Day 26: Eat a potato or a food that hugs your soul

Tarryn and I met in September 2017, at a pregnancy after loss support meeting from Sands. I was pregnant with Eloise and she was trying to think what a pregnancy after losing her son Robin could even look like. From that first meeting, I was in awe of Tarryn, she spoke so confidently and candidly about her son and their journey. She had opinions and she wanted to talk to people that had been there. We bonded immediately. Also, we are both from “third world countries”, she's from South Africa and I’m from Venezuela. I have always said that if I would’ve been back home when I was pregnant with Olivia, she would’ve been here. Not only because I would’ve been able to afford private healthcare, but also because doctors are mega cautious there, you have constant scans to measure the baby (rather than the belly!!!!), you have a real relationship with your doctor where they know your name and family and you have their phone number (not one where you are a hospital number and you get to a place that is so stretched that you fall through the cracks and babies die). During my pregnancy I had epic midwives and I told them all the time how weird that the baby was only scanned and measured twice (yes, insane!) but my belly got measured on every visit. I also think that if that team would’ve seen me in the hospital, things miiiiiight have been different. Tarryn felt the same about Robin and how things could’ve been if she had been back home.

“Could have, Should have, would have” (but really, coulda shoulda woulda) was part of the first text Tarryn even sent me. 

The last text she sent me was two weeks ago, with Robin’s story, as told by his epic mom:

“I remember so vividly the morning that I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I was walking down Putney Hill and thought why am I so nauseous… and my period is late. Hold up. Could it be??!! Fast forward an hour or two and I met my husband near work at the little garden outside One New Change in the city to phone our families straight away to say “you’re going to be a granny/ great uncle etc!” We were so excited. I remember those early weeks being starving in the mornings, despite the nausea and retching, desperate for garlic potatoes?!! Yes, anything savoury and rich for breakfast would do! I hit the M&S every morning before work to buy a sausage bap or two haha and I felt so excited. Everything seemed fine in our first trimester really, but on New Years Eve, at 14 weeks pregnant, things started to change. Unfortunately by the time we got to 19 weeks pregnant, after weeks of back and forth from the hospital with ongoing bleeding, I suffered my second antepartum haemorrhage. A few days later due to further complications, including my water breaking, we were told I had to give birth if I wanted to save my life, but our baby would be too small to survive. Saying goodbye to the baby happily kicking in my belly on that afternoon was one of the darkest days of my life. Our sweet baby, Robin, was born on 5 February 2017. I remember the midwife saying “He was perfect”. —— Robin made me a mother. His birth and death broke me apart but it also allowed me to be rebuilt and now I take deeper breaths and see more colour in every leaf and every flower and I am so so grateful for what I do have in this time I have on earth. Robin's heartbeat changed who I was for always, and I will miss and love that heartbeat for always. — One of the ways that I eventually started to heal my heart after losing Robin, was by joining SANDS group meetings with other parents who've lost their babies. And it is this group of women, and all our angel babies, who saved me and made me feel normal in an abnormal time. Those friendships still carry on now five years down the line as our lives have moved on, the heartache of grief has grown more gentle with time but we are connected at the heart. And will always be in each other's lives and celebrate each other's children, all our children.”

I messaged Tarryn today to make sure she was happy with what I wanted to post and she added something that I think is very important to share today “The only thing to add would be that since that initial time we met I’ve realised that nothing could have saved Robin. But the choices we made at the time saved my life”. I don’t want to make this political, but this is more than that, this is about saving lives and taking away a MASSIVE decision from the women that are pregnant. Tarryn and I talked a bit more:

M: Tell me what you think. I want to be as diplomatic as I can with the world with HOW FUCKED UP the US is right now

T: Exactly!!! If I hadn’t been induced I could very likely have died… I feel so angry and confused at the world… But this thing in the US has stirred a lot for me… Because I don’t know what could have happened if they had left me to haemorrhage and get sepsis…. And it makes me livid that they might do that with modern medicine to someone in the US… I keep telling people that if I’d lived in a rural village in Africa I might have died, turns out the same might have applied in the US now…

I’ve shared a lot of stories so far this month, and they all have one thing in common: Not a day goes by when we didn’t wish our children were here. All of us miss our babies and mourn the lives that should have been. However, a few of us had to make choices. Impossible choices that no human should be asked to make, some of them for their children and thinking of the life (or lack thereof) that they would’ve had and others because they needed to save their own life. Yes, it is an impossible choice that follows you even when your life is at risk, but taking away that option is unthinkable and even more cruel. That is a choice that only the people that are pregnant can make. I’m hugging every person who’s having to make this kind of choice and those whose choices are being made for them.