Throw-back Friday

Wow, get me- two posts in one night! I couldn't ignore Throw-Back Friday! This photo has Elin in it, but you can't see her. Because its the beginning of 2008 and I am 20 weeks pregnant. I chose this today, because so many of my close friends and family are having babies and I can't help but think back to when I was expecting Elin. It's joyous, and wonderful and exciting and I loved it. It took four years of tests, operations, investigations and painful medical intervention and treatment to reach my 20 week scan. I felt lucky every single day of the 40 weeks I carried Elin. Completely, madly, crazily lucky. As i watch my friends and family members surpass the 20 weeks point, go on and on, and eventually give birth to their beautiful, special babies I know their joy tenfold but I feel pain too, a sadness I can't explain and am actually quite ashamed of. Because I remember waiting for Elin to come, the expectation and the plans and the excitement and the naivety. Convinced she was a boy, hoping for a girl. I remember, like it was yesterday- not six years ago, and I feel a kind of jealousy.  I want it again, and  I know this can never happen. That Elin being conceived was a miracle. But that her survival after her birth was even more so. So there's me, who never took a single day of healthy pregnancy for granted, and thought that my challenge in being a Mum, and the most difficult bit, was over on the 22nd July 2008. Of course, I had no idea it was only just beginning. But the nine months I spent feeling lucky every single day have simply transformed into six years of feeling lucky every single day. Because I am. After all, how could I look at Elin and not feel lucky? Her very existence makes us the luckiest parents alive  :-)

xxxx