Nikita and Baby Thomas

‘We got married September 2017 and decided to 'see the what would happen' from then. We didn’t want to apply the label ‘trying’, but having polycystic ovaries automatically put on some pressure to do start trying asap.

From the beginning, each negative pregnancy test and each period felt like a knife in the heart. It was just over a year into our marriage and still, we hand no baby. We started looking into fertility help when I suddenly stopped having periods. I had to reduce my BMI from 35 to 30, before I was able to be seen to start fertility investigations. My husband's sperm was checked and given the all clear, and so it felt like there was a lot of pressure on my part. By the end of 2018, I was finally booked in to have an abdominal/ pelvic scan to check what was going on, and this revealed that my right ovary was completely covered in cysts.

We were waiting on our appointment to see what the next steps were going to be, when in February 2019, we found out we were pregnant. There was such a sense of relief to think we were finally carrying a baby, we had finally made it!

I started to bleed at 7 weeks and had to have an early scan. Everything was all good on the scan and we could see our little ‘calf’. However at 11 weeks I ended up miscarrying. There are simply no words to express that feeling, even now.

There was no pretending to try this time. I became obsessed. I had apps, thermometers, pregnacare supplements, ovulation tests, legs in the air after sex and even something that looks like a menstrual cup that you use after sex. Sex was pretty much every other day. November 2019 was our due month for our little one that we lost. I was expecting it to be a really tough month, but what came out of a hard month was that we found out we were pregnant with our rainbow baby boy, Thomas. Little did we know that he was going to be born in the midst of a pandemic.

I find it hard and confusing when people say ‘first time mum’ or ‘he’s your first’; to me, Thomas is my second baby.

We are so lucky to have a scan photo as a memory keepsake of our 'little calf', whom we lost at 11 weeks. We've had this scan photo transformed in to a beautiful pink and blue Embaby Art painting [see below]. When pregnant with Thomas, I was able to also have his scan turned in to a piece of art. Both scans are sat next to each other and I will be forever grateful to Chloe for our beautiful baby art’.

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