Because It Could Just Never Be Too Easy

At 27 weeks I had a follow up ultrasound to check up on the position of my placenta and the marginal cord insertion.  I was actually originally scheduled to have this done at 28 weeks, but I had been having mega bad anxiety for a couple of weeks, convinced that something was terribly wrong with my baby.  A crying phone call to my doctor's office and a very compassionate nurse moved my ultrasound up by a week and a half.  I find the crazy comes and goes with usually no concrete reason.

Anyhow, my placenta had moved up enough to not be of concern (Yay!) and baby was in the 95th percentile.  I guess one of the main concerns with a marginal cord insertion is having a low birth weight baby, and obviously this wasn't looking to be an issue.  However, with baby being so large they were concerned I may have Gestational Diabetes.  I had gone for my screen the week previous and my result was a good negative, but they wanted me to have a repeat done anyhow.

The next week I had my usual OB appointment in the morning.  Then in the afternoon had an acupuncture appointment. (I've been going for acupuncture since the beginning of my infertility saga, I do believe it has helped me over the years get pregnant.  Except this time.  This time I believe was just a totally random event in the universe!).  During my treatment I began to have some Braxton Hicks contractions.  This isn't abnormal for me.  I had them with Rowan from the late 2nd trimester.  With Harris I had them quite early.  And in this pregnancy I began to feel them around 21 weeks.  I'd most often get them sporadically, but on occasion I would get a bunch in a row but then they would let up, so I was never that overly worried about them.  Later that evening however I was having them A LOT.  Everywhere you read says if you have more than 4 in an hour you should get checked out.  Well, when I finally decided to time them I had 10 "Braxton Hicks" in a half an hour.  So I knew it was time to go into Labour and Delivery and face what was going on.

Of course this happened late in the evening and I had to wake Rowan up and drive her to a friend's house to stay while we set out for the hospital.  We arrived in Triage at about 10:30pm and I got hooked up to the monitors.  It brought back a lot of horrible memories, as the last time we were there, I had Harris.  Eventually a resident came to check on my cervix and she felt it was fine, but wanted to recheck it in a couple of hours.  On the second check she thought it was maybe softening, but wasn't certain.  I was given a couple of doses of a drug to help stop the contractions, but it made my blood pressure fall really low and I wasn't given any more doses after that.  On the third check of my cervix, it was confirmed that it had softened and so it was decided I would be given the steroid injections to help baby's lungs develop and that I would be admitted to the antepartum unit in case delivery was imminent.  I was so frightened that our baby might possibly be born 12 weeks early.

The contractions had subsided somewhat and I was having non-stress tests a few times a day.  24 hours after my first dose of steroids I received the second and last dose.  An ultrasound done on my first day in hospital showed baby was still doing well and that my cervix was long and closed.  This was a relief, but I was kept in hospital to be monitored a total of 3 days.  I was given instructions to go home and keep my feet up as much as possible, and to wait until I saw my OB next to see if I should return to work or not.  I was looking forward to heading home to my family, yet convinced I would be back again...since this really wasn't the first time I'd had a bout of contractions.  It was just the worst bout.

After a couple of days of laying around the house and doing mostly nothing, my Braxton Hicks had almost disappeared.  I thought I had been taking it pretty easy beforehand, but I was beginning to realize that there might be something to this whole resting thing.  I'm now 31 weeks and have been off work and laying low this whole time.  I feel much more confident now that since I am having way less contractions that I can keep this baby in longer!  I am just thankful that at this point 3.5 more weeks have passed since I thought I may possibly be delivering my son, and he will be that much stronger in case I do.  It was also determined from a repeat screen that I do not in fact have Gestational Diabetes, so that was a relief.  This baby of mine is just going to be big!

At my doctor appointment that following week, my doctor wrote me off work only temporarily, at my next appointment we will revisit if I should return for the remaining weeks or not.  My gut tells me no.  I've gone out for the occasional errand since then because I've been going stir crazy, and I've discovered even a 20 minute trip to Walmart (not even pushing the shopping cart) sends my uterus into an angry tizzy.  So even though my doctor felt my goal should be to get to at least 34 weeks, I have no interest in having this baby that early.  My goal is to not have a NICU stay, regardless of how long it may be.  My personal goal is to carry him to at least 38 weeks.  When I have this baby, I want to take him home, and not to have to leave him behind in the NICU, for however long it may be.  So just 6.5 more weeks.  I can do this!

Boy, Oh Boy

Yikes, I really should write here more often.  I have good intentions, but it often feels like a bit of a chore to write down what's going on in life, especially when it's a difficult situation.

At 16 weeks, I broke down and ordered a fetal doppler online.  I struggled with this decision, and my husband wasn't exactly on board with the idea.  He was worried I would get one and not be able to find baby's heartbeat, and end up in emergency because I was freaking out.  And I agreed with him, but my anxiety has been out of control and I just felt I needed SOMETHING to help put my mind at ease.  Well, it's been such a blessing.  I'll usually use it once a day, and it helps to just know that at least at that moment, baby is ok.

Our 18 week ultrasound brought on more severe anxiety.  I was convinced that surely they would find something wrong with our baby.  I mean, there are a million different things that could go wrong...but our BABY BOY was healthy and fine.  My placenta was found to be low lying, but not considered to be placenta previa.  It was also noted that I had a marginal cord insertion which is when the cord inserts into the side of the placenta as opposed to the middle.  Dr. Google says this happens in approximately 10% of pregnancies, but of course it still concerned me.  I was NOT shocked to have confirmed that we were having another boy.  I had told anyone who asked prior to the ultrasound that I was 99.9% sure it was a boy.  It's difficult to explain.  I felt similar to when I was pregnant with Harris, as opposed to Rowan, but I just KNEW.  I won't lie, I always loved the idea of having two girls.  The idea of sisters thrilled me.  Knowing this little one is a boy brought mixed emotions.  Like I felt that we would actually now be living out everything we missed out on with Harris.  It's tough to wrap your head around sometimes.  Yet as the weeks go by and I form a bond with this little boy I am getting more and more excited about what it will be like to have a son.  Shopping for boy clothes and replacing the pink with the blue has been fun also.  A little retail therapy can make anything a little brighter!

Expect the Unexpected

Soooo.....this happened:

We got the call in January that it was our turn to be offered an IVF cycle beginning with my next period.  We paid the IVF fees, and we were all set!  We were so ready to do this thing.  Or rather I was anyway.  Hubby was feeling as if adoption might have been a better option for us, but I was firm that this was something that I needed to do, and he supported me on that.

The type of IVF cycle I was to be on meant me taking the birth control pill for a few weeks before starting the gamut of expensive fertility drugs.  I just had to wait for my period to arrive.  Except it didn't.  A few pregnancy tests later, I was shocked to see the ever coveted 2 pink lines.  I couldn't understand how it happened.  I mean, I know HOW it happened, but seriously.  This was the first month in years that WE WEREN'T EVEN TRYING.  And by this I mean:

• I had not looked at the calendar in an entire month.  I knew vaguely that I was mid-cycle, but that was it.
• I did not use any ovulation predictor kits
• I'd been going to town with my caffeine intake, knowing that I was going to give it up entirely in the next couple of weeks
• I enjoyed a cocktail or glass of wine (or two) nightly.  See reason above.  (Sorry baby!)
• I didn't even lie in bed afterwards for half an hour with my hips elevated with a pillow.  Such silliness!  Is it truly possible for couples to get pregnant without "trying"?  How quaint!

So there it was.  I was pregnant.  I can't even begin to describe how stressful those first few weeks were.  At 7 weeks I was finally sent for an ultrasound, and much to my disbelief they detected a HEARTBEAT!  I broke down, because I was certain that this pregnancy was once again not going to work out for us.  We are just used to things not working out for us it seems.  In fact, when we found out I was pregnant my husband and I were both kind of incredulous that we had accidentally gotten pregnant naturally (perhaps we should have been more "careful"???? HA!).  We both felt that our odds of being pregnant and not miscarrying yet again were better for us if we got pregnant with IVF.  That way they could have chosen a "good" looking embryo to put back in, rather than it just being nature's crapshoot with my dud eggs.  It may sound silly, but that is just where our heads are at now after all that we've been through.

Fast forward to 12 weeks and it was time for the nuchal ultrasound.  The scan plus my bloodwork miraculously all looked fantastic, unlike how things looked with Harris at this point.  Could it possibly be that this time we MIGHT get to take home this baby??

At present, I am 15.5 weeks pregnant.  My anxiety levels in the early weeks were through the roof, but I'm coping a little better now.  I still have moments when I am convinced everything is horrible and that my baby is dead.  They are scary times, and this shadow of fear is never very far from me.  I'm doing my best trying to take this pregnancy one day at a time, and to enjoy what will likely be my last pregnancy.  I am oh so very hopeful that come the end of October we will have another healthy baby to hold in our arms.  This little miracle of a baby.  Because for us it truly, truly is.

Hope vs. Belief

A week before Christmas I found out I was pregnant yet again.  My fifth pregnancy.  I took a second home pregnancy test two days after I found out I was pregnant.  The stick now showed a weak positive.  The following day another test showed a negative.  I knew I was pregnant for the 5th time for a grand total of three whole days.  My third early miscarriage in exactly the span of one year.  In those three days, I became excited for that new life.  I was due in August.  I'd be on maternity leave for my daughter's first year of kindergarten!  I'd already thought through the next 8 months + 1 year.  I can't help it, that's what I do.  And I honestly felt that this time was going to be good.  I BELIEVED that this time I was going to take home a baby.  And it turned out to be so far from the truth.  I got my "period" about a week late, a plain old, no drama, normal period, as if the pregnancy was never even real in the first place.

I have a good friend who is what I describe as intuitively sensitive.  She reads cards and does chakra and aura readings, etc.  She believes that what we struggle with in life is because we don't truly believe in it.  In my case, she figures I don't honestly believe I can get pregnant or have a baby.  I'm just not totally sold on this idea, I don't really believe that this is how the world works...there is just too much sadness in the world that I just can't chalk up to individual's positive thinking.

I saw a medium last month.  I believe she was legit.  She told me Harris' soul is coming back to me and she saw me getting pregnant in the next 4-6 weeks.  It was 2.5 weeks later when I found out I was pregnant.  I believed in it.  She gave me hope.  For the first time, I felt myself really believing that good things were going to happen, and that I would indeed be pregnant and have another baby.  And then I was.  And I had so much faith.  And then I wasn't.  And then I felt very faithless.  It's so much work to build yourself up in hope to only have it shattered time and time again.  And yet.  And yet I am still not at the end of my rope.  I don't feel it at this moment, but I know I must once again dig deep to find the strength to persevere and try yet again to have our rainbow baby.  Because that is what I want, and come hell or high water, we are going to have our baby.  I pray for strength and grace and patience while seeking out hope in every eternal four week cycle.

"A-ha"

You know how sometimes you've heard a song a million times, and then one time you actually listen to the lyrics and you have your little "a-ha" moment.  Well I had one of those moments last night, and I felt more than a little...well, daft.

Every December there is a Candlelight Ceremony held in my city that is for anyone who has lost a baby.  It is put on by the local baby loss support group here.  There's a speaker, they play a couple of songs, a poem is read, and then everyone takes their turn lighting a candle in memory of their baby.  I will be honest.  I still grieve for Harris, and my other lost pregnancies, but at this point in time I kind of feel indifferent about attending things like this service, or support group meetings (whether they be formal, or the more informal ones I've joined in recent months).  I am just really at peace and acceptance with where we are at this point in our lives and what we have been through.  I feel that we do our own things to remember Harris, and it's not as if I really NEED a ceremony to go to remember my baby boy.  But I went, and my husband and daughter came with.  I saw many of the same faces I've come to recognize over the past 21 months.  Some of those faces are now pregnant with their rainbow babies.  It's terrific for them, but there's always still that little jab of jealousy in my gut whenever I see someone's basketball belly, because I too want a basketball in my belly.

Anyways.  Back to my daftness.  So the first of the 2 songs they played that evening was an older country song by George Canyon called My Name.  I've heard it a bunch of times before, but I sat and listened to the words, wondering how it really related to baby loss.  As we were leaving the service, standing waiting for the elevators I told my husband that I didn't really get what the song was about.  He explained it was from the unborn baby's point of view, and that as he was born he took God's hand and was told it wasn't his time yet.  Well, the waterworks sure started then, I cried on the way home, and really ramped it up when I watched the video later that evening once I was home.  So sad.  I honestly had no idea that this song out there was about stillbirth.

The second song that was played that evening was by Daughtry called Gone Too Soon.  It still kind of blows me away when I learn of songs that are out there that are about baby loss.  It reminds me that there are SO MANY people out there that have been touched by the loss of a baby.  And that even in those moments where I feel just so alone, I am not.

So I went.  I enlightened myself with some song lyrics.  I cried.  I remembered.  I loved him.  I missed him.  No regrets.

Any favorite songs out there that help you remember your babies?

Harris' Tree

I'm back!  Here's just a short little post to get me jump started again...

Last year some awesome, caring friends all pitched in and got us a gift card to get a tree in memory of Harris.  We planted it in our backyard in June of last year.  It's a Laurel Leaf Willow, a tree that I've often admired because they grow very full and wide.  Last winter was a hard year on the trees where I live.  Come spring, Harris' tree didn't look very good.  In fact, I was pretty sure it was dead.  We contemplated taking it back and getting a new one since it had a one year warranty on it.  Obviously, it had huge sentimental value on it, so instead, Dan decided to just cut it back and see what happened. 

It then looked like this:

Super sad right??  Luckily, our next door neighbour is like a tree genius and about 6 weeks later our tree looked like this:

Super amazing right?  Turns out his tree was pretty resilient too.  Just like me!
 
 
 

His angel and memorial stone that sit at the base of his tree.  

Surprise! It's Me, Grief!

Sometimes the grief just sneaks up on you.  Like this past weekend.  We headed out of town for the weekend to go camping with some other families who all have kids the same age as our daughter.  We were all looking forward to hanging out with our friends and just having a relaxing time in the outdoors.  On the way to the campground, me and the fam stopped for lunch at a little diner-type restaurant.  I was just feeling in a funk that morning and couldn't really figure out why.  I actually started crying in the middle of our lunch....perhaps I was still suffering from the hormone crash?  I hate that feeling of being so down, and not being able to pinpoint the reason why.  Or in hindsight I think I was kind of ignoring the reason(s) why. 

You see, this past Sunday was supposed to be my due date for the pregnancy I lost during my first miscarriage.  I shouldn't have even been on that camping trip.  And then two days after that was what should have been Harris' one year birthday.  Another reason I should have been at home that weekend.  When I initially found out that pregnancy #3's due date was just a year minus two days from Harris' due date, I kind of felt it was serendipitous.  A good sign.  Rowan's first birthday was such a big deal for me and I loved every minute of planning her party and making it perfect.  So thinking about what we SHOULD have been doing this past weekend was kind of despairing to say the least. 

So ok, I figured out why I was feeling so lousy, and I think I was allowed.  It's funny though, even though I knew these "dates" were looming, I just wasn't really expecting them to get to me so much.

I am still feeling ok after this last miscarriage.  Still haven't really shed any tears over it.  Don't get me wrong, it super sucks and I don't like this path we are on, but it is what it is.  It kind of feels odd to me, the lack of utter devastation that just isn't there this time.  Maybe I'm now so hardened inside that I'm just not as easily affected by huge disappointments?  I don't know if this is "normal", but it is truthfully just how I am feeling these days.