Dark Cloud

I thought I was going mad when it first happened, my boyfriend and I had moved to a 3 bedroom house in a small village in Cheshire. The reason for the move was that I was expecting our first child and we didn't think our ultra-modern city centre apartment was the best place to raise a child. Lets face it, brushed steel and newborns just don't mix! We found a gorgeous old miners cottage near to where Rob worked that had all the shops I needed and was close to my sister, my mother had passed away 2 years previously.

The first time it happened I was in my last 5 weeks of pregnancy, ready to drop, incredibly cranky and dissolving into tears at the slightest thing; I was sitting in my kitchen looking out of the window when I felt a strange feeling, almost like a tingling feeling all over. Thinking it was just another part of pregnancy I sat there and let it wash over me, but it didn't fade, in fact the feeling intensified, to the point where it had a focus, and that focus appeared to come from behind me. I turned around and there was, what I can only describe as a black cloud, that sparkled with lights but was still dark. I didn't feel scared, I just looked at it. The feeling started to fade and I turned away from it. When I turned back (when the feeling had completely dissipated) it had gone.

Rob came home from work and I told him what had happened, he dismissed it to begin with, and then, after I was so persistent that it had happened, he explained it away by using my past experiences with migraines (I loose vision when I get migraines), however I had not had a migraine since I got pregnant.

I had 3 weeks till my due date, and the incidences of the "presence" persisted and escalated to the point where I was seeing it at least once a day. Eventually Rob got so worried that I was losing my mind due because of some weird pregnancy side effect that he made me go to the local surgery to chat to the doctor. I spent twenty minutes explaining to the nice GP that I wasn't going mad I was just seeing a black cloud around my cottage. The doctor checked all the ususal things, blood pressure, temperature, felt my tummy, felt the baby kick and pronounced me perfectly healthy. He advised rest and if the "black cloud" came round again I should make a note of what I was thinking of/doing and see if there was some kind of link.

So I did.

I mentioned previously that I lost my mother 2 years previously, and I dont think I have ever missed her more than when I was pregnant. There was so much I wanted to share with her, so much I wanted to ask her. There was so much I was scared of that only she could comfort me on.

Well, the next time it happened, I was in the garden enjoying the sunshine, remembering when we would sit outside in summer, reading a book, talking about family, sharing a bottle of wine..and it came again. I never once felt threatened, and this time, I felt love. So I thought about it and decided that it might be mum, showing her support and love when I was missing her most.

Two weeks later I had beautiful baby girl. She was born on the July 16th, she weighed 6lb 7oz and we named her Charlotte Elizabeth. She was beautiful and although I missed sleeping, I was never happier.

When Charlotte was 2 months old we were enjoying an Indian summer, when the days were hot and the nights were cool. I had Charlotte down for her nap in her pram outside in the cool near a tree in our back garden, there was no way into the garden except through the house, and I was in the kitchen so she was perfectly safe. So, there I was, in the kitchen loading the washing machine, when I felt the tingling begin, only this time it felt different. I looked behind me and the cloud had formed, as I looked at it, (trying to work out what was different) it seemed to solidify and suddenly it moved very quickly through the kitchen, out of the back door to hover over Charlotte's pram and the sparks within the cloud got brighter. For a moment I just stood there, not sure what to do, then my feet started to move.

I ran to the pram and looked down and Charlotte was lying there going blue. I picked her up and opened her mouth, stuck my finger in, I could feel something at the back of her throat. I had her cradled in my arms, half balanced on my leg trying to get whatever was stuck in her throat out, when all of a sudden something hit the back of her chest really hard and a bit of plastic shot out of her mouth hitting my cheek, and then she started to scream. I have never heard a more welcome sound.

I rang an ambulance, they came and took her to the hospital, she had scratched her throat and had a bruise on her back but otherwise she was fine. The doctors congratulated me on on knowing where to have pushed to get (what turned out to be a glass eye from a teddy bear) the object out of Charlotte's windpipe, even though it had bruised her back.

It wasn't me, it was the cloud, it was Charlotte's grandmother.

I haven't seen it/her since. I just feel very comforted that she is watching out for her grandchild.