Life is Too short - Real Mum story on MoM

8 or so years ago I started on the IVF journey alone. I was 39 and desperate to be a Mum, more than I wanted to be in a relationship (I’m such a terrible judge of character and was meeting all the wrong men!). I was lucky enough to fall on the 2nd cycle and had a fairly trouble free pregnancy until week 26! I started swelling and feeling unwell. I was admitted to hospital and told I wouldn’t be leaving until my little one was born. I was diagnosed with placenta previa and pre-eclampsia. My daughter Zoe was delivered at 29.5 weeks at 840 gms. She was so tiny! 3 days after her birth I was placed in quarantine with Atypical pneumonia and viral meningitis. I wasn’t allowed in the NICU and my milk (what little I was expressing) couldn’t be used. At 12 weeks I was allowed to take Zoe home. Years down the track I noticed she wasn’t using her bowels properly. The Pediatrician kept telling me it was because she was a micro premmie and just give her laxatives. It go the point where she was on adult dose Osmalax and hadn’t opened her bowels in 14 days and her stomach was rock hard so big. I’d had enough of being told I was neurotic! I changed doctors and within 5 days she was in Sydney Children’s Hospital having surgery to remove blockages from her bowel. She was diagnosed Coeliac and since then has thrived! it was a really hard, long road but she is excelling at school and is a great kid.

It was just the two of us for so long and I have met a lovely man who is a local in the town I have lived for 40 years. We hit it off straight away after meeting at the funeral of a good friend and after 12 months we have decided life is just to short so we are going to travel around Australia next year in a caravan. I will be schooling Zoe through Distance Education and we can’t wait! I thought my life path was set, and it just shows that life can change, both for the better and worse, in the blink of an eye. I am still learning to share my life, as I have been very independent for so long, it’s a learning curve but I think I’m getting there!

Posted anonymously, 1st May 2019