Introduction

Hi, I’m Mandi and this is my blog. I am going to tell you about the 5 week nightmare my partner and I found ourselves on following reduced movement at 35 weeks pregnant.

I decided to write this blog after talking to people about our experience and seeing their reactions. Countless people have suggested I write everything down for various reasons. The most pertinent I feel are to help others who may find themselves in a similar situation and to offer me a little therapy. I have found sharing snippets of our journey on social media helpful, cathartic to some degree. I’m a mental health nurse by trade so blogging is new to me, please be patient! I may make mistakes. 

 I will share with you what happened to us and to our baby girl. This won’t be easy to write and there are several events that happened that I do not remember and so my wonderful James will be filling in some blanks for us all. James is Betty’s father and my partner and he will feature in this blog frequently. 

James is the calm in my storm. He can see reason, be rational and keep his head together when life gets ridiculously tough. And of course he is not perfect! And we have our moments but the bottom line is, I love him like crazy. He is my love and without him I would be lost. Enough about him anyway. 

I need to forewarn you that this blog may not be easy reading for everyone. I will talk about really poorly babies and I will share some photos of our little girl. In the interest of my darlings own privacy I will limit photos shared and details of medical interventions but what I am going to share is enough. It’s harrowing, it’s scary as hell and it happens. It can happen to any one of us. 

I want to reach other parents who have gone through similar and I want to share the harsh realities of mumming. There are countless things that they never tell you. And I want to talk about those things. 

I am going to be writing this blog in chapters. This is helpful for me because I am putting all of my thoughts in order. At the moment everything is still a jumbled up mess in my mind and I need some order in there. I will open this blog with 5 chapters and then I will update with a new chapter each week. I welcome comments, I want this to be helpful for other people, not just me. 

The aim of this blog is not to scare anyone, it’s about sharing our story.  The soaring highs and incredible lows.  My approach may not be your cup of tea (I swear, what a shocker eh, a mental health nurse that swears…..) but I am honest and this is a story that I feel needs to be told.