If the past wasn't the way it was

how different would I be in the present, and the future?

Some things that happen, change your life, forever. At the end of the line, you have to decide, if your going to let it change your life, for the better, or for the worse.

I've never felt guilty. I've never felt, deep down, that my miscarriages are my fault. I don't feel responsible. I don't feel like I could have stoped them, or that if I had just done something, anything, differently, that my babies would still be here with me.

If i hadn't lost those three much wanted, tiny babies, then I never would have fallen pregnant with Lucy. I wouldn't have her in my life. That's unimaginable. The thought of losing Lucy now, hurts more than the pain of those three babies that went to heaven combined.

We lost another baby last year. We wanted that baby so much. We decided we were ready, to risk it again, to try and have a baby. And we know all the statistics. We knew that if you can get your pregnancy to 9 weeks, and see a heartbeat, there is only a 5% chance that you will go on to lose the baby. After three other miscarriages, and then Lucy we thought our luck had changed. We took a chance, gambled and lost. Again.

If that baby hadn't gone to heaven, I wouldn't be pregnant with Bean now. And despite all the health problems our precious baby has, the fight he or she is waging every second to stay alive inside me, I wouldn't dream of not having this baby. Sick or not, it's my child.

I have no doubt that my past has changed who I am today. I'm more compassionate. I care more. I listen better. I physically ache when i hear something about a family losing a child. I can't watch the news and hear about a baby being hurt, and child being abused, without breaking into tears. I'm more sensitised to anything and everything involving children, and their parents.

Sometimes it really sucks to be the "go to" person when something goes tragically wrong with a pregnancy, birth or in a child. Somehow, word seems to have gotten around that I've been - to some point, "there".

"There" is nowhere i ever expected to be. When I was still in high school, I could never have imagined, that in 7 years, I'd be back supporting someone FROM school, as they laid their beautiful, sleeping angel baby to rest.

Being the "go to" is hard sometimes. I like to talk about what I've been through, and I like that, despite the heartache, my story and pain can help someone else. I'm happy to help people, and I know, without my past, I'd be essentially useless.

I know more. I care more. I help more. And as much as I'd like to say, that i wish those miscarriages had never happened. I know It's a lie. All that pain, has made me who I am today. It's made me the mother I am. The wife I am and the friend I am.

I can say though, I wish becoming who I am today, hadn't been so painful, and hard.