Amanda and Jason's Story....

This is Amanda and Jason’s and their daughter Mia’s story told by Jason, a set of events that led to unbearable heartache, shattered dreams, self-doubt, depression, disbelief, a bond of togetherness, determination, pride and a lifetime goal….

We are just two ordinary people who met in their mid to late 30s’ living in the small, quiet Northamptonshire town of Desborough, originally caught up in the mess of acrimonious marriage breakdowns, primarily caused through effects of the recession of the past decade and the need to be happy and feel loved again.  We knew that we could be happy again, given the chance of rebuilding our shattered lives together and providing a loving stable environment for our children from earlier relationships.  I knew that circumstance meant that we would probably never have a large house or executive cars but Amanda wasn’t interested in that side of things in the slightest – I had also learnt the hard way that those things do not bring you happiness.

Amanda fell pregnant a year or so after we met, it took a while to sink in, get our heads around the news but it became clear to our families and those around us that we were happy, life it seemed, was about to restart.  The early stages of pregnancy were happy and uneventful, then during December 2012 disaster struck – at a routine scan at Kettering General Hospital, the baby was confirmed as being attached to the fallopian tube, it was unusually still growing – it was a rare and highly dangerous scenario of an ectopic pregnancy, a 16,000/1 chance and as the surgeons at our local hospitals were not qualified to operate, Amanda was admitted to a specialist hospital in North London around 80 miles away – the baby had no chance of survival and required immediate removal otherwise the outcome on Amanda’s health could be fatal.  It is one of the really poignant moments of our lives where we were looking at the heartbeat on a monitor of our little tiny baby that we were going to have to allow to be taken away, we had absolutely no alternative, it was a really, really horrible, heart-breaking experience.  In the grand scheme of things it was irrelevant but it was also my 39^th birthday.  Trying to look back at things objectively, Amanda’s life had been saved, she could still become pregnant and our children were not aware of anything.  We did however realise that we will always think of that ‘little bean’ as we referred to him or her and wonder what might have been. 

The traumatic events of London that winter did however paint the picture of our dream future.  We knew we loved each other, knew that we had the best interests of each other’s children at heart, although at that period of time we had perhaps lost belief in marriage.  The loss of our ‘little bean’ reiterated to us both how much we wanted to be ‘new’ parents again and the child would be ours.  We knew that time was not on our side, I was approaching 40 and Amanda in her mid-thirties.  We discussed the possibility of a new baby with our children and in principle they all thought it was a good idea!

We suspected that it wouldn’t be easy, did everything possible such as cutting down on the drinking of alcohol, going to the gym, eating properly, you name it we did it….  Perhaps somewhat obsessed, we did achieve our goal by the summer of 2013, Amanda was confirmed as being pregnant… we were both ecstatic – we were so careful given the events of London, after confirmation that everything was fine at the first scan, the children and wider family and close friends were told – we and the children were over the moon!  We had done it!!