My Precious Baby...and Hers.

The rotten year I'm having has worsened. Last night my darling daughter called to say that she had received some bad news. It has been confirmed that she has polycystic ovaries which reduces her chances of falling pregnant naturally. She's already been trying for a year. I didn't know how to react when she told me. I was stunned. I felt awful and useless. Didn't know whether to cry or not. But I'm the mum, I'm the one who should have reassured her but I felt useless. Kerri lives 500 miles away from me in Buckinghamshire which makes it all the worse. But she has been having problems for a while now and she hasn't said.

Kerri has always been there for everyone. She never told me as she didn't want to 'worry' me. Even as long as a year ago she suspected she could maybe have this condition but doctors dismissed it. It wasn't until she stresses to them that I needed a rushed hysterectomy at 29, that they referred her for a scan. In all that time her cysts were growing. How awful. I always worried that she would suffer from endometriosis and pre-cancerous cells as I did. The pain from that was excruciating and I guess I sighed with relief that she wouldn't suffer from that type of pain that I was glad that it was only cysts! But I underestimated the psychological side of this. By the end of her phone call, although clearly shaken, she sounded more positive. There is treatment to help fertility along the way and we've no other option but to put our faith into what ever medics have to offer. So after saying our farewells on the phone, I was pleased that she sounded a little happier, but I felt awful that there was nothing more that I could do or say there and then. I had the weekly shop to do and I tried to focus on that to help keep the tears at bay.

I actually thought I was coping okay until a mum lifted a little might from it's baby carrier to comfort it from crying and the thought that my precious baby, my only daughter, my first born, might not ever get the chance to kiss her own little one tenderly on the cheek, simply gutted me. I had to end my shopping trip there and then. I stood sobbing in the supermarket car park while my husband paid for the goods. I prayed she gets the chance to snuggle up to her own little one.

I can still picture her own little peachy face with it's podgy cheeks, and eyes 'like a Chinaman'. I can still feel those long long fingers with the tiniest of nails at the ends and her insistence for a breastfeed every two hours. But she's from determined stock. I conceived naturally with her brothers with only one ovary and endometriosis despite the doctors' warnings that I might never do so. Fertility treatment has more chances than ever at happy endings. But I've a feeling that Mother Nature will be around more than usual and keeping to her job title - with love.