Autumn 2014

I lay in bed thinking about the same time a year ago. It felt like I’d lived a lifetime since that rainy Friday when I’d been given the news that turned my whole world upside down. I was due to go on a hen party that had been in the planning stages when I had been diagnosed the previous year. I’d said yes at the time, hoping I’d still be around but I’m not sure I actually believed it. Life was moving forward and most days so was I, but as any physical signs of illness started to fade so did people’s questions about how I was doing. To be honest I’m not sure what I wanted from them. I was all talked out, I’d had the same conversations hundreds of times over. I didn’t want to talk about cancer any more but I didn’t want to not talk about it either. When they stopped asking it felt like they’d forgotten, but it was still on my mind, still the first and last thing I thought about each day.

As we moved into November I was convinced something wasn’t quite right down there. I’d become obsessed with checking whether things were ‘normal’ every time I went to the loo. A task that had become very tricky since I’d completely forgotten what normal actually felt like. I decided it was time for some professional reassurance so I went to the GP who organized a bladder scan.

As I lay down on the bed the memories of being in that same place just over a year ago came flooding back. This was all far too familiar. The ultrasound technician moved the transducer over my abdomen. I hated not understanding what was on the screen right in front of me but at least this time there would be some immediate feedback. My bladder looked fine but there was something on the screen that shouldn’t be there.  A bright spot where my ovary had been before it was removed. The technician mumbled something before leaving the room to go and get the GP. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Once again there was an uncertainty and once again I was referred back to the hospital. 

A CT scan was arranged within days but it was another week before the oncology team would meet to discuss what they’d seen. I was called to the hospital to talk through the results. This time work commitments meant your dad couldn’t go with me so I ended up sitting across the desk from Mr Butler Manuel alone and petrified about what the scan pictures had shown. I held my breath and although his tone was reassuring he explained the pictures were inconclusive. The bright spot didn’t look like a reoccurrence but they weren’t sure what it was. At this point, the best thing would be to to open me back up and take a proper look inside.  

The operation was booked for the beginning of January. It would be another month of waiting and in the meantime we had hosting our first Christmas in No 11 to get through. Before long the school term finished for 2014 and Sophie, Grandma and Grandpa travelled South and crammed into our two up, two (and a half) down for the holiday. I tried to convince myself that if the team at the hospital were worried they wouldn’t be waiting so long to investigate further. I took on a sort of fuck it attitude, not in a reckless way, just in a slightly less cautions than normal way. After avoiding long haul for most of my life we booked a holiday to the other side of the world for Summer 2015. And then, despite it being against all the etiquette rules on the surrogacy groups I sent a private message to a surrogate. First.

A few days before Christmas a lady called Jen had posted a reintroduction on Hope. She’d just given birth but wanted to dive straight back in and was open to IPs getting into touch. I searched through the group for her previous posts. She’d been around for a while (so probably not going to just disappear into thin air) and seemed genuinely nice. 

She messaged back within a couple of hours and then we chatted for the rest of the day. It was so much easier than it had been with Sarah. We effortlessly moved between Christmas plans, family and what we were both looking for from our surrogacy journeys. A week later we’d discussed, distances, dates, clinics, embryo transfers. I bounced into Christmas, focused on moving forward, pushing negative thoughts further and further to the back of my mind. Maybe Jen could be the one. In my head, this was it, 2015 was going to be different, a turning point, things were going to get better, we could start again.

But this new found optimism was short lived. A day before I went into surgery I got a message from Jen. She had a confession. She’d put a request on Facebook for a car seat to go with her buggy and an old school friend had offered her theirs. Coincidentally, and I mean, what are the odds? this friend and his wife were also looking for a surrogate. She had got chatting to them over the last week and had decided, apparently very quickly, they were the people she wanted to help. 

I felt rejected and really confused, talk about curve ball. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this. She’d never said we were the only ones she was talking to but she’d made me feel like this was getting serious or maybe I’d just imagined that. It caught me so off guard but as I got ready for another round of surgery I started to go to much darker places in my mind. Maybe it was for the best. What happened if they opened me up and found the cancer had reoccurred. Even if it wasn’t this time, was it too soon to be thinking about starting a family, what happens if we did and then it came back and I left them without a mum. I thought I’d been ready for this. I desperately wanted to be a mother, I wanted to give those embryos, patiently waiting, a chance of life but all this was so, hard. I didn’t know how to navigate this all at the same time, the highs and lows were coming too fast, too frequently. I just wanted this ride to stop because I wasn’t sure if my heart could take anymore.

Love always, especially the bad days.

Mum xx