The Trials and Tribulations of Being a Parent

Pamela Thomas was in her mid-thirties when she and her husband married, and they were eager to start a family. But it wasn't as easy as they planned. In The Trials and Tribulations of being a Parent, Thomas offers an honest account of her journey toward motherhood. This diary spans thirteen years of pregnancy and loss, invitro fertilization, and adoption. The journey starts when she realizes she's pregnant, and she details their excitement, informing family, pre-natal visits, mood swings, and feeling like she's an invader in her own body. She was pregnant for just a short time but suffers every emotion. On her first scan, she even visualised her baby attending graduation day from university. The story takes a sad turn when she suffers a miscarriage. Thomas and her husband seek answers from doctors, and they undergo fertility tests to find IVF is their best hope of becoming pregnant. This means lots of medication, more mood swings, hot flushes, and self-injecting. This procedure also fails to deliver. The couple abandon thoughts of a biological family and investigate adoption, a new adventure begins. In The Trials and Tribulations of being a Parent, Thomas tells how this was the most stressful, tiring, and emotional part of their journey. From a pre-adoption course to meeting social workers, foster carers and psychologists, attending meetings, completing forms, and meeting their forever children, and they finally become the family they always wanted to be.