My Own Personal X-Factor

Sometimes when you ask a question, you get a different answer. I think every person in the world hopes they are unique, standing out a little from the crowd. But now I wish I was a little more like every one else. This week, results came back from the various tests I had done to try and discover why I have had three miscarriages. Because I have had two healthy girls, they didn't expect to find anything. But they did. Oh yes indeed. (Excuse my slightly manic upbeatness - it keeps me off the windowledge). I have been diagnosed with a phenomenally rare chromosome disorder. To be precise (and if I repeat this enough, it might eventually make sense to me) I have a pericentric inversion of my X chromosome. This means part of my chromosome detached itself, rotated 180 degrees, and reattached itself and is present in that twisted way in every cell of my body. Two days ago I knew nothing about chromosomes other than they sound like hormones and we all know how much trouble THEY cause. Now, I'm an internet expert, and still know virtually nothing.

Except this. When my dodgy X chromosone meets my husbands (perfectly good) Y chromosone when we conceive, we produce a fetus that is incompatible with life. And that is what they were. Three pregnancies incompatible with life. Which is funny, in that heart-breakingly awful sort of way, because I thought they were wonderful beginnings of life. We are seeing a Geneticist on Wednesday to try and find out what implications my 'disorder' (thanks, like my chromosomes are guilty of disorderly conduct) have on my girls, me and our chances of having another much-wanted baby.

So on one hand, I now know why I have lost three babies and there is some comfort in that. Not enough to take away my grief, but enough to know I hadn't done something wrong. On the other hand, a whole scary vista of not knowing has opened up before me. And there may not be any answers. Out of 7500 people on the UK's Rare Chromosome Disorder Support Group database, only 7 have a pericentric inversion of their X chromosome, and none have what I have. None. My consultant has never come across this in 20 years. When my husband said I was one in a million, it seems he was being very conservative.

And my chances of having another baby? My head is hurting from the swirling odds, and statistics and percentages that actually tell me nothing. But all I know is this. Somehow, in the chaos of my chromosomal catastrophe, two miracle girls emerged in a statistically sinister environment where the odds were not stacked in their favour. I have been incredibly, incredibly lucky..... and that, more than anything else in the last few days, is what has turned my world upside down.

The Green Eyed Monster

Following on from my last post, I’ve moved on from Swine envy to child envy – from Mummy Pig to the Green Eyed Monster. Maybe because my 40th birthday is breathing down my neck like a dirty old man on a crowded tube, but I’ve been having weird thoughts about my eldest daughter recently. Up until now, I have firmly been the mother, and she has firmly been the child. I am the boss, and she is the bossed around. I have all the wit and wisdom, and she has all the innocence and ignorance.

But once or twice recently I’ve caught myself looking at her and feeling a little off colour. It’s not that my rose tinted glasses have slipped off – she is as dynamic and dazzling as ever. It’s just that there has been the hint of a haze of green that clouds my eyes. I’ve actually been feeling a twinge of jealousy. Is that awful?

Her life sprawls before her like a long lazy summer’s day, while I feel a chill in the air as I enter the autumn of my life. Is this normal? I think of all the life and loves she has yet to experience, all the excitement and energy she has yet to enjoy. Her life is like a beautiful map – a chaotic ramble of roads and avenues unknown and unexplored. Mine resembles a shopping list – things to get before I run out.

But then as I snuggle her up at the end of a long day of shared moments together (making collages) and shared moments apart (like this one, where I ‘do important work on the computer’ at the kitchen table and they play beside me lost in their imaginary world of Peppa Pig figures – life imitating art more and more!) and she asks me to tell her a story. As I rack my brains, she prompts me to tell her about when I was a little girl. And I sit on the floor beside her, stroking her long hair and I tell her about my eating so much chocolate one Easter, I threw up. I tell her about my rabbit who nearly bit my dad’s finger off. I tell her about the elephant that chased us in Africa. “You were chased by an elephant mummy?” I was. And many, many, many other adventures and excitements and experiences, many in far away lands, that have made my life incredible. And in telling her, I suppose I will relive them again. And I realise that while she has her whole life ahead of her, I have half of mine behind me and it is a map littered with roads and avenues explored and enjoyed. And hopefully I have another half yet to live, more paths to travel, unknown and unexplored, and the difference is now her footsteps will walk alongside mine.

And so I embrace that smidgen of envy and mix it up with large dollops of pride…it will keep me reminded that I must keep making my life – and now hers – extraordinary.