Yesterday took a b-i-g nose dive and I'm still feeling pretty awful now. I had my first appointment at the high risk clinic yesterday morning. That all went really well. I left the house feeling happy and confident, something that's pretty rare in itself and amazing considering I was on my way to a doctor's appointment. The clinic was fantastic, really well run by very nice and very professional people. The doctor I saw was excellent, very very compassionate and understanding of what we've just been through and how difficult another pregnancy is, but very reassuring in how professional and competent she was. I heard the baby's heart beat. Everything was fine. Then I had to make an appointment for another ultrasound...

I got a referral for another scan because at the last one they couldn't get clear pictures of the baby's head and face because of the position she was in. I had been half expecting to be referred for another scan because of it. Also, trying not to think too much about needing another scan for that reason. When I was having Kat, at the follow-up scan after they discovered that she was too small they couldn't get clear pictures of her head and I had to go back again, then it was the following one that they found the fluid on her heart. So it's unnerving, to say the least, to be reliving that scenario. I know rationally that Kat was already too small and had other problems by that time and I also know that one of the reasons the doctors weren't ruling out a genetic disorder in her was that they couldn't get clear pictures of her face, but all her genetic tests were clear and she was perfectly formed when she was born. So I'm not worried as such about needing to go back for another scan now, just unnerved by it.

Anyway, making the appointment... the doctor referred me to a different radiology place than the one I've been to for the last two. This one operates out of hospitals, plus they have rooms in Tweed. The clinic went to get me an appointment at the Murwillumbah hospital, but I want to go to Tweed. With Michael working up there it's easier for him to come with me. The clinic rang the Tweed hospital clinic twice while I was there telling them I was being referred for a scan. I gathered that they were a bit difficult to deal with on the phone - the nurse at Murbah was sitting there nodding and trying to talk but getting cut off. Apparently they were telling her that they're very busy and if other people were booked in ahead of me I would be turned away. They seemed to think I was coming over that day instead of making an appointment for 3-4 weeks time. So I came home and rang for an appointment and they wouldn't take the booking. I told them twice I was being referred by the high risk clinic at Murwillumbah hospital but they just refused to do it because they consider it a morphology scan and they don't do morphology. So I rang their rooms in Tweed - and they refused the appointment as well. Because I hadn't had the first scan there. I was told "I can tell you right now that no one here likes finishing other people's scans". Again, I had told her I was being referred by the high risk clinic. As far as I'm concerned, that should have been good enough for either place to realise that I need this scan and just do it. I then made an appointment back at the clinic I went to for the other scans, only to have them call back and say that the doctor I saw is not on their list of referring doctors, that's she's affiliated with the practice that had refused my booking. I told them that - and they were pretty appalled about it. They went on to say that because this doctor wasn't on their list I wouldn't be able to claim it on medicare. At which point I started crying and said "look, I've been through a stillbirth, I just want my scan done, I don't care about the money". So at least now I do have an appointment, but I'm just so upset by it.

I've now had three dealings with Tweed hospital and all three of them have been bad. Every person I've spoken to has been exceptionally rude and as though having to deal with someone is so terribly inconvenient. Down to when I was with the doctor yesterday (who travels down from Tweed once a week for the Murbah clinic day) she went to do my blood pressure then remembered it had already been done by the nurse. She said "I forgot, we get spoiled down here, at Tweed we have to do it all ourselves". I just think, what are they DOING up there? I feel like I'll turn up to have a baby and they will treat me as a massive burden because they have to actually do some work. I don't want to set foot in the place, but I don't really have any other options about where to have this baby. I feel good about having all my ante natal care at Murbah hospital and going there after the baby's born, but I can't deliver there. They only do midwife assisted deliveries, no epidurals and if something goes wrong, it's about 30 minutes to get to Tweed. If it wasn't for that I'd suck it up and say fine, I won't have an epidural and deliver here. But I don't want to be that far from help if something goes wrong. So I have to go to Tweed. I'm absolutely dreading having to set foot in the place. It's been really important to me to feel comfortable with my care during this pregnancy and now I'm stuck having to have this baby somewhere I just don't want to be.

A few things have happened in the last week. I went for my 20 week ultrasound last Thursday and everything is looking good. Bub's exactly the right size for dates and was very active, rolling around and stretching right out. It was lovely to see. We were told they can't "see anything between the legs, so it's probably a girl". We've taken to saying "she" but are still bearing in mind that it could be a boy yet.

Having that scan go well seemed to open a floodgate and we've been a lot more open about talking about and planning for baby. We've started buying baby things. It wasn't a conscious effort not to before, but there's been a change in both of us since the ultrasound.

We went looking at baby things on the weekend for the first time this pregnancy. As we browsed around "Golden Slumbers" started playing in the shops - the song we played at Kat's funeral. Not just Golden Slumbers, but the Ben Folds version from the I Am Sam soundtrack, which is the version we played. That song isn't on any Ben Folds albums, it's only on that soundtrack and the shop wasn't playing the soundtrack, just mixed songs. Neither of us have ever heard it anywhere except when we play it at home, but there it was. We just stopped and stared at each other for a moment, had a hug and then through my shock I half smiled, shook my head and just said "hi Kat". We both felt so strongly that she had a hand in that.

Then yesterday I was hanging out the washing from the kids suitcase after their school holiday trip to their dad's. A pair of tights belonging to their little sister had come home in their suitcase. It sent a jolt right through me - realising they were the same size that Kat would have been wearing by now and that I was "supposed" to be washing baby clothes that size by now. All I wanted to do was sit in a heap and cry, but Michael was working and I didn't feel like having to explain to the kids what was wrong, so I had to just keep going and not fall to pieces. I came inside and sat down with the paper and the baby started kicking - and kept on going and going for ages. Probably the longest lot of kicks I've felt yet. I felt like there's a real connection between Kat and this baby. Kat's song came on while we shopped for baby things and then the baby kicked when I was upset about Kat.

I don't know how many people (who haven't been through it) really understand, but I wish everyone did, that having another baby after a loss doesn't do anything to take away the pain of the loss. And having lost a baby doesn't take anything away from the love for a child that comes later.

We looked at the photos of Kat last night. It was the second time I'd seen them, the first time Michael had. The hospital had to post the photos to us because their computers had crashed while we were there and they couldn't get the disc done. The day they arrived we picked up the mail together at lunch time and I'd told Michael that on the one hand I wanted to look at them with him but on the other I didn't know if I could wait until he got home from work that night. He said he didn't mind if I didn't wait for him, so I went home and looked at them and I guess what I said later made him not want to see them. I'm not sure if I've written about this on here before or not - I have a feeling that I have done - but the pictures are not how I remember her looking. It probably sounds like a really strange comment to make in the circumstances, but in the pictures she looks dead and I don't remember her as looking dead. She was a very dark brown colour, which surprised me. If anything I was expecting her to be blue/grey. She was tiny and obviously not "finished" yet - her arms and legs didn't really look defined, it was hard to believe there were bones in there and I was scared to move her in case I broke one of her limbs - but she was perfectly formed. Her ears were still squashed flat against her head and her nose was still flat against her face, but her face still had her own distinctive shape about it. The way her cheeks sloped towards her nose, her eye shape and mouth were all there. Her mouth was one of the things I looked at the most. It was open and I could see her tongue, which was so complete and perfect inside that miniature mouth with bow-shaped lips. But in the pictures, the flash brought out things we couldn't see. There's a large white ring around her mouth and rather than having the appearance of her mouth being slightly open it looks like it's just hanging open with this big ring around it. I don't remember her skin being sucked around the bones at the front of her skull either, but those bones are really obvious in the pictures. And the flash also brought out the translucency of her skin. In pregnancy books they talk about the blood vessels being visible under the skin and in the photos you can see that. We couldn't at all with the naked eye, she was just brown. Once I saw them I was glad we had them and I can totally understand why these photos are taken now. It's not very long ago that stillborn babies, or those that died shortly after death, were just taken away and the mum sent home to get on with it. Acknowledging that these babies lived and are loved is very recent and very important and holding the baby and taking photos is a big part of that. But I also knew that if I hadn't wanted to see her in the hospital and then later looked at the photos I would have been horrified of what I had given birth to. And so we had put them away in the box of Kat's things and didn't get them back out til last night. I very suddenly had a really strong desire to look at the pictures of her in our arms. I just wanted to see us holding our baby girl. And it turned out there was something I missed the first time I saw them. In the ones of us holding her, she was wrapped in a blanket and from the angle the pictures were taken you can only just see the top of her head. But there's one of Michael holding her where you can see the profile of her face. It looks just like what we saw at all the ultrasounds. And she's beautiful.