It's taken my entire life,

but I think my name suits me.

The name Tamara means "Palm Tree" in Hebrew. Seriously? Palm Tree? Not "Mighty Warrier" or "Strength" or "Compassion" or any of those awesome things a name can mean. Just Palm Tree. I've always sniggered at the meaning of my name, always felt a bit condescending about it. Like it was just silly. I've often thought my parents clearly didn't do their research before they named me.

However. Palm trees, as I've recently learned, a pretty great. They are flexible, they don't snap at the first hard wind that comes through. They grow tall and and straight, as if they have something to aim for, a goal to achieve. A palm tree will often withstand the heaviest things nature throws at it - Cyclones, Hurricanes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes - they still stand.

In the (almost) five years since Matt and I got married we have had some pretty brutal stuff thrown at us. There have been good times, but there have been a lot of sad times as well. Very very sad times. Somehow though, we've stood together. We've stayed upright, fought through and leant on each other when we needed to. We've supported each other, and we've come through it all. Every.Single.Thing.

Nothing has beaten us.

We spent last night in the ED. I started spotting again, and had some pretty vicious cramping going on, and so we took off for what really is a routine early pregnancy check up for me. The hospital was amazing. They took me right back, found me a bed immediately and started drawing blood and organising pain relief and a scan. It took them six attempts to get a line in, which had me in tears but once it was over, and Matt was back by my side, I was good to go again.

Our scan showed an excellent lining around the sac, a sac measuring 5weeks 4 days and what could have been a fetal pole but was too tiny to tell for certain. My beta's were 11000 which they tell me is perfect for gestational size and everything else looked great. I have to be re-scanned in ten days to check for viability, heartbeat and positioning but the doctors seem positive.

The cramping has subsided (although every twinge and Im likely to panic!), and I feel much better this morning although my hands where they blew out the veins are rendered almost useless through pain. The spotting is once again almost non existant.

I hate the first three months of pregnancy. I wish I could just skip into trimester two, where things are more secure, not so volatile!

Meantime, I have a mantra. It goes "Palm Tree, Palm Tree, Palm Tree". Believe it or not - It's helping!