After Anabelle

You are so surrounded by love Lucas. I cannot wait to see your relationship with your brothers grow and change. Another few weeks and I’ll bet you’ll be fascinated by them, unable to take your eyes off them, saving all your best smiles for them! My little trio of lovely boys.

I wasn't expecting Lucas to look like Anabelle. Not like he does. 

I expected him to have some likeness to her of course, like I expected him to have some likeness to all of his siblings; they all have shared genes after all. But it was Zachary I was expecting him to be the image of, not Anabelle. 

In the first few days I couldn't decide who he was most like. He looked like them all. But as the newly born puffiness started to disappear he started to look more and more like his sister. 

I said in his one week update he looked like Anabelle. Now, at three weeks old and already changing a little again, if its possible, he looks even more like her. 

At the moment, he looks surprisingly different somehow to his brothers as babies. They all have a likeness of siblings, the other boys had a resemblance of Anabelle at times too, but Lucas, Lucas is the image of his sister in a way the others were not. I hadn't prepared myself for a likeness to be so very very similar. Less like the boys and more like our girl. My beautiful delicate boy. It is beautiful and bittersweet all at the same time.  

I've caught myself looking at him and a lump appearing in my throat and tears threatening to prick my eyes, because I can see 'her'. I've wondered if they would've shared their looks if she had opened her eyes too. I've wondered already, who he will look like as he grows. Will he start looking more like his brothers or will he look like Anabelle would've done? In a boy version at least.   In reality I know we'll lose the ability to see the resemblance to his sister as he grows, because she did not. When he isn't a baby anymore we won't have an idea if their similarity would've remained. 

It has been really lovely that so many people have mentioned on many of his photos, or in messages to me that they think he looks like Anabelle too. My Mum was saying it from day one. I love that other people can see her in him too. That through him she is being thought about and remembered. 

We're always aware of her absence, but at the moment (whether it be new baby hormones, last baby hormones, the fact that the baby looks like her or something else) I'm feeling a heightened sense of 'one missing'. The other baby I can see in his face is missing. 

Today at an afternoon out at the farm we had yet another reminder, as if we needed reminding, we're one short. At the playground Alexander started playing with a little girl. An Anabelle (or some other spelling variant that the little girl probably had). Watching him run around with her, shouting her name across the playground for her to follow him, watching them play their games and strike a friendship was like a little bolt. Another lump in the throat with threatening tears. Jon and I commented to eachother how difficult it was to hear. Not that there was another girl around us called Anabelle, but the sound of Alexander playing with the name of his sister - how it was supposed to be; if his sister had lived those would be the sounds of them playing together and him calling her name. 

I didn't want to include all of this in Lucas's next update a week or so from now (how is he that close to a month old already?!), not wanting moments of grief to impinge on what a joyous wonderful baby he is. We're enjoying him so much, so utterly smitten with him; but there is no escaping he looks like his sister, and tonight I needed a space to say all of this. 

If only we had you all. 

We're into July and the month our little Lucas is going to be born; we're mere days away from his planned arrival now. It feels so close, almost within touching distance. But still so so far.  

Today I am 34+6 weeks and by most timelines half way through the third trimester now. But for me and the plan we're nearing the end.

I'm in a strange place of wanting the days to speed by, when anxiety is getting the better of me and I'm convincing myself he has gone. For everything to keep going to plan, smoothly and with no surprises, to just have him out and in our arms, home, breathing and screaming and growing like his brothers. But it still seems so far, knowing he could still be taken from me in a moment. 

And then on the other hand these are the last few days I will ever be pregnant. And then I want the days to slow down, just a little. So I can soak up this lovely bump, feeling him kick from the inside, watching him move. Knowing he is the very last little baby I will grow. 

Third trimester has been kinder to me in some way to previous pregnancies, but much harder in others.  There have been a few incidents of me winding myself up about his movements and on the verge of ringing for a reassurance visit, only for him to have a kick around as I'm reaching for my phone. Already the little monkey. 

June was as emotionally horrendous as I anticipated it might be. I couldn't really pull apart what was 'that' amount of pregnancy related vs. Belle's birthday and grief related but I spent much of the month feeling panicky and unwell in myself. It was a long few weeks but thankfully since her birthday I've calmed down a lot again and have been feeling much more on a even keel. 

But this third trimester I've been lucky so far to escape any overnight hospital stays (touching wood for these final days); there has been no dramas that have needed me to rush to the hospital outside of my regular routine visits and for that I am thankful. Our family, our other little boys need that relative calm. 

Lucas is growing well, although slower now than the other boys and seems to be tracking a similar size to his sister - at least he was estimated only a few ounces heavier than she was at her 32 week birth vs. his 32 week scan. A scan earlier this week is still predicting a smaller baby at birth, compared to Big and Small. I cannot quite believe it after a whopper of a Xander Big (36+2 weeks and 8lb 13oz) and a smaller but still fairly sizable Zachy Small (37+2 weeks and 7lb 9oz) - but all measurements over the last six weeks have suggested he is going to much smaller again.

This week I even went out and bought a few smaller newborn/early baby clothes to pack in the hospital bag for Lucas to wear, figuring the newborn/up to one month we had stock of will be ridiculously enormous on him by current birth weight estimations! 

But saying that I do feel somewhat smaller at this stage compared to how I remember feeling with the other boys. I've certainly carried a little differently this time. I keep being told you cannot tell I am pregnant from the back and Lucas is all out the front, in a round beach-ball shape and carrying lower than I have before. Maybe that is my muscles giving up on me and unable to hold this a 4th time bump up anymore! 

My pelvis has struggled hugely with this pregnancy. The pelvic girdle pain that started the day of my last pregnancy update hasn't gone away.  Although some days have been better and easier than others, and the bump belt from physiotherapy has helped - I have been forced to slow down and accept that my body cannot cope with full on busy days. As a result of pelvic weakness and the increased tear/rupture risks in the third trimester this pregnancy I've been signed off work since. Any busy day means I pay for it in the evening and the next day, and I'm really at the stage now where any length of walk or climbing the stairs leaves me feeling in quite significant discomfort, especially if the walk has involved any sort of upwards incline. Honestly, between this and the constant feeling of exhaustion sometimes I feel like an old woman and have definitely found this pregnancy the most physically challenging and difficult out of the four. 

Heartburn has been getting worse over the last two weeks after barely being an issue up until now. Still mild in comparison to Zachy's pregnancy but now enough to see me reaching for the Rennie's sweets after most meals and disturbing my sleep (along with the usual discomfort disturbing sleep and multiple trips to the toilet!) I still feel fortunate to have got to nearly the end without it being as horrendous as last time though! Even now at 34 weeks I'm still having the odd morning where I'm getting up feeling horrendously nauseous and still vomiting on occasion too. The latest into a pregnancy where morning sickness has continued to feature - although mildly now - and I've basically accepted it is clearly here to stay until the end. I'm dreading my c-section morning and being nil-by-mouth because the only thing that really settles the yuckiness is a little breakfast. 

So we're nearly there, but I'm becoming increasingly nervous of the major operation ahead of me. There is no other way and he has to come out of course, but suddenly the enormity of being sliced open again and the pain and recovery afterwards is feeling a bit overwhelming. I'm anxious about the previous scar tissue, the potential tearing issue and the amount of bleeding that led to the pressure bandages and drain being left in in my last operation and how horrific it was when said drain was removed. Oh how I hope that isn't needed again! 

I'm nervous about his slightly premature birth, even with the steroids to prepare him. I'm hoping that he of course escapes the need for a stay in SCBU, not really sure how I will react if that becomes a reality and I'm separated from him, but knowing that nothing is guaranteed. Mostly we're just waiting with baited breath for those beautiful just born cries. 

And then afterwards. Oh how I feel like I've forgotten everything there is to know about a newborn and wondering how on earth I'll survive the sleep deprivation with two bigger boys plus school runs! I'm glad we have the summer holidays of allowed lazy and slow mornings to adjust to a new baby before a full on back to normal September with Big starting full-time school. 

Days to go and our house is not ready. Some serious nesting needs to start happening this week! Car seats and other newly bought baby equipment still sit in boxes not ready. The only ready thing is our hospital bags and his little wardrobe of clothes - and by his, I mean two drawers in my wardrobe we've emptied and re- oganised for him because a nursery is still a long way off this time. The big boys' bedroom needs revamping first so we can reclaim the nursery furniture for Luc! 

How differently the urgency is to get these things ready from first to final child - when I look back at how organised we were for Belle, and indeed Xander, and somewhat Zac. My standards of preparation are clearly slipping! Poor last baby already even before he is born! 

We're nearly there. I'm allowing myself to feel excited, I cannot wait to meet out littlest boy and see if his 4D scan lives up to how identical to his big brothers, especially Zac as a newborn, we're expecting him to be. 

And then I cannot believe we'll never be doing this again, despite the trauma and fear pregnancy has represented for us. Growing these babies and having these bumps has been so precious.

Our last baby and nearly into a new chapter of our lives over the next few years. Babies to children and beyond. 

Raising boys. 

Our little Luc coming to complete our beautiful set of rainbows.