A brief introduction......

I have meant to get this all down for a long time. Time has however moved on but the feelings remain. I need to put this out there, to attempt to rid myself of the feelings I have and hold of that fateful day and what remains from it. Both myself and Roger are struggling and still suffering, maybe this will help others to understand what we feel, maybe someone else will read this and realise it is normal (is it?). Jules our sweet boy of course is still struggling but on a physical level and this is partly to chart that too.
Julian Oliver Orlan Leyster is my fifth baby, Roger's second...and our one and only.

At the time of writing, we have been together three wonderful years. We knew each other twenty years before we got together after we 'met' once again on Facebook and fell madly and deeply in love. We instantly changed our lives to be together and we both had our longed for fairy tale romance.

We instantly knew we wanted to have a baby together and tried for nine months for our little fella and just as we felt we should give up and it was not meant to be....along he came.

In many ways the pregnancy was my easiest, having previously suffered in others with hyperemisis gravidarum needing hospital treatment and also severe Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD) needing crutches and medical attention. The mere fact that we managed a holiday to Las Vegas when I was twelve weeks pregnant was something of a minor miracle for me as previous pregnancies at that point in time I was unable to move from bed, had my head constantly in a bucket or was in hospital on a drip to rehydrate me.

Just before we went I had my 12 week scan which included the Nuchal scan and along with that the blood tests that check for downs syndrome. I knew I had a higher than average reading of the space at the back of the neck compared with my last two pregnancies where I had this done. I googled when I got home and realised that indeed his measurement was the higher end of normal.

We went off to Las Vegas and the next day got the call that we had screened positive for a high down sydrome risk. The risk was 1 in 60 compared with 1 in 110 for my age. We both curled up and cried and did a lot of talking. We had already booked a peek a boo scan for later on in the week to see if we could find out the sex of the baby (yes in america they look very early for you) so after talking to the lady at the hospital in the UK and realising we were too late for a repeat nuchal, we had to decide if to have more invasive tests when we got home.

We went for the scan and how amazing it was. We had a 3d and 4d scan along with a normal 2d one. I was by then 13 weeks pregnant and found out that we were having a little boy, it was very clear. The lady there said she had discovered babies with down syndrome in the past and looking she could not see any pointers that would lead her to believe he had it. I think this somewhat put our minds in a more positive frame and to be honest after seeing him in so much detail I was hopelessly in love with our little man and by then it did not matter to me if he did have down syndrome. When we got home we had an urgent meeting with the consultant, he agreed with our decision about avoiding invasive tests if possible and agreed to send us to St George's fetal medicine centre as we needed to go anyway to check to see if our baby had the same heart defects Roger's other son had. We went there and were told we had a perfectly healthy baby and a fantastic spread legged view of our boy confirmed he was a very very proud boy.

I had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 11weeks and that all ticked along more or less ok and under control. I actually quite enjoyed this pregnancy without suffering quite so much pelvic pain. I was huge due to some polyhydramnios but at the last scan before Jules came along it was under control and at normal levels.....everything was ticking along nicely until 23rd March 2010 (36 weeks pg).