Like trying for this baby, you know – it was almost like I needed to get pregnant again, in order for the void to be filled, or – like that’s how it felt in the hospital. I was almost like in my craziness, bit like ‘just get me pregnant again, now – quick, like just do it now’ [laugh]. And then like we did [wait] for the twelve week appointment with the consultant, but then it was almost like my life – I don’t think I’ll ever move on from Henry, but the circumstances of my life can move on. So when you’re trying to get pregnant having had a loss, it’s like ‘yeah, I have [my son] – oh, and then I lost Henry. You know, and that’s kind of where life is. You’re kind of stuck in this state of acute grief and loss, and. Like your world is just – there’s no flooring to it, you’re in freefall. And I felt like I had to have another stage to my life. I couldn’t stay there. For me, that wasn’t – that wasn’t going to sit well [laugh].

Mentally, or any kind of way. And so therefore I needed to get pregnant again, so that there could be some kind of hope at the end of this story. And so that yeah, the focus of my life could shift slightly, even if my grief doesn’t. If that makes sense.

And obviously Christmas is a happy time of year, isn’t it. And everyone was busy, and getting excited, and all the rest of it. And I was doing all the things that I should be doing, but didn’t feel like doing any of them. And, and I just felt terribly, terribly sad. And just – yeah, just missing – I just felt a total – a total emptiness. And it was – I wanted her. I wanted her. But I knew I couldn’t have her. So immediately, as soon as she was born, the desire to have another baby was just overwhelming. It was just – It was the only thing that I could – that, that I could think about. I was obsessed with having another baby. It was just like I needed to be pregnant again.

And that’s why I sort of – almost on a mission. Right I need to know, I need to know what was wrong, so I can put that right, so that we can have another baby. So that you know, we just – it was just – yeah. I just needed to know. And I’m a very practical person, and I need a plan of action all the time. So that was my plan of action. And so that’s what – that’s what we did, really.

Yeah. And it scares the life out of me [laugh]. I’ve thought about it a few times. My, my ex wanted to have a baby straight away. And I definitely didn’t. I – For me, that was too much like replacing him. Now, it’s entirely different, just in the fact that I don’t – I don’t ever want to experience that again, because for me – I never say never. Because hopefully one day I will change my mind. But right now, I still feel very much like that’s the only thing I’ve ever experienced with Alfie, and I don’t want to take that away. Not yet. So, so yeah. I think as it stands at the moment, no – it’s not something that I’d ever, that I really want to think about. It’s too scary [laugh]. Too scary.

Scary that, the same –

The same would happen. Although the doctors think that it was a sporadic case. I still – I don’t – I don’t trust it. I can’t. I just can’t risk it. And, and also for selfish reasons. The fact that – I don’t want to, I don’t want to worry for nine months that something’s going to go wrong. And also, once – once you meet people that – I mean, now I’ll go to a local Sands – Well, it’s not local any more, but. To the [local] Sands group. Because I started going there when I still lived in [town]. And you meet people that have got totally different experiences to you.

And then we looked at surrogacy. And we got a surrogate. And then she didn’t get pregnant. She went for IVF, she didn’t get pregnant. [my husband] took that badly. For me, it was what I needed, to shut the door. The very next day that she told me that she wasn’t pregnant, I moved on with my career. And I said, “I’m going to go and do something else.” So I moved on. Shut the door. And I rarely – it doesn’t interfere with my daily life now. I don’t regret having the boys, because I think what every parent wants is for a child never to suffer. And I just think those boys could have suffered. So they never did. [my husband] still struggles. He struggles at their birthday, he struggles at Christmas. I don’t, now. I used to not – It affected my relationship with friends who had children, I couldn’t go near them. Friends didn’t tell me they were pregnant. I shut myself off from a lot of situations. I just couldn’t stand it. And I had some students in my class that were pregnant, and I couldn’t stand it. But then I look now, and I have bottled – put it all together as an experience. But [my husband] – So if somebody says to me, “Have you got children?” I say “No.” If somebody says that to [my husband], he stops. And, and then he says no. But he, he – he used to get upset and say to me, “I am a parent, I’m just not a practising one.” And he felt that by saying no, it was denying his children. So he really struggled. And he has really, really struggled with it. But we’ve both come to terms with it.