This week I've ticked over to 28-weeks pregnant and officially into the last trimester. Entering the last trimester I've found things getting a little more about the business end having a baby - which makes a lot of sense I guess.
This week I've had a pre-admission interview with the private hospital we are having the baby at and I'm sorry to report it was a dead set downer.
Making it to this pregnant is still amazing to me. And for the past few weeks I've really enjoyed being pregnant and started believing I will have a baby soon. I do still sometimes catch myself, and think 'don't count your baby before it's born' - but then I feel the little munchkin kicking away and I'm back to thinking about the much more likely scenario of having a real small person of our own soon.
The telephone pre-admission call didn't start well. I'd missed my initial appointment, so this time I was on the ball waiting for the call, that didn't come. I followed up after half an hour and soon enough I got a call from a midwife. After going through the basics I hit the wonderful question regarding what number pregnancy this is, whether I'd had any miscarriages and terminations. The joy of explaining this is my sixth pregnancy and we've had no children. Then having to remember every lost pregnancy and every hospital the procedures were done in. Trying to explain the heterotopic pregnancy. It was bloody hard - and confusing. She was rushing ahead, getting the details wrong. In the end I was so flustered I couldn't even remember when one of the miscarriages happened. After we went through this history she then asked whether this pregnancy was naturally conceived. Uhmmm, no, it was IVF - did you not just take down my left fallopian tube and then my right fallopian tube were removed due to ectopic pregnancies?
For the past weeks I'd put thoughts about the losses behind and was just enjoying this pregnancy, so all that was a bummer. The midwife then asked about gestational diabetes. I'd just done the test on the weekend and my obstetrician had confirmed that I wasn't diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Yay. He did mention that my numbers were on the high side of normal, so he would keep track of the measurements of baby just to make sure everything was okay on that front. So I tell the midwife I'd been tested and it came back negative. She looked up my results and then proceeded to lecture me on my numbers being high and that I didn't want to get gestational diabetes. I told her my ob said he'd keep an eye on the baby's measurements. She continued telling me I should be watching what I eat and only eating low GI. If I get gestational diabetes the likelihood of me getting diabetes later in life is increased. Oh and did I know I was already overweight, which puts more pressure on the body and the insulin resistance that can develop...
Yes, I did know I was overweight. Yes I know the risks of gestational diabetes. Yes I got your brochures on breast feeding but figured until I had a baby to try it out with it probably wasn't worth reading. Can we move on now and focus on the miracle that I'm actually 28-weeks pregnant. No, let's talk about my mental health. How am I feeling? Well, now that I'm thinking about the fact that I'm overweight, and that even though I don't have gestational diabetes you've made me panic about my chance of still developing it and remembering the 6 babies I've lost over the past four years, I'm feeling a little sad actually. But 30 minutes ago, I felt great and yes I can cope with the house work, or cope if the house work doesn't get done. Believe me, I've got that down pat.
My first midwife experience and I didn't love it. Yay. So glad I have an awesome, non-panic instilling obstetrician that I get to see instead of seeing scary, kind-of-heartless midwife.
Our next obstetrician's appointment is just over a week away. At our last appointment our ob did the scan to check baby's measurements and mini matty is shaping up to be a big boy. His head measured on the 75th percentile, his femur measured 5cm, which was smack bang in the middle on the 50th percentile, but his abdomen measured on the 97th percentile! He averaged out as being on the 80th percentile and weighing an estimated 965 grams. Apparently all that is fine, if he is just growing to his genetic potential. The key is the measurements that will be taken at our next appointment and whether mini matty is still growing at the same rate. Growing too quickly, getting too big is the problem, and the key problem for gestational diabetes - that I don't have, but apparently I don't get to relax about that until these next measurements are done and (fingers crossed) mini matty measures on around the 80th percentile still.
The pre-admission phone call is a blip and I've been back to loving it again. Last night I did some research and decided what type of bouncer I'd like to get... imagine our own little person bouncing away...
Friday, August 2, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Holy pregnant - almost 25 weeks!
I have completely lost my blogging mojo and I'm missing sharing all the good stuff.
Funnily enough, I've gone back to work for few weeks and being busy during the day seems to make me able to achieve so much more outside of my work hours too. So while I'm on this roll with work, I'm going to TRY to get back to blogging about all the good stuff going on.
I think I am a really a very lucky pregnant person. I have felt well for all but one week of the 25 weeks so far. That one week in the first trimester I had a little nausea and a disgusting taste in my mouth, but then it stopped. Hooray! I've had no cravings and I haven't been off any foods either. I can still cook and eat anything I used to. I almost feel like I'm gloating, having heard so many other horror stories.
In the past couple weeks, corresponding with going back to work, I did have a bit of water retention, resulting in puffy feet and fingers, but this week that seems to have stopped. I hope it stays that way! I did start to think this must be the beginning of the bad stuff that comes with the pregnancy progressing.
Oh, and while I remember, I've also had sore hips a little bit. I noticed I can't sleep on one side for too long. Standing and walking around for long periods also plays with my hips. But then again, my husband also complained of having a sore back and hips after doing the pregnancy and baby expo, so maybe it isn't just a pregnancy problem!
About five weeks ago I started being able to feel our baby moving. How amazing is that! Over the past three weeks those movements have become quite strong and more spread out across my tummy, not just down low where I could initially feel them. The movements were finally strong enough I could feel them gently when I pressed against my tummy in the right spot, but I had the advantage of also being able to feel them on the inside.
About a week or so ago I commenced the process of trying to get my husband to be feeling at the right time. I think it was a little annoying and disappointing for him because he couldn't feel it. He is also worried about pressing too hard and hurting the baby. A few nights ago the baby was very, very busy and doing big turns. I had my arms crossed my tummy and felt it give me a shove. So I got husband's hand in the spot just above my belly button and it all came together at the right time and our baby gave two big kicks exactly where my husband's hand was. Again, it was just amazing! I was so thrilled that at last my husband could feel the baby.
We have our next obstetrician's appointment tomorrow. We are still only going every four weeks at this stage. I think this appointment will be about measuring the baby. Between 24 and 28 weeks is when they test for gestational diabetes and the measurements taken at the 24 weeks appointment are then compared with the 28 weeks appointment to make sure baby isn't growing too quickly. In between these two obstetrics appointments I will also be sent to undertake a glucose tolerance test. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of doing one of these tests, they take blood after fasting, and then again each hour for two hours after I've consumed a measured amount of fizzy drink.
Being a heavier person to start with I have been quite careful about trying not to gain too much weight during the pregnancy. To date I've gained three kilograms and I'm hoping to keep my overall weight gain to under eight kilograms - this is within the recommended guidelines for someone with a higher body mass index at the start of pregnancy.
Early on I was worried that people would just think I was fatter, and not pregnant. I still think people who didn't know me would wonder "is that lady pregnant, or just fat?" I can really tell the difference as all my clothes don't fit around the waist! Personally I think I'm really beginning to look pregnant which is pretty fun. I've had to buy maternity wear in the past couple of weeks, and as it turns it, nothing makes you look more pregnant than wearing maternity wear.
One last awesome pregnancy thing, how good is my hair and my skin! My hair suddenly grew at light speed and looks beautiful. My face feels so smooth and soft - seriously people are commenting on how good I look.
Happy, happy pregnancy days right now. Here's to a continued healthy, trouble free pregnancy.
Funnily enough, I've gone back to work for few weeks and being busy during the day seems to make me able to achieve so much more outside of my work hours too. So while I'm on this roll with work, I'm going to TRY to get back to blogging about all the good stuff going on.
I think I am a really a very lucky pregnant person. I have felt well for all but one week of the 25 weeks so far. That one week in the first trimester I had a little nausea and a disgusting taste in my mouth, but then it stopped. Hooray! I've had no cravings and I haven't been off any foods either. I can still cook and eat anything I used to. I almost feel like I'm gloating, having heard so many other horror stories.
In the past couple weeks, corresponding with going back to work, I did have a bit of water retention, resulting in puffy feet and fingers, but this week that seems to have stopped. I hope it stays that way! I did start to think this must be the beginning of the bad stuff that comes with the pregnancy progressing.
Oh, and while I remember, I've also had sore hips a little bit. I noticed I can't sleep on one side for too long. Standing and walking around for long periods also plays with my hips. But then again, my husband also complained of having a sore back and hips after doing the pregnancy and baby expo, so maybe it isn't just a pregnancy problem!
About five weeks ago I started being able to feel our baby moving. How amazing is that! Over the past three weeks those movements have become quite strong and more spread out across my tummy, not just down low where I could initially feel them. The movements were finally strong enough I could feel them gently when I pressed against my tummy in the right spot, but I had the advantage of also being able to feel them on the inside.
About a week or so ago I commenced the process of trying to get my husband to be feeling at the right time. I think it was a little annoying and disappointing for him because he couldn't feel it. He is also worried about pressing too hard and hurting the baby. A few nights ago the baby was very, very busy and doing big turns. I had my arms crossed my tummy and felt it give me a shove. So I got husband's hand in the spot just above my belly button and it all came together at the right time and our baby gave two big kicks exactly where my husband's hand was. Again, it was just amazing! I was so thrilled that at last my husband could feel the baby.
We have our next obstetrician's appointment tomorrow. We are still only going every four weeks at this stage. I think this appointment will be about measuring the baby. Between 24 and 28 weeks is when they test for gestational diabetes and the measurements taken at the 24 weeks appointment are then compared with the 28 weeks appointment to make sure baby isn't growing too quickly. In between these two obstetrics appointments I will also be sent to undertake a glucose tolerance test. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of doing one of these tests, they take blood after fasting, and then again each hour for two hours after I've consumed a measured amount of fizzy drink.
Being a heavier person to start with I have been quite careful about trying not to gain too much weight during the pregnancy. To date I've gained three kilograms and I'm hoping to keep my overall weight gain to under eight kilograms - this is within the recommended guidelines for someone with a higher body mass index at the start of pregnancy.
Early on I was worried that people would just think I was fatter, and not pregnant. I still think people who didn't know me would wonder "is that lady pregnant, or just fat?" I can really tell the difference as all my clothes don't fit around the waist! Personally I think I'm really beginning to look pregnant which is pretty fun. I've had to buy maternity wear in the past couple of weeks, and as it turns it, nothing makes you look more pregnant than wearing maternity wear.
One last awesome pregnancy thing, how good is my hair and my skin! My hair suddenly grew at light speed and looks beautiful. My face feels so smooth and soft - seriously people are commenting on how good I look.
Happy, happy pregnancy days right now. Here's to a continued healthy, trouble free pregnancy.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Oh where oh where have I been
Well, a lot has happened since I last posted. No big surprise I guess when you take a 6 month blogging break.
The biggest news is I'm pregnant (I know - again) but this time I am seriously pregnant. Well, for me it feels seriously pregnant to make it to 17 weeks. That is nearly half way!
I will back post some updates about my second full round of IVF. I did an antagonist cycle, which was quite different to the long form synarel round I did first time around, so in the interest of continuing my commitment to providing factual information about the IVF process I will write up what was involved in the antagonist cycle.
The main reason my blog writing stalled was everything going on at work. For some time I had been trying to sign up to a redundancy package. The pressure of working for the same organisation through our ongoing IVF and six pregnancy losses just weighed on me and the temptation of a tasty pay-out and break was very strong.
Knowing a lot of my colleagues knew about my blog, I felt I couldn't write about my struggle with my work and my desire to leave our much loved organisation. After months of internal organisation discussions, and waiting, on 31 January 2013 I finally walked out the door of my permanent government job. I left behind much strived for job security and a great package (and an awesome maternity leave policy) with the loose plan of a three month break, before getting back into the job hunt, or setting myself up as a consultant.
The other reason I slowed down on the blog was that I simply felt a lot better. After years of stress, sadness and busyness, I made peace with our fertility / infertility stuff. I think the blog has played a big role in my ability to process the stress of fertility treatment. I also did a few sessions with a psychologist that helped a lot after our last pregnancy loss. I suddenly found myself more at ease with my pain, my sadness, my struggles and the tension slowly slipped away. I have a draft blog on these sessions that I will finish and post.
On 6 February 2013, just days after I finished work, we did another embryo transfer and were not surprised to have yet another positive pregnancy blood test on 18 February 2013. My three month break turned into my first trimester. Three months where mostly things seemed to progress well, but mentally to some degree I was still expecting to lose the baby.
Now I'm well and truly into my second trimester, I haven't worked at all through the pregnancy and I feel totally awesome. I would like to do some work to bring in some cash before the baby is due, but neither my husband nor I think it is worth me going nuts about finding work or working full-time and potentially putting unnecessary pressure on me or the pregnancy. We are so lucky the payout I received was substantial enough for me not to need to work for a long time yet, but I am well aware that any extra cash I earn now will mean the longer I can not work once we actually have a baby, or a new kitchen...
Baby's due date is 25 October 2013, which happens to be our fifth wedding anniversary.
Our next major obstetrics milestone is the 19/20 week morphology scan scheduled for 5 June 2013.
I can't believe my baby making mission blog will actually now get to cover my experience of pregnancy and not just pregnancy loss. All of these weeks not working I've had to blog and it has taken some time for me to feel positive enough to decide to get cracking with it again.
The biggest news is I'm pregnant (I know - again) but this time I am seriously pregnant. Well, for me it feels seriously pregnant to make it to 17 weeks. That is nearly half way!
I will back post some updates about my second full round of IVF. I did an antagonist cycle, which was quite different to the long form synarel round I did first time around, so in the interest of continuing my commitment to providing factual information about the IVF process I will write up what was involved in the antagonist cycle.
The main reason my blog writing stalled was everything going on at work. For some time I had been trying to sign up to a redundancy package. The pressure of working for the same organisation through our ongoing IVF and six pregnancy losses just weighed on me and the temptation of a tasty pay-out and break was very strong.
Knowing a lot of my colleagues knew about my blog, I felt I couldn't write about my struggle with my work and my desire to leave our much loved organisation. After months of internal organisation discussions, and waiting, on 31 January 2013 I finally walked out the door of my permanent government job. I left behind much strived for job security and a great package (and an awesome maternity leave policy) with the loose plan of a three month break, before getting back into the job hunt, or setting myself up as a consultant.
The other reason I slowed down on the blog was that I simply felt a lot better. After years of stress, sadness and busyness, I made peace with our fertility / infertility stuff. I think the blog has played a big role in my ability to process the stress of fertility treatment. I also did a few sessions with a psychologist that helped a lot after our last pregnancy loss. I suddenly found myself more at ease with my pain, my sadness, my struggles and the tension slowly slipped away. I have a draft blog on these sessions that I will finish and post.
On 6 February 2013, just days after I finished work, we did another embryo transfer and were not surprised to have yet another positive pregnancy blood test on 18 February 2013. My three month break turned into my first trimester. Three months where mostly things seemed to progress well, but mentally to some degree I was still expecting to lose the baby.
Now I'm well and truly into my second trimester, I haven't worked at all through the pregnancy and I feel totally awesome. I would like to do some work to bring in some cash before the baby is due, but neither my husband nor I think it is worth me going nuts about finding work or working full-time and potentially putting unnecessary pressure on me or the pregnancy. We are so lucky the payout I received was substantial enough for me not to need to work for a long time yet, but I am well aware that any extra cash I earn now will mean the longer I can not work once we actually have a baby, or a new kitchen...
Baby's due date is 25 October 2013, which happens to be our fifth wedding anniversary.
Our next major obstetrics milestone is the 19/20 week morphology scan scheduled for 5 June 2013.
I can't believe my baby making mission blog will actually now get to cover my experience of pregnancy and not just pregnancy loss. All of these weeks not working I've had to blog and it has taken some time for me to feel positive enough to decide to get cracking with it again.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Starting from scratch
I'm back in the fertility specialist's waiting room. It's been two years since my first appointment here and despite how hard it has been, I'm much more at ease with my fertility issues.
Two years ago I wrote my Melbourne Cup blog where I had a mini break down in the specialist's office. Today the receptionist that drove me to tears that day is now on a first name basis and we casually chat about nothings. The baby photo wall, once known to send me into a spin of distress, is now not even background noise. I still hate baby photo walls but at least I don't want to stick pins through the baby eyes anymore.
I'm waiting to find out if there is anything I can do in advance of our next full round of IVF. If we can find out what might be the cause/s of our miscarriages. I know they might not be able to find anything. If they do it might not be treatable. Want to start the next round with as much hope and information as possible - and hopefully have the success we desire.
Two years ago I wrote my Melbourne Cup blog where I had a mini break down in the specialist's office. Today the receptionist that drove me to tears that day is now on a first name basis and we casually chat about nothings. The baby photo wall, once known to send me into a spin of distress, is now not even background noise. I still hate baby photo walls but at least I don't want to stick pins through the baby eyes anymore.
I'm waiting to find out if there is anything I can do in advance of our next full round of IVF. If we can find out what might be the cause/s of our miscarriages. I know they might not be able to find anything. If they do it might not be treatable. Want to start the next round with as much hope and information as possible - and hopefully have the success we desire.
Hideous baby photo wall
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Crashing down
By the time we went into our appointment with the obstetrician I think my hope was outweighed by my doubts. When the ob asked "how are you going?" I was very quick to reply that we weren't so great. I quickly explained the result of the ultrasound from the week before. The ob said it was probably best we get straight to having a look, rather than spend half an hour talking about pregnancy management, just to find out things aren't looking good. He also told us a story about a woman he'd seen whose first scan didn't look good, with the baby having a heartbeat of 78. He said when she came back he felt nervous about what the scan would show, but that everything was great, the baby had a heartbeat over 160 and had really grown.
A glimmer of hope just as we get on the bed for the scan.
He starts with an external scan. By this time, 8 and a half weeks, the baby should be clearly visible from an external scan. By how hard the ultrasound thing was pushing on me I could tell it was hard for the ob to see the baby, and from what I could see on screen it didn't look good. He switched to an internal scan where he confirmed that things didn't look good. He said he was sorry, but from what he could see the baby didn't have a heartbeat and the size hadn't changed from our last scan.
Procedure from this point is to have a high resolution/diagnostic scan. The portable scanners the obs have apparently can miss stuff, so they are reluctant to recommend the curette without the diagnostic scan. Our ob rings the women's diagnostic centre and gets us an appointment in a couple of hours. He asks if the result is as expected if we'd like to have the curette that night if they can get a theatre booking.
We head home for a couple of hours. Given we have the chance of having the operation in the evening I've got to eat something now, and then I'm on nil by mouth, just in case we can secure the evening theatre time. An hour before our appointment I drink the obligatory pre ultrasound water, knowing no matter how full my bladder is they will still need to do the internal scan.
It's funny that it doesn't really matter that we already know that it is pretty much over, when the sonographer sympathetically tells us she can't find a heartbeat I still can't help but cry. She confirms the baby is still the same size it was a week and a half ago. She looks around to make sure the other embryo isn't tucked away somewhere it shouldn't be, but there is nothing else, just the one that is no longer a viable pregnancy.
With our results in hand we head back over to the obstetrician's office where he quickly sees us between patients. He asks if we'd like to have the curette that night or tomorrow morning. I opt to have it done that night, so that way only one day revolves around the whole ordeal.
We head home to pack 'a just in case' overnight bag and by 5pm we are back at the hospital being admitted. By 6.30pm I am wheeled down to pre-op and by 8pm I'm back in my room texting home. They keep me in for a few hours and then we are allowed to go home.
Despite having a body full of sleepy drugs I didn't sleep well. I couldn't get into a deep sleep. I don't cry, just toss and turn.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Scanning
Well, I've been on holidays at the beach for the past 12 days. We holiday in a small beach side town each year. It is an incredibly beautiful part of the world. I had decided to take the risk and book in our first viability scan for the day we were leaving for holidays. I thought this showed great faith in that the pregnancy would be okay. If it wasn't okay, I planned to head to the beach anyway and drink myself into oblivion.
The scan was with our fertility specialist - the first viability scan. I've actually never managed to have a viability scan with him due to bad holiday timing over the past year. As it turned out, this time he was going on holidays for the same days as us, so we managed to squeeze the scan in.
I was a little disappointed with the scan. He showed us one baby, with a heart beat, right at the top of the uterus. He was pretty happy about it. He said "I'm not hearing any oohhhs and aaahhhhs". So he tried to hear the heartbeat. I tried explaining, it wasn't that we weren't pleased, it's just that we've seen a lot of tiny babies, that don't even look like babies, with heartbeats. He printed a picture for us.
I have grown to hate ultrasound images. I hate everybody's ultrasound images, not just my own. If a see a friend post their ultrasound image to facebook, I have to delete/hide the post. To me they just look freaky. So Matt took the picture. He thought his family might like to see it, I said "really, why would they want to see that?"
Due to my specialist usually being on holidays, our first scans have generally been with ultrasound clinics. These scans give you sooooooo much information. You get the crown to rump length, the heartbeat rate, the size of the gestational sack, the gestational age. So when the fertility specialist showed us a blob with a heartbeat and said it looked about the right size, I was underwhelmed.
As we were both about to head off on holidays the fertility specialist gave us a referal to get a diagnostic scan done, just in case anything went a miss during the week of holidays.
We packed the ultrasound referal in our gear and headed off on holidays hoping we wouldn't need it, but that wasn't to be the case. The very next day I had a pretty heavy bleed, dark red with little clots in it. I lost it. I was crying and crying. I just hate it. One day everything is 'fine' the next day, it seems like we are about to have another miscarriage.
The worst part is, there is nothing to do about it. You just have to go to sleep, get up the next day and somehow try to enjoy your holiday at the beach. The bleed was on a Saturday so we couldn't even go for the scan until Monday at the earliest.
So we soldier on. Force yourself to get outside and enjoy the beautiful place you are in. Try not to think about it all the time. Try not to let your bad mood spoil it for everyone else who is there.
On Monday we get the diagnostic scan. The baby is still there, but we are told it is only measuring 5 weeks and 6 days and the heartbeat is 96 beats per minute. Basically, the baby is more than a week smaller than it should be. The sonographer also told us that the heartbeat would preferably be over than 100. In closing, he said the pregnancy was viable at this time, but given the result no doubt another ultrasound will be needed in another week or two.
So the baby is small, with a slow heartbeat. The same sonographer gave us similar news last year with our heterotopic pregnancy, and that baby miscarried soon after. We don't leave with smiles on our faces. My husband says on the way to the car "We know how this played out last time, but I guess we just need to give the little trooper a chance."
We had a little more spotting over the next day, but for a week now I've had nothing. I've had not bleeding. I've also had no morning sickness or other symptoms that wouldn't be caused by the progesterone pessaries I have to use morning and night.
Our first appointment with the ob/gyn I chose for this pregnancy is coming up, so I haven't bothered following up with our fertility specialist about getting another scan. I have some hope - hey, maybe it will be fine - I really hope that it is. I also have some doubts.
The scan was with our fertility specialist - the first viability scan. I've actually never managed to have a viability scan with him due to bad holiday timing over the past year. As it turned out, this time he was going on holidays for the same days as us, so we managed to squeeze the scan in.
I was a little disappointed with the scan. He showed us one baby, with a heart beat, right at the top of the uterus. He was pretty happy about it. He said "I'm not hearing any oohhhs and aaahhhhs". So he tried to hear the heartbeat. I tried explaining, it wasn't that we weren't pleased, it's just that we've seen a lot of tiny babies, that don't even look like babies, with heartbeats. He printed a picture for us.
I have grown to hate ultrasound images. I hate everybody's ultrasound images, not just my own. If a see a friend post their ultrasound image to facebook, I have to delete/hide the post. To me they just look freaky. So Matt took the picture. He thought his family might like to see it, I said "really, why would they want to see that?"
Due to my specialist usually being on holidays, our first scans have generally been with ultrasound clinics. These scans give you sooooooo much information. You get the crown to rump length, the heartbeat rate, the size of the gestational sack, the gestational age. So when the fertility specialist showed us a blob with a heartbeat and said it looked about the right size, I was underwhelmed.
As we were both about to head off on holidays the fertility specialist gave us a referal to get a diagnostic scan done, just in case anything went a miss during the week of holidays.
We packed the ultrasound referal in our gear and headed off on holidays hoping we wouldn't need it, but that wasn't to be the case. The very next day I had a pretty heavy bleed, dark red with little clots in it. I lost it. I was crying and crying. I just hate it. One day everything is 'fine' the next day, it seems like we are about to have another miscarriage.
The worst part is, there is nothing to do about it. You just have to go to sleep, get up the next day and somehow try to enjoy your holiday at the beach. The bleed was on a Saturday so we couldn't even go for the scan until Monday at the earliest.
So we soldier on. Force yourself to get outside and enjoy the beautiful place you are in. Try not to think about it all the time. Try not to let your bad mood spoil it for everyone else who is there.
On Monday we get the diagnostic scan. The baby is still there, but we are told it is only measuring 5 weeks and 6 days and the heartbeat is 96 beats per minute. Basically, the baby is more than a week smaller than it should be. The sonographer also told us that the heartbeat would preferably be over than 100. In closing, he said the pregnancy was viable at this time, but given the result no doubt another ultrasound will be needed in another week or two.
So the baby is small, with a slow heartbeat. The same sonographer gave us similar news last year with our heterotopic pregnancy, and that baby miscarried soon after. We don't leave with smiles on our faces. My husband says on the way to the car "We know how this played out last time, but I guess we just need to give the little trooper a chance."
We had a little more spotting over the next day, but for a week now I've had nothing. I've had not bleeding. I've also had no morning sickness or other symptoms that wouldn't be caused by the progesterone pessaries I have to use morning and night.
Our first appointment with the ob/gyn I chose for this pregnancy is coming up, so I haven't bothered following up with our fertility specialist about getting another scan. I have some hope - hey, maybe it will be fine - I really hope that it is. I also have some doubts.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
All positives
My HCG blood test was positive, with my HCG coming in at 183. My second HCG blood test came back at 382. This is all positive. They are looking for the HCG to double at this early stage, and mine did that.
There is nothing extraordinary about these numbers, that is, they didn't say 'wow that's big, maybe it will be twins'.
Two week wait is officially over, however once you know you are pregnant it is just more weeks of waiting. I am again waiting for the first ultrasound. The ultrasound will confirm if obiwan and obitwo are both still hanging on. Waiting to find out if the pregnancy is viable at this time. Then, if the first ultrasound is good news, it is just more waiting, to find out if the pregnancy will last the next week, 2 weeks and so on.
Thankfully after our last pregnancy loss we sat down with our fertility specialist to discuss what was going on (here's my blog on that). He told us that despite having lost 5 babies in early pregnancy, that we really were just unlucky, versus there being something specific causing the problem. Four of the five pregnancy losses were completely random and could happen to anyone. The fact that they all happened to us is apparently just really bad luck.
Armed with this knowledge, I've created myself a new mantra or two during this pregnancy:
I wish I didn't need the mantras, but I do. I am occasionally overwhelmed with it all and not even the mantras help. I've downloaded an anxiety information sheet and read it when I'm feeling really anxious to try and help diffuse the feelings.
There is nothing more I can do about it I guess. I just have to wait it out.
There is nothing extraordinary about these numbers, that is, they didn't say 'wow that's big, maybe it will be twins'.
Two week wait is officially over, however once you know you are pregnant it is just more weeks of waiting. I am again waiting for the first ultrasound. The ultrasound will confirm if obiwan and obitwo are both still hanging on. Waiting to find out if the pregnancy is viable at this time. Then, if the first ultrasound is good news, it is just more waiting, to find out if the pregnancy will last the next week, 2 weeks and so on.
Thankfully after our last pregnancy loss we sat down with our fertility specialist to discuss what was going on (here's my blog on that). He told us that despite having lost 5 babies in early pregnancy, that we really were just unlucky, versus there being something specific causing the problem. Four of the five pregnancy losses were completely random and could happen to anyone. The fact that they all happened to us is apparently just really bad luck.
Armed with this knowledge, I've created myself a new mantra or two during this pregnancy:
- Short mantra - there is no reason this pregnancy shouldn't work
- Long mantra - millions of other people find out they are pregnant and don't worry about losing it and there is no reason this pregnancy won't be like the ones all those other people have.
I wish I didn't need the mantras, but I do. I am occasionally overwhelmed with it all and not even the mantras help. I've downloaded an anxiety information sheet and read it when I'm feeling really anxious to try and help diffuse the feelings.
There is nothing more I can do about it I guess. I just have to wait it out.
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