammy husband who had left the sanctity of his little booth to come and braved walking into economy to see if there was anything he could do. Yes darling, swap seats would be a start. Husband retreated quick smart to his flat bed and I endured the worst flight I have ever had, totalling a mere ninety minutes sleep as my son, who got a good 5 hours, kept falling off the seat, which was made for a midget and not a regular sized toddler, let alone a posterially challenged middle aged hormonal woman. Still, as I couldn't sleep I did at least have 13 hours to mull over the events of the past week and indeed 2 years, and as the drinks trolley had stopped serving many hours ago, I could do this through very sober eyes.
Stupid as it sounds, one of the hardest things I am coming to terms with is facing the fact that we are having problems. I am well aware that 6 miscarriages would suggest things aren't going too well, but before we had taken the IVF plunge, it did seem as though there was a possibility it could work out by itself and we could gloss over any technical hitches. Slight head in the sand syndrome. Ok, massive head in the sand syndrome. I suppose it must be like an addict admitting they have a problem, once you say it out loud its real, as soon as you start having treatment its really real. I am not one to think too much about stuff as my thoughts have a tendency to confuse me, and I also have the attention span of a dead newt, but when strapped in a tiny airline seat with a 16kg child asleep on your legs (well I should say leg singular, I had lost the feeling of one of them somewhere over Amsterdam and was not sure it would ever regain consciousness) with sleep was as far away as the final destination - some 6 thousand miles - there was nothing to do but think.
I haven't really discussed the miscarriages in much detail - in the blog or indeed as they happened. I definitely talk about them on a fairly one dimensional level, and with the risk of sounding very hard and cruel, I didn't really do much crying when they happened, so to the outside world I think I came across as quite a cold fish. I am not sure if I am or not, I was most certainly sad when they happened, but sitting on the plane staring into space I realised that I have learnt quite a lot about myself throughout this process. I think in essence I don't like to go too deep and the reason for that is I am quite an emotional character and I don't have brilliant self will. I think if I allowed myself to really digest in it's entirety what has happened, I might not be able to pull myself out of a fairly dark place. I also feel that there are so many other dreadful things happening to people in the world, some of whom I am friends with, that in the grand scheme of things our problems are not quite as bad as they could be. Life can be very mean to the people who least deserve it. So I am not saying I am shallow - I hope I am not - but I am not sure that thinking things over too much is necessarily a good thing. For me anyway.
I don't know if I have become more religious - well actually thats a lie, given that I wasn't even a tiny bit religious before we got married, and then decided that there was perhaps more to the whole Big Book than I had previously thought, I am considerably more religious but a long way off the level that would grant me a pass into the inner sanctum of worshipers. However, I definitely do think a lot about why things happen. I did for a long long time blame myself for the miscarriages. I blamed the fact I used to smoke, the fact I am not adverse to a glass or wine or two (my maiden name was Boulter and my nickname was Two Bottles Boulter. Ahem). I thought each miscarriage was punishment for something I had done in the past. I once drove passed a cat that had been hit on the road, but I didn't stop to help it. If I had, would the cat be alive now and was I being punished for letting it die? In fairness I don't know if it did die, but you can see where I am going with this. I would see a correlation with the smallest indiscretion and our misfortune. I then started to think I was very ill, that I had polycystic ovaries, that I had ovarian cancer - not helped by the millions of e-mails circulating at that time raising awareness for ovarian cancer, bowel cancer, fingernail cancer, you name it. I would google the symptoms and be convinced I had each one and that is why I was not getting passed 8 weeks of pregnancy - not even worrying for a second that I might actually be ill, just more that the illness was rudely getting in the way of my pro-creation.
I have definitely mentally covered more or less every sub topic to be found on the subject of miscarriage, loss, fertility issues and probably in a far more dramatic way than is really necessary. I suppose emotions are really the only thing in life you can't control - you can make sure that they are tempered for the outside world to see, but there is very little one can do to actually try and influence them when alone with them. Well, thats how it works for me, and during the 13 hour plane trip to Hong Kong I had some 'quality time' with my emotions, which was interesting at best! I'm not sure I would recommend it - certainly not if during this time one of the most pressing thoughts is 'I wonder what my errant husband is up to now in business class' but it definitely gave me perspective. I resolved that as soon as I forgave my husband for abandoning me in economy, we would attack with vigour and excitement the road ahead, and perhaps it was time to let the events of the past be exactly that, the past.
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