1st trip to labor and delivery

I haven't been feeling great since Wednesday. I have had diarrhea a few times a day since then. Also, almost immediately after reporting that the little one has been so active, I stopped being able to feel her move much at all. In fact yesterday...nothing. I even laid on my office floor and drank cold OJ to try to elicit a response...but nada.... and overnight, when usually I feel her a lot...also nothing. I knew she was alive because of the blessed doppler...but why the sudden lack of movement?

Add to that the fact that we leave for vacation on a jet plane tomorrow...and I was starting to get very worried. 

My dear husband Will convinced me to call my doctor early this morning. The on-call OB called back and told me to come in to L&D and get checked out.

Which I sheepishly did.

Despite my embarrassment, it was interesting to see where I will hopefully not be back to for a veeeerrrrry long time. They put me in triage, checked baby's heart, took a thorough history (through which they kept saying...so so sorry about all the losses), and did an ultrasound to check her fluid. All was ok. And during this, Magpie eventually woke up and started getting really active. You could see her kicking from the outside! Why wouldn't she do that before to reassure me?!

The triage nurse was super validating, telling me not to be embarrassed. That I did the right thing. That if anything comes up again, she hopes I come back. Even if it means coming in over and over. Such a nice woman. The resident was also very nice and reassuring.

So all is good. It's been recommended I take Immodium to deal with the diarrhea on the plane if I need it. Also recommended that I work extra, extra hard to stay hydrated. Especially because it is so hot here in NYC the past couple of days.

So phew! False alarm! Hoping for smooth sailing once we actually get on this vacation!

Mo

Click here to subscribe

Quickening and 21 week appointment

I am feeling the little one quite a bit these days. It's been a few weeks now that I have felt her, but she is definitely getting stronger this past week. Yesterday evening she was very active, so I had Will put his hand on my abdomen and she gave two intense kicks in a row. His eyes opened wide, and he said, "Wow!!!" Yup, no joke now. There is definitely a baby in there. Mostly she feels like she's rolling and twisting around, but there is also some intense elbow and foot action going on from time to time.

I saw my OB this morning (21 weeks, four days) and all is still looking good. She checked the cervix - said it is still long and closed, checked for bacterial vaginosis - negative, blood pressure is good and low 115/65, and she said I should be checked again for the previa issue around 28 weeks (at which point she also wants me to do a growth scan) but don't need to check it before that. While we are on vacation next week, she advised me to call any time I am worried about anything. Said that I should call after 5pm to get a prompt return call from whichever physician is on call. She did an ultrasound, but I didn't even need it. I knew the little miss was alive because I could feel her squirming around.

I asked her too at what point they would try to resuscitate my little girl if she came too early. She said I have to get to 24 weeks. I'm certainly not planning on having Magpie join us any time soon, but it helped (and scared me a little) to know how far I have to go before they would try to save her. So at this point, I need to get two and a half weeks further along (gulp) for her to have any chance at all. I think I will be holding my breath just a little bit until then...exhaling a bit more at 28 weeks...then some more at 33...and maybe not fully until she's here in my arms.

Mo

Click here to subscribe

The 20 week milestone

Reaching 20 weeks is a big pregnancy milestone. I am thrilled we are here. That the little one is still alive.

I had been doing ok with my fear levels until about a week or so ago...and then as we approached the 20 week mark, all hell broke loose internally. I became terrified that the baby would die before we reached 20 weeks. In my nerve-wracked mind (and in medical terminology), her death before 20 weeks would be miscarriage #7. Should she make it past 20 weeks, and then die, she would be stillborn. She would be counted differently, as my child, as having been here. Of course this is all semantics. Nothing magical happened between last Friday and Saturday. Same little one. Same emotional impact of her death, if that had occurred. But I felt so afraid that she might just get lumped in with all the other losses, and be, well, "lost" amidst my history of recurrent miscarriage.

Perhaps needless to say, but while I was in this terrified state of mind, imagining this little one making it full-term, and being born alive, and joining our family...well that was a tall, somewhat impossible, order.

In this strange, dark way, 20 weeks became this critical milestone to get to.

I saw the OB last week and immediately she could tell I was much more anxious than I have been. She wanted to know why, and I tried to explain. I ended up crying on the exam table about wanting this baby's life "to count." I could tell that I shocked her. I haven't been so emotional this whole pregnancy. I haven't let myself get emotionally invested.

But as usual, she was great. Reassuring, normalizing. Saying I've been holding myself back this whole time, and now it's hitting me. I am pregnant. There is a real baby inside of me. A baby I could lose, just like all the others, and have my heart shattered. She listened, she reassured me. She checked everything checkable. Cervix is long and closed. Blood pressure good. Urine fine. Weight gain fine. She had me list my fears again and we went over them one by one:

preterm labor
preeclampsia
PPROM
cervical incompetence

She said preterm labor doesn't happen this early unless I'm dilating. And I'm not. I look fine so far for preeclampsia. PPROM also almost impossible unless I start dilating. And cervical incompetence (which could lead to many of my other fears) we are checking for weekly and see no evidence of.

I have another anatomy scan this Friday. We will check on everything checkable. Again. I will get a cervical measurement done. My mom will be here visiting and will come with Will and me. I think it will thrill her beyond imagining to see the scan. This is her first time to see me this pregnancy. Her first time to see me visably pregnant ever. Another milestone.

I've been checking on little Magpie almost daily with the doppler. She's in there cooking. She's the size of a cantaloupe. She's doing fine as far as we know.

Her mama is a bundle of nerves but is hanging in there too. I just need Ms. Magpie to stay in there for another 8 weeks minimum.

Stay in there. Stay alive. Stay in there. Stay alive.

I repeat this to her in an urgent whisper several times a day.

So far, she seems to be listening.

Mo


Click here to subscribe

90% good, 10% fear

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been traveling a lot for talks and otherwise swamped with work on top of being fairly exhausted. Sleep is getting tough. I hope it is not a harbinger of what the remainder of this pregnancy will be like. I am uncomfortable. My legs are restless and achy. My back has started to hurt sometimes at night. Which all translates to me getting through my busy days and travel as best I can and then trying to take it easy when I can.

Today marks 18 weeks, 5 days. Wowza. I can't believe we are still pregnant. That time is still passing. I show my stomach to Will almost every night, with the question/comment - "Can you believe this?!" He just smiles at me and says it's amazing.

It is feeling more real. I am able to hold the idea that we might actually have a baby on one hand, and simultaneously hold the possibility that we could lose her at any time. I was worried I wouldn't be able to imagine a good outcome at all, so being able to hold both outcomes seems like a step in the right direction.

Ninety percent of the time, I'd say I'm able to hold the good and imagine we will have a living child. We talk like this, that this child will have a name, and have a room, a future in our family, etc. Which is good, but also strange-feeling.

And then 10% of the time, I'm afraid. Sometimes deeply afraid. I've had lots of uterine sensations this week. I usually feel something once or twice a week, but this week it's been pretty much every day at some point. Sometimes just an odd feeling, sometimes a uterine tightening. Sometimes a stabbing vaginal pain, although that's been momentary. It's been hard not to get scared that something is wrong. That my cervix is giving way, that something is wrong with the baby. So I went in this week to get checked. Baby looked much the same as last week, slumped over with the weight of her ginormous, heavy head. The OB checked my cervix also, and she said it was fine. So that was reassuring, although I am still a little nervous.

This is the way things are right now. Trying to take an acceptance stance. Not judge myself. Just get reassurance when I need it. Take things one day at a time. Let myself a little more and a little more, imagine a positive outcome.

As far as we know, all continues to go well. Edging closer and closer every day. Hoping for the best.

Mo

Click here to subscribe

Weekend uterine freak out

This weekend was my talk up in Rochester. My husband Will took a couple of days off, we gathered our boxer Moxie's things and loaded her in the car, and we all headed up there together, planning to spend a couple of days tooling around the Finger Lakes after the talk.

The talk went well. It's a little tiring to be on my feet for a couple of hours, but no biggie - the energy of presenting tends to carry me through. After my talk, I spent several hours holed up in my hotel room finishing writing a second talk that my boss is right now giving on my behalf in San Jose, California.

That night, I noticed some uterine discomfort. I tend to have this once or twice a week. I'm not sure what causes it, but I picture the baby getting bigger in little spurts, sometimes causing my uterus to stretch. Usually, the pain is brief. I've gotten pretty used to it.

However, this night, it lasts all through dinner. I feel it as I'm falling asleep. Then while I'm restlessly trying to sleep, I feel the sensation intensifying into discomfort along my whole left side, enough that even in my dreams I am in pain.

I dream that something is wrong with the baby and that I need to go to the hospital. In the dream, Will pooh poohs me and won't come with me, so I am in a strange city on my own, looking for the hospital. I finally get there, but they don't do an ultrasound. I don't know if the baby is ok.

I wake up, really uncomfortable physically.

Tossing and turning, I have this dim idea that I'm having a placental abruption. I have the half-awake/half-asleep dream thought that the baby is dead because I was silly enough to travel out of town to give a talk. Because of course, giving talks kills babies, an irrational notion I can't seem to shake.

I wake up. It is morning. I am still crampy.

All the cobwebs of the night before merge. I am convinced that the dreams were prescient in some way. I am scared that the pregnancy is over.

I tell Will about my nightmares and about the cramping, but I don't want to freak him out about how freaked out I am. As soon as he takes Moxie for her morning walk, I whip out the doppler...fumbling around with it...and for the life of me I can't find the baby's heartbeat. I'm starting to panic.

And then finally...after what seems like an eternity...there it is.

Super strong. Galloping like a horse. A heart rate in the 140s, 150s. Loud, unmistakable.

I almost cry with relief.

Within a couple of hours, the left-sided pain subsides. Still don't know what it was. Round ligament pain, maybe? Dehydration?

My uterus was quiet the rest of the weekend. And is fine now. Baby's heartbeat still going strong, as of this morning.

I, on the other hand, think I might have lost a few years off of my life.

Mo


Click here to subscribe

The three of us live to see another day

My RE fit us in this morning for a quick ultrasound. Told us to just find him in the back by the ultrasound area at 8:30AM. To not worry about an appointment. (It sounded so clandestine, but we were grateful.)

As of this morning, the spotting is still present but down to just a light brown. I figure whatever was bleeding still has to clear its way out of me, so the brown doesn't scare me so much.

When the RE saw us (huddled quietly in the back), he said he wouldn't be able to tell us anything except whether there's a heartbeat, because he doesn't deal with things this far along.

That's fine, we said. Heartbeat is all we care about at this moment.

So he did the scan.

Baby is big now!

And it has a heartbeat still (phew! I was trying not to totally freak out but was pretty nervous about that.)

Here - you take a look and see what you think...

Measuring a couple of days ahead, according to our RE. Heart rate today was 164 bpm.

So deep exhale over here on both Will's and my parts.

The three of us live to see another day.

Phew.

Seriously.

Looking forward to the "easy" part of this. The part where I'm just moseying along, relaxing, assuming everything will go well.

Maybe that isn't realistic.

But it sure would be nice.

Mo


Click here to subscribe

Maybe things were going too well?

Will and I went up to Connecticut with Moxie yesterday and took Ms. Mox out for a walk along the beach and then took Will's mom out for dinner.

We haven't told really anyone (except for you guys and our doctors) about this pregnancy and have been weighing when to tell our moms. Will decided yesterday, 10 weeks on the nose, was the day for us to tell his mom. She was very excited for us, a little cautious because of our terrible history, but excited. The first thing she said was that she might cry (and she is not an emotionally expressive person).  She agreed to keep the news to herself, for now, with the promise that we will tell Will's sister, whom he is close to, soon. The only hard part for me was when she asked me, "Is it yours?" She knows we considered using a donor. And I knew what she meant, and she is 75 years old, but gosh, however we get a baby, that baby will be mine, will be ours, 100%.

All in all, it felt good to tell her. But scary. Because what if something bad happens now? What if telling actually makes something bad happen?

After dinner, we stop by her condo, I go to the bathroom, and I am spotting. Red. Not a huge amount, but not nothing.

My uterus is unhappy too. Not cramping exactly, but irritated. Burning almost.

Cue panic on my part. A desperate need to get home. Right. Then.

Which Will obliged me on.

I've been staying close to my bed since then. Had a friend who is in town come over for a casual breakfast and chat because that was previously planned and not strenuous, but otherwise, I am supine. In bed. On self-imposed bed rest.

The spotting is brown now, which is better than pink/red, but still!

I am trying not to panic. Trying not to think that telling someone we were pregnant was enough to end the pregnancy. Trying not to be hypervigilant about symptoms. Am I less nauseated? Less tired? Less acute sense of smell? Whenever I notice my mind going in that direction, I stop myself. I don't need to monitor this. There is nothing I can do.

I pray the baby is still alive. We are trying to arrange an ultrasound check for tomorrow if possible. My OB is out on vacation all week making this a bit more complicated, but we are trying other avenues.

I will keep you posted. But I just wish things were a little more boring over here.

Mo

Click here to subscribe

Decisions on travel...and blood work

I have a small dilemma. I'm trying to decide what to do about some potential upcoming travel. I am slated to give a workshop in Rochester, NY in late April...two days after that, I am supposed to give two talks at a conference in California. If I am still pregnant (sorry, but I can't help but think of it like that), I will be 14 weeks along at that point, second trimester, hopefully in a stably-pregnant place.

My OB says it should be fine to go.

I tell myself it should be fine to go.

I am expected to go. This workshop is mandatory and I signed a contract that I would do it. And this conference is an important one for my current area of research.

But I am scared. Really scared. I associate conference-attending with miscarriage, based on the last pregnancy. I am scared of being far from home. I am scared that I might end up in a situation where I have to lift my luggage - into the overhead compartment, onto a conveyor belt, onto a luggage stand at the hotel, etc. I am also scared of "overdoing it" in some other poorly understood way, of having to push through fatigue or other symptoms because I have to "be on" at the conference, attending dinners, etc. in addition to giving my talk. I was hoping Will could come with me, but he has just found out he has other work commitments he can't get out of.

So I'm not sure what I should do. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I've always vowed I won't be one of those people who holes up in a cocoon during pregnancy, afraid to do anything. But this pregnancy is so precious, and the causes of at least some of my miscarriages so mysterious, that I find myself wanting to cocoon.

The one upside? The conference is about 1 hour away from where I once used to live, and where a number of dear friends of mine still live. So if I go, I'll try to stay on a few days to a week to be able to see at least some of these folks post-conference.

What do you think? What would you do, and why?

Mo

--------------------------------
In other news, I'm waiting (im)patiently for my progesterone and estrogen results from an blood draw earlier today. I will post an update when they finally come in, not that it's a big deal to anyone but me...but anyway...

UPDATE:

Blood work is back...

So, as of today, at 9 weeks, 6 days, my progesterone is doing great at 58.4. I will be (gulp) dropping to 1/2 cc daily and keeping the one suppository in place for now. My estrogen has dropped to 763 (from 1,169), I guess because I dropped from 3 Vivelle patches to 2. So we will be staying at 2 Vivelle patches for a while yet. Checking everything again on Monday to see how it's looking...


Click here to subscribe

Waiting for the phone to ring

Hanging in...feeling mostly recovered from the IVIG, I think, and it's now only two more days until Will returns from his trip. Really looking forward to his return. In the meantime, all seems to be status quo. I'm having some occasional uterine twinges and momentary cramps, which I am guessing/hoping are growing/stretching pains. Same level of pink tinge...not really spotting, but spotting not completely absent either. My fatigue remains, but seems a bit better today. Appetite and sense of smell are off, but not intolerable. In fact, my appetite seems a little better, which of course has me a bit concerned, but I'm trying not to overanalyze.

I went in this morning for my weekly blood work check. It's amazing how anxious waiting for the results still makes me, even after doing this week after week. Again, the tech wouldn't let me drop the beta check. I told her I only need the progesterone and estrogen and she went and talked to a nurse and said they wanted to check the beta HCG again too. OK...I guess...Just hoping nothing comes back wonky and freaks me out. I'm down to 1cc PIO + 2 suppositories (from 3) and down from 4 estrogen patches to 3. Hoping those numbers are still good enough and that the beta is higher than last week (beyond that, I don't think there's anything to look at with the HCG anymore. And I wish they would stop checking it at my local clinic - Denver certainly doesn't want that lab value anymore - but my local clinic folks don't seem amenable to that).

So now it's the wait. Tick... Tock... Tick... Tock... I think it's silly this is still so nerve wracking for me. I'm pretty certain that the IVF nursing staff at my clinic would never guess how worried I am. After all, usually when someone is this far along, they've moved on into a blissful pregnant state. Or maybe not? Maybe that's just my imaginings of what "other people's" (read: non-miscarriers') experience is like. Sounds like many of you have had lots of fear too, so I suspect my imaginings are incorrect...

I will feel MUCH better getting the results, I think. Even though a rising beta and good estrogen and progesterone do not a live baby make (necessarily). I would have felt even better not checking on things at all. Weird, but true. I think by the time next Wednesday's ultrasound comes around, I'll be terrified to check but desperate for confirmation of the pregnancy or a desire to find out it's over. Thankfully, Will will be back by then, so I won't be on my own, whatever the news is.

I was scheduling patients today for next Wednesday, and as has happened every week, I paused before scheduling anyone for after the ultrasound. I know I'll be too much of a mess to see patients if I've just found out I've lost the baby. So I had the thought that maybe I should just keep my schedule clear....just in case. Ugh. Crazy thinking. I need to just keep living my life, I finally told myself. If the pregnancy is over, I will call patients and tell them there's been an emergency and cancel them. I don't need to predict the terrible outcome and plan for it. Seriously! Especially not every week. Not a good way to live one's life, waiting for and anticipating disaster at every turn.

Sigh.

So hoping the phone will ring soon with these results. And willing time to pass quickly so I can get a little further into the pregnancy. Just trying to be sane in the meantime. And succeeding...mostly...I think.

I will post the lab numbers when I get them. Should be any time now. Thanks for waiting with me.

Mo

Click here to subscribe