"You are an inspiration."
Whilst I wish this was actually the case, this is possibly my ultimate driving force in life- to inspire others. For starters, it's my job! As a primary school teacher, it is my duty to inspire children to do the very best that they can. To be honest, I was called the above in an end of term card by a child (she already had her report so wasn't fishing!) who topped it by continuing the sentence with, "...to who I want to become when I am a woman." After six years in the business, it's lovely feel that you did something right for someone!
So who am I? I am Sarah, someone who loves glitter, big petticoats and happy music. I live in Greenwich, South East London with two mogs (Jester and Harlequin), a pup (Max) and a husband, P. My time is swallowed whole by concocting plans, drinking wine and dancing in the kitchen.
Why did I start the blog? One day, Baby? was started as a response to my fourth miscarriage. Whilst I am very lucky in having a huge support network of friends and family who know about what has been going on, sometimes you just need to find a different way of getting the lunacy out of your system without crying. Also, whilst going through the losses, I never found anything that truly spoke to me- lots of stuff about angel babies and ancient medicine- nothing that chimed with my own feelings. There is also the fact that I still have yet to find a blog for people who are going through recurrent miscarriage due to genetic abnormalities.
Since I was a very little girl, I have known that I have "wonky chromosomes". My mother had me without issue and then in trying to have another child, suffered seven miscarriages before falling pregnant with my middle brother. It was during those six years that Guys hospital found that my mum has a translocation of chromosomes 6 and 12 and my dad has a translocation of 9 and 18. A chromosome translocation occurs when a piece of one chromosome breaks off and sticks to another chromosome. There are two types of chromosome translocations - reciprocal and Robertsonian (named for the Dr. that first described it).A reciprocal translocation occurs when pieces of two different chromosomes exchange places. A Robertsonian translocation occurs when a whole chromosome attaches to another chromosome. I have a reciprocal and balanced translocation of 9 and 18. This basically means that as far as science understands at the moment, there is nothing wrong with me other than I am the person who keeps the miscarriage toll high!
Where you have 23 pairs of chromosomes, the bottom of my 9 and 18 have swapped ends so I have the right amount of data but the ends are in the wrong places. This means that every time that P and I create an embryo, there are certain outcomes:
- a normal embryo;
- a balanced translocation, like mine;
- or just sheer bizarre concoctions of trisomies of 9 and 18. These are the nasty ones that don't end up in a baby. One possible is Edward's Syndrome- most babies with this end in miscarriage but there have been instances of live births. It ain't a happy ever after... Most babies die within the first two years of life and the longest living one made it to 10. Trisomy nine doesn't even have a name, it's that weird!
So yes, a slightly different case of not straightforward infertility (is it ever?) as hey, I can get pregnant repeatedly but I can't make it beyond week 10 as every single one of the embryos has had even wonkier chromosomes than me.
My husband has refused to read this until we get our baby and then he says he will read this. Until then, this is our story of how we started our family.
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