Starting a family: Great expectations

The journey of pregnancy is clearly defined through the myopic Hollywood lens. You’ll know you are expecting because you will be violently sick (usually in the toilets at work. *Spoiler*: Your boss is in the next cubicle.) The pregnancy will culminate when your waters break, in a restaurant perhaps or during an argument with your nemesis/soulmate. In between there will be tears, rampaging hormones, a giant bump and unfeasibly small everything else, and much eating of ice-cream.

The reality, of course, is more nuanced (although it may still involve a lot of ice-cream); a rollercoaster, no matter how many books you read or how much research you do. Women today have more information, greater resources and far better outcomes than ever before and yet, by its nature, it remains a time of uncertainty, each pregnancy a different journey.

One of the symptoms which seems almost universal, however, is the first-trimester tiredness, best described by a good friend as “like someone giving you an injection”. Sitting up fine one second, the next your drooling head will have lolled onto your chest, leaving you to blindly feel your way along the walls to the bedroom before collapsing in an exhausted heap. At six o’clock.

The good news is that this tends to give way to unbridled energy in the second trimester, before a new kind of tiredness rears its head towards the end, often brought on by insomnia, racing thoughts about the birth/future, restless legs (for the many who don’t know what this is, consider yourself blessed) and multiple bathroom trips.

Aside from this, the range of pregnancy symptoms is as long as it is varied. Different afflictions will strike different folk at different times while some lucky divils sail through untouched. A highly scientific poll of 40 women from my Facebook baby groups (as an aside, if you can, get yourself involved in one of these; 24/7 support and always someone to empathise) reveals the following exhaustive – pardon the pun – list of symptoms: carpel tunnel, insomnia, nausea, high sex drive, low sex drive, no sex drive, pelvic girdle pain, acid reflux, itching, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, hyperemesis gravidarum (extreme morning sickness as suffered by Kate Middleton – Mother Nature is equal opportunities and no mistaking), stiff joints, gestational diabetes, urinary infections, thrush, bunions, stitches, anaemia, bleeding, huge/painful breasts, leg cramps, obstetric cholestasis, trapped nerves, fluid retention, migraines, sciatica, nosebleeds, gallstones, dehydration, preeclampsia, hip pain, and belly buttons that invert.

All this before the sort of rampaging hormones that make you just as likely to cry at a genuine world catastrophe as a slightly sad-looking internet cat meme.

However, there wasn’t a single person who mentioned any of the symptoms above without adding something like, “but I’d do it all again in the morning”.

The other oft-cited pregnancy symptom on screen is cravings and, here, ice-pops topped the list among my respondents, along with sweets, ice-cream and orange juice, although one Facebook mum admits to eating two bags of parsley a day but “it has to be curly leaf – flat leaf parsley is just yuck”. Obviously.

On the flip side, coffee is an aversion that is mentioned again and again, and the smell alone seems to do it. This was one of the symptoms to strike Florence Gilmore.

Gilmore and her husband Ivor Buckley have one daughter Rosie (15 months) and are expecting a second baby in July. For them, getting to the pregnancy stage took much longer than expected. They were waiting on an appointment at a fertility clinic when the much-longed-for two lines materialised. “It was lovely making the call to cancel, even though I thought they’d give out to me for taking up the space,” Gilmore says, “but they were so nice, it nearly made me cry. They said ‘we love getting these phone calls’.”

Gilmore had been a couple of days late but past disappointments made her wary of getting her hopes up. While she didn’t feel any different, her acupuncturist picked up on it. “He told me the following month when I said I was pregnant that he knew from my pulse. He said ‘did you notice I didn’t work on your stomach? I didn’t want to say anything.’”

One of the earliest decisions in pregnancy is whether or not to tell others. Many are loath to tell before the traditional 12 weeks and Gilmore and Buckley fell into this category, although she did tell her mum – for a very specific reason. “We did wait but I told my mother, because she’s a good woman for the Novenas! We had an early scan – because the 12 weeks is the longest time – and all was good, and then told everyone after 12 weeks. I still would be superstitious of telling before then because you hear such horror stories, even at 10, 11, 12 weeks.”

A common feature of pregnancy in Ireland is that many – allegedly – opt not to find out the sex. Here Gilmore was happy to break the mould. “We found out, and we will again this time. We didn’t put it broadly out there but if people asked we would tell them. I did say to the sonographer, are we awful finding out and she said, no, about 75 per cent of people do, they just don’t let on.”

Buckley agrees: “There was enough of a learning curve with a first born so I wanted to be as prepared as possible.”

In terms of resources, Gilmore found the doctors, midwives and antenatal class great: “They deal in facts. Online groups and resources are super, and your friends too, but they will be telling you their own experiences and if you hear something bad, you might cling on to it.”

And what about Buckley? “Flor prompted me with a lot of the necessary material, websites, books, apps etc. The closer we got to the due date, as it hit how little I knew, I panic-crammed. I’m not sure anything can fully prepare you. And you do somehow kick into action when the time comes. You pick up knowledge everywhere, be it conversations with friends (particularly other dads), baby fairs, antenatal classes . . . Nothing replaces your own experience though.”

So what advice would Gilmore have for someone pregnant for the first time? “When you’re pregnant with your first, everyone tells you what to do and how to do it – take it on board but find your own groove. There’s no prescription that fits all. So take it on, but keep an open mind too.”

Finding your own path also comes recommended by Louise O’Brien, a Mayo teacher living in Dublin. O’Brien and her husband, Mike, have a toddler, Eabha, who will be two in July, and are expecting another baby in August. “Definitely research stuff yourself,” agrees O’Brien. “Since our parents had babies, the way to do so much has changed. I remember a girl at work saying she was reaching for something and her mother said ‘you can’t reach when you’re pregnant, you’ll wrap the cord around the baby’s neck’.

"When you have read up on things, you won't be derailed by people saying 'oh that's wrong' because you will hear a lot of that. It helps to have good support from your partner too so the the antenatal classes can be great."

The O’Briens attended a one-day antenatal course and found it beneficial. “It covered everything from nappies to bathing the baby to breastfeeding.”

One of the starker things to emerge while researching this piece was the number of people who felt being pregnant had a very real impact on their work life and career ambitions. Examples given include bullying, promised promotions going astray, being made redundant despite being the team’s top performer, being bypassed for promised training, having to do unsuitable tasks – “we can’t treat you differently now you’re pregnant” – probationary periods being extended, colleagues treating people differently for “only” working their actual work hours and a knock-on effect from ongoing sickness and missing days. In this regard, O’Brien was lucky, however, and says she has definitely found teaching to be a family-friendly profession.

“I had a lovely boss when I was pregnant with Eabha, she was very mothering and was always looking out for her pregnant ladies [there were seven of us at the one time], if she saw you pick up anything heavier than a handbag she was chasing you. We’ve a new principal now, who was on maternity leave with us last time so she’s been there, done that, and has two young children so she’s great too.”

O’Brien did pregnancy yoga but had some doubts in the beginning. “Because it’s mostly stretching, I wasn’t really feeling huge benefits but, as the pregnancy went on, I got more into it. It was good to have that hour to unwind. I had been running every day for a long time. When I got pregnant I started swimming because I knew I’d be able to keep that up longer, although I still ran up to seven months. This time I’m not getting out much at all, Eabha hasn’t been sleeping so something had to give.”

O’Brien found it a truism that a second pregnancy is marked by a lack of “me time”. “Running around after a toddler is obviously tiring and with her not sleeping too it’s hard to know what’s tiredness from sleep deprivation and what’s from pregnancy. Last time, I’d come home after a tough day and lie down and watch TV. That’s just not an option now. “

Before having Eabha, the O’Briens had a miscarriage 10 weeks into a pregnancy. That time they had been waiting to tell family the news but the experience changed their perspective. “A friend had a similar thing and she decided to tell people early because she said, ‘if you miscarry you’ll tell them anyway so why not share the good news’. So last time we told our family a few weeks after finding out and everyone else around 16 weeks. I wasn’t sure this time but Mike couldn’t keep it a secret so again we told family.”

When it came to finding out the sex though, they opted for a surprise: “We didn’t find out. This time I’d be more inclined to for practical reasons but we won’t. Although no one believes you anyway when you say you didn’t.”

Both Gilmore and O’Brien were lucky not to suffer morning sickness but for some women even the most horrendous sickness is to be cherished.

Julie Corcoran gave birth to daughter Eva Belle last September. That day was the culmination of a long, painful road for her and her husband, Ian Bradshaw. It had begun in 2013 on their honeymoon when they discovered Corcoran was pregnant. “We were so excited. We paid for a scan around eight weeks where we saw the baby and the heartbeat, everything was fine. And then, just before 10 weeks, I started bleeding and we lost the baby.

“I had this whole vision in my mind already . . . even when we were building the house we were saying ‘that’ll be the baby’s room’. And suddenly it was all gone.”

Advised to wait a month before trying again, they did so and were thrilled when Corcoran got pregnant straight away. This time the signs seemed positive. “I had morning sickness, which I hadn’t had the first time, so I viewed that as a good sign. Then at six weeks I had the tiniest bit of spotting. Because of the last time, we said we’d go for a scan. But the baby was there, measuring right, and everything was perfect. So they were happy but said to come back in three-and-a-half weeks, for reassurance. I was still sick every day. We saw the screen and we knew what size the baby should be and it was that size so Ian instantly smiled. But I saw the sonographer’s face. They do a little head shake and, once you see it, you know. She tried for ages to find the heartbeat but there wasn’t one. We ended up going to Dublin for a D&C [to remove the tissue], and that was that.”

Corcoran says something positive did come out of that D&C, however, as tests showed the fetus had been a little girl and that she had Turner Syndrome (missing a chromosome). “That helped because I think any woman who suffers a miscarriage, you always hear it’s not your fault but you keep analysing everything, wondering if you can find a reason. So knowing it wasn’t my fault or Ian’s really helped. We were happier to try again then because we knew it was chromosomes, and Turner’s isn’t hereditary so it’s not something either of us carry.”

Corcoran was keen to get tests done at that point but her consultant and three GPs disagreed: “They said I was still young, it was just bad luck – you throw up a coin and it landed wrong for us, next time it will roll right.”

Unfortunately though that was not the case and while she became pregnant three months later, that also ended in miscarriage. After this, Corcoran says, she tried to take back some control to help her cope by doing a lot of research and visiting different specialists. The couple also took a break from trying to have a baby. “Mentally, it had all been so hard on us, on our relationship.”

Eight months on, with the help of a recurrent miscarriages specialist and a prescription of progesterone, aspirin and injections, the couple tried again. “After three miscarriages any fertility place will recommend those and usually they’ll throw in steroids as well. Basically, if you don’t test positive for anything they’ll fire everything at you. I had tested positive for Factor V Leiden, a mild clotting disorder. Some link it to miscarriage; others disagree . . . To this day, I don’t know if it was that. I think sometimes people have miscarriages and become convinced something caused them but it’s so hard to know.”

Corcoran got pregnant straight away but it was hard to be positive. “I was convinced it was destined to fail. I had this discharge which I’m now guessing was implantation bleeding but I thought the pregnancy was over. Ian said, we’ll get a scan . . . And I said, okay but don’t have any hope, it’s over, we both know it.

“So we went, although I was only five and a bit weeks pregnant. He was very reluctant to scan me but he did and we saw the baby, she was .22cm. Although she was only .22cm though, you could see flashing so we knew her heart was beating. We were thrilled the baby was still there anyway.”

Around then the morning sickness started. “I was getting sick every day, five or six times. I never minded though – I viewed it as a good thing, that the baby was healthy and I had the hormones. With the miscarriages I used to hear [pregnant] women giving out and find it very hard. People saying, ‘I’m so tired’ or ‘I’m so sick’, and all I’d be thinking was, ‘I wish I was sick right now’.”

A bleed after 10 weeks terrified them. “We went to casualty convinced everything had gone wrong again and it hadn’t, she was there doing big kicks. And then the bleeding stopped and it never happened again.”

Because of their experiences they waited longer than 12 weeks to tell most people, although Corcoran’s mum realised early. And when it came to the sex, Corcoran left it up to Bradshaw, who chose to find out. “He had been so amazing all through I wanted to leave it up to him. We found then she was a girl. But Ian had always said she was a girl from the minute we knew.”

So now they have the gloriously smiley Eva Belle, would Corcoran have any advice for couples in a similar position? “Not to give up hope. I never thought it would be me, I really didn’t. I think you have to keep believing it’ll happen. And if you’ve had recurrent miscarriages, do your research because everyone says something different, and find a doctor you trust.

“And ultimately when you hold your baby for the first time, it’ll make all the bad times fade away, it’ll be the best feeling in the world.”

Bradshaw says he didn’t know how common miscarriages were before they experienced one. “When we found out we having a baby the first time you think ‘we are having a baby’ and nothing else.”

He explains they had more hope the fourth time with the support of their doctor but it was shaken the night of the bleed.

“Then they did a scan and the heartbeat was there. Next thing I saw the most amazing kick, the whole body moved. I cried coming out as it was the first time I really started to believe this was going to happen.

“Even now I look at her on the changing mat or on the play mat and how strong she kicks – she has really powerful legs – and I think back to that night in Holles Street, when I started to believe.”

Starting a Family: Birth will appear in the Irish Times Magazine on April 16th