It was a cold snowy December afternoon when the start of our adventures began.

Daddy was teasing Mummy that she wasn’t her usual pre-menstrual moody dragon self, and laughingly suggested that perhaps Mummy might need to take a pregnancy test. Mummy laughed – Mummy had stopped charting, taking temperatures and using OPKs the month earlier and figured the chances of things happening ‘on themselves’ were fairly low. Following an early miscarriage over the summer and several months of trying again without anything happening, Mummy and Daddy has decided to leave things for a couple of months and not worry about whether the dreaded P arrived or not… so chances of Mummy being pregnant now seemed so slim it was laughable. But Daddy was right… Mummy  took the test when they got home from the supermarket, and it was positive. ‘Pregnant 1-2 Weeks’.

Mummy cried. After all of the heartbreak over the summer and the disappointment of all the failed tests over the last few months, she just felt so overwhelmed and worried. She was terrified that the same thing would happen this time around. But Daddy was so excited and managed to reassure Mummy and help her realise that she was being silly – chances were everything would be fine this time.

An early scan at the wonderful Bay Ultrasound in Morecambe helped reassure both Mummy and Daddy that things were looking OK – but Christmas and new year were nerve wracking. Every pain, every twinge, anything even slightly out of the ordinary had mummy terrified that it was the beginning of the end, but this baby was a sticky little bean and stayed happily where she was.

Mummy and Daddy went to their 12 week scan feeling really positive. The scan was going well but little Bean did a flip right at the last minute which revealed something a little odd. The sonographer went quiet… ‘I just need to ask my colleague to have a look’. Cord Cysts were the tentative diagnosis. ‘But they’re so rare we don’t see them very often. I’ll have to take advice from the fetal medicine unit at Saint Mary’s and ring you to explain what they think we should do’ said the consultant.

The fetal medicine team decided that they wanted to see us and scan us with their consultants present. The diagnosis changed. ‘It looks like your baby’s bowel is inside the umbilical cord instead of inside their body’ said the consultant. ‘Because it’s only a small amount, it is more likely that it’s related to a chromosome problem. We would like to offer you a CVS or an amniocentesis to rule out any other problems’. Mummy opted for the amniocentesis- it was slightly less risky than the alternative and the extra week to wait didn’t seem like it was too long.

After a very long two weeks the results were in – Little Bean had no abnormal chromosomes… and little bean was a baby girl. Mummy and Daddy were delighted. The fetal medicine team kept a close eye on mummy and bean every month to make sure that bean’s growth was normal and that the bowel problem still stable -sometimes these things can repair themselves before 20 weeks – but little Bean had other ideas and refused to show her cord insertion point to the consultants all the way up to the final scan at almost 36 weeks.

Mummy was booked in for a c section at St Mary’s hospital rather than her local hospital as little Bean was breech and showing no sign or wanting to turn around. The consultant wanted her to be born on site to enable treatment to be carried out immediately if her bowel was still on the outside.

Bean decided to come into the world at 36 weeks gestation, a week ahead of the planned c section date. Mummy went to the local hospital and was given drugs to slow down her contractions, and antibiotics to prevent any infection passing to bean. After that an emergency ambulance was arranged to transfer her to St Mary’s who would be taking over the delivery. After arriving at St Mary’s at lunch time, Mummy was taken to theatre with Daddy at 5pm. After Bean’s heart rate dropped the ‘emergency’ was elevated to category 1 and she was born 5 minutes later after a very tense few minutes of worry.

Bean was taken straight into the back room for paediatric assessment whilst Mummy was put back together again. After a few minutes Daddy was allowed to go and see her. Mummy was expecting baby Freya to be taken straight to NICU for her tummy to be stabilised and treated, but the next thing she knew Daddy was walking back into the operating theatre with her all wrapped up in a towel. Mummy cried again. She couldn’t believe that after all of the scans and appointments, the problem had fixed itself somewhere between 16 weeks and the end of the pregnancy. There were a few small problems to be ironed out because of her birth weight, and Mummy and Freya stayed in the hospital for 5 days whilst they were sorted out… but finally Mummy, Daddy and Freya came home ready to start some new adventures together.

“When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” – C.S. Lewis