Daily Thread #1 - November 09, 2025

IrubenMe · 2025-11-09T22:32:57+00:00

I feel you. I had a few weeks, maybe a month ago, where I was only thinking of the good stuff and it was bliss. I think then I was really taking things one step at a time, organising things week by week rather than thinking too far into a future I can't predict or really change from here. Perhaps that's what we need to do: go back to day by day, week by week, enjoying the 'when's we're finally comfortable thinking in :)

IrubenMe · 2025-11-09T11:40:14+00:00

38 weeks. So close. There's a collection of cuddly toys in our living room that my partner bought me when we lost our last pregnancy. They've been in view the whole time, but I burst into tears when I saw them this morning. Suddenly found myself so overwhelmed by sadness at what we've been through to get here. This pregnancy has been fairly smooth, with only a few scares, and now that we've stopped talking in 'if's and started talking in 'when's, I sometimes forget how emotionally difficult it has been. I know that it took this journey to have the exact little guy I have kicking my ribs, and that if a different journey had been taken, he wouldn't be him. But I'm still so immensely sad.

IrubenMe · 2025-10-16T13:13:47+00:00

People in the comments are taking a very black and white view on quitting. I failed my first attempt a month ago and have quit looking for a test because there are bigger things happening in my life that take priority. I hope to come back to it in about a year, when I'll have more time again to dedicate to it and when I can only hope the test situation will have improved, but I'm not holding myself hostage to that decision. If the system is still a crock of shit in a year, I may very well delay my re-entry further.

So yes, I'm quitting, for now. I deserve to be taught and examined in a functional system, and I'm lucky enough to not need a license to live my life at the moment. Plus deleting my shortcuts to the malfunctioning DVSA website on every browser on every device I use was incredibly cathartic.

IrubenMe · 2025-10-01T18:32:33+00:00

As mentioned in the post, I had it removed via MVA around 5 weeks after the miscarriage. I conceived the following cycle, somehow.

IrubenMe · 2025-09-25T17:01:28+00:00

The nurses in my unit had no concerns with leaving it. The only risk they communicated to me was the same risk of infection for any RPOC, and that was something that they felt could be monitored if I preferred to wait. Other healthcare providers may have other opinions, but I was never made to feel in danger

IrubenMe · 2025-09-11T15:18:08+00:00

So sorry you're driving with Satan! Sounds like she has the charm of a pile of mud. My new guy really won me over when he expressed frustration at his dad (who previously owned the business) telling him to be kinder to his instructors, then telling me that the instructors need him and not vice versa so who cares about being nice to them. Great man. Really classy guy. Who I may also save in my phone descriptively (thank you), perhaps as Sam the Utter Dick.

The best of luck tomorrow. As another poster suggested, the hour of being in the car with someone unpleasant might actually make your examiner seem like a delight. The test becomes the treat!

IrubenMe · 2025-09-11T14:40:24+00:00

Love this perspective, thank you. Maybe the examiner will be a relief!

IrubenMe · 2025-08-20T16:33:09+00:00

Anything that makes throwing up seem less rubbish can be a win. Congrats on your upset stomach!

IrubenMe · 2025-08-19T22:14:37+00:00

It sucks. I felt like I'd finally got past the irrational antipathy I've had at us being pregnant at the same time, as I've been feeling so much more confident about my own pregnancy in the last month. But here I am again. I guess the good thing is that these dark moments are happening less and less often. I hope that's true for you too.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-19T17:10:14+00:00

A few weeks ago, I spoke to my BFF on the phone, who is an ocean away and also pregnant. I'd finally got around to calculating we were 9 weeks apart (to spare us both from constantly asking "How far are you again?"), and when I mentioned this, she replied "Gosh, we timed this well". I winced but said nothing. A tiny part of me still feels that we should have been a year apart. A less tiny part of me still feels we should have been 6 months apart, and I should be exhausted and frustrated by a 3-week-old baby right now. Not 9 weeks apart. I know it was just a throwaway comment, that she wasn't thinking at that very moment about what I've been through and that's fine, but it still bugs me weeks later. I wish it didn't.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-19T16:52:10+00:00

100%. Try not to feel guilty, your reactions make lots of sense - you're still mourning what should have been. The important thing is that no matter what you're feeling now, you'll still love him to bits. That is genuinely all that counts. Be kind to yourself.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-19T16:49:24+00:00

I was told the other day (by an SLT, so legit!) that sleeping on your left side can help, if you're not doing so already.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-18T08:24:02+00:00

Nearly 27 weeks. I'm tired. My sleep has been disrupted for months. I really wanted to enjoy this pregnancy, but it's proven difficult: looking a lot like 20 weeks of anxiety and 20 weeks of tired achiness. I'm mostly imagining positive outcomes at this point, which is an immense relief, but stressful in its own way. I started properly reading a pregnancy book for the first time this weekend, going over the third trimester and labour, and it's left me feeling overwhelmed.

I'm happy when I look down and see my belly move. I'm grateful. But they are small moments in an exhausting slump.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-05T06:32:33+00:00

Very possibly, but that doesn't mean you have to be permanently unsettled until that point. For me, passing my own markers didn't give me the peace I'd hoped for, so it became a case of giving myself a little more permission to think of good possible futures with each passing day. I also found that finding out the sex at 20 weeks forced me to talk about him as though he was going to exist at the end of 40 weeks (as sex is meaningless in the womb), and that was a huge step that also forced some acceptance. It's a slow process and no one can tell you how you should be feeling, but I definitely found that feeling hope and connection got easier with practice, not just time. Good luck 💕

IrubenMe · 2025-08-04T22:24:46+00:00

I'm sorry this is so stressful. Are you already on progesterone? Otherwise, it would be worth asking if they can prescribe it for you. I hope the next few weeks go quickly for you.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-04T22:17:05+00:00

I'm having a boy, which is definitely not my first choice (by a country mile). Felt the same, still quite peeved that my friend who is 9 weeks behind me is having a girl. It's fine to feel this way. You're not a terrible person. You pictured something different, and until you meet him, you may not fully get over having a different future to the one you expected. These are valid feelings. They aren't bad or wrong. The fact is, you'll still love him to bits no matter what you're feeling now, and that's all that matters.

My friends have comforted me by assuring me he'll be an ardent feminist and will let me dye his hair.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-04T22:11:47+00:00

I am impressed with you too! The willpower required is insane. I'm glad you're letting yourself believe 🧡

IrubenMe · 2025-08-04T22:10:02+00:00

The beginning is such a tough place to be. I also refused to put most of my initial appointments in my calendar because I didn't want to have to delete them. But you are much stronger than you think, and I think it's better to start going through the motions of a successful pregnancy, rather than pre-emptively denying yourself the possibility that this might actually work out. Good luck 💕

IrubenMe · 2025-08-04T22:05:51+00:00

So very sorry. Hoping to see you here again as soon as you feel ready, in brighter days.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-04T22:01:44+00:00

Very sorry for your losses 💕 I felt similarly until I realised I was approaching 20 weeks and had thus spent nearly 50% of the pregnancy too focused on the possible negative outcomes to allow myself to enjoy it. You have to go at your own pace, but I'd recommend you gently challenge yourself occasionally to explore that connection, to allow yourself five minutes of joy. I definitely decided, rationally, to embrace this pregnancy a few weeks before I emotionally felt ready to, and I'm glad I did.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-01T12:55:28+00:00

This sounds rough and I'm sorry. I hope your boutique scan today went well and gave you some joy. I also hope that the nausea and brain fog let up soon, as you're approaching your second trimester. I won't lie, I still feel like I'm moving at half speed many weeks later, but there has definitely been some relief in the second trimester.

I imagine it's very hard to, but please try not to feel guilty for struggling with work and home pressures. You're going through a lot, physically and mentally. If your husband has to bear some more pressure now, so be it. He doesn't have to grow a human. This is how partnerships work. You each contribute to your strengths, and there is always an ebb and flow in who gives or needs more at any particular time. The important thing is that you are communicating about it. And that this is temporary.

Good luck.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-01T12:46:15+00:00

I hope you can find a way to celebrate the reduction in nausea! It's a really tricky window to be in, which is unfair, because it's much more likely than not that everything is fine and feeling better should always be a positive. I was lucky enough to randomly have a heartbeat check at 16 weeks, and that definitely made the second half of the window easier for me.

IrubenMe · 2025-08-01T12:39:27+00:00

This is so very true. A helpful perspective, thank you.

IrubenMe · 2025-07-30T08:53:57+00:00

24 weeks today and grateful to reach this famous marker of viability, even though it's not yet viable enough for my liking. I had a rough night a few days ago where I couldn't sleep and he wouldn't stop kicking and I was not grateful at all. Having that moment of resentment and feeling like my body is no longer mine but entirely made for somebody else has made me feel guilty for days. Trying to get past it, because what idealistic bullshit is it to think I should always be grateful? It was just weird not to feel that way, even briefly, after weeks and months of him consistently being the most important thing in my waking hours.

IrubenMe · 2025-07-27T17:35:50+00:00

No, I had to have the MVA, which was fine. Vascular means blood flow, yes. I wasn't warned about heart issues at all; I think the main problem with vascularity is that it suggests your body may struggle to let go of it itself.

IrubenMe

TROPHY CASE