36 Weeks of Rainbow Pregnancy 🌈

A rainbow pregnancy is in many ways the dream. You are actively living out the thing you’ve hoped, dreamed and often worked for when healing and trying to recover after loss. But, Carrying a rainbow baby is a journey like no other. You live in a constant battle with anxiety, live in fear that at each appointment you’ll be told somethings going wrong or you’ll hear bad news, and equally leave those appointments feeling like you’re actually living through a miracle when you find out your baby is thriving in there. Your brain sometimes won’t let you believe that you’re choosing to put yourself back in that traumatic situation, praying and hoping for a different outcome.

At 36 weeks pregnant, I’m so close to having our rainbow girl in my arms….and despite the size of my growing tummy, the fact the car seat is in, I’ve written a birth plan, attended over 40 appointments, the house is packed with baby bits and I can actually see my tummy move when she wriggles - my brain still won’t let me accept that we might get to bring this baby home.

That’s the thing about loss. It steals that gorgeous, rose tinted, naivety of what pregnancy is like, but also your brain unknowingly puts up these shutters that don’t allow you to believe this baby is coming home.

Watching my bump grow & feeling our little girly wriggly inside my tummy is a feeling of reassurance like no other….but one thing I wasn’t prepared for when my bump started to show with our rainbow girl, was the question: ‘Is this your first?’ I guess that happens when you look like a young couple (ey Tom?! 😉) and don’t have a pram, car seat or child with you.…..But the months getting used to answering that question when you can’t hide your bump is something that has been the worst part of this pregnancy.

To the woman at the till in the supermarket who says ‘doesn’t look like you have long to go…is this your first?’ Or the teacher I met at a work event saying ‘Going back after your first is hard work - I’m guessing this is your first?’ or the people we meet who’ve had no idea about Baby Wicks and ask naively ‘Is this your first?’ I’m sorry if our answer NO made you feel uncomfortable. I’m sorry if that wasn’t quite the response that you were expecting and I’m sorry if by explaining to you that our little boy was born sleeping left you unsure what to say next…..but what would be worse is pretending like the pregnancy we had, the Labour, birth and memories we made with our little boy had not existed.

Part of rainbow pregnancy is acknowledging  and accepting that every pregnancy is different. Every pregnancy is a new life and each life deserves to be celebrated and spoken about no matter how it makes others feel.

It took us ages to feel comfortable answering that ‘Is this your first?’ Question. It took ages to get used to watching people’s face drop or descend into panic when we’d explain we’d had a gorgeous baby boy born sleeping. It took ages to get used to explaining to people we hoped we’d get to bring our rainbow girl home, people still seem to think that once you’re over that magical ‘12 week mark’ you always bring your baby home.

So for those rainbow parents out there who are walking in this journey or have their rainbow baby at home with them, I salute and respect the bravery it took to tell that supermarket worker, person you met through work or person you’d not seen in years, your story of your first born. 🤍