Movement- good and bad

Don’t you hate it when people ask you if you want to hear the good news or bad news first?  I know I do. Especially doctors. But anyway… Good news first.

I know it’s early, but I swear I’m feeling these babies move. Nothing dramatic or consistent yet, but it’s nice. That was my favorite part of Sweetie’s pregnancy (other than the fact she made it to term) and I don’t really know that I ever felt Abby move.

On the crappy side, my husband moved out. I told him we needed to see a counselor or he should leave and he chose to leave. He wants visitation of Sweetie whenever he can and ‘If either of those babies happen to make it, he may want to see them sometimes, too’.   I honestly don’t want to stay in our house, so I imagine there will be a move in the near future for Sweetie and me as well.

‘Unwanted’ pregnancy

So I had a kind of disturbing conversation with a friend this weekend. She has two kids and she is done having more. I was working the conversation around to try to break my news of my pregnancy (which still scares me to death!)

 

So we were talking about another mutual friend who is pregnant and my frIend (Let’s call her Kelly) said she was pretty sure that our other friend was just as done as she was with kids after the next one. Kelly said she hoped our other friend would have a tubal so she’s ‘certain’ she’s done. Kelly said she wished she had had a C-section so she could have had her tubes tied. I was surprised because the way Kelly talks, I thought she (or her husband) had been permanently sterilized. No- Kelly informs me that she’s just on the pill. Well- given my experience with the pill failing (times two!), I made a comment that there are lots of pregnancies still while women are on the pill. 

Kelly blew me away by saying ‘I’d abort in a second if I ended up with an unwanted pregnancy’. Whew- that one threw me for a second. I generally considered myself pro-choice even though a voluntary abortion would never be for me. So I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised, but it was just the way she said it so bluntly that surprised me. 

So, I eventually got it into the conversation that I’m expecting and I was honest that I was on birth control. I kind of hate being honest about that because IF these boys ever make it into my arms, I don’t want them hearing or thinking that they were a mistake or unwanted. 

 

So Kelly then applies her beliefs and asks me why I’m going through this pregnancy if I didn’t want it in the first place. Yes, she pretty much asked me why the heck I didn’t ‘just abort’ these babies.  She knows of my history. She knows I didn’t want to be pregnant ever again. But the big difference is that while the pregnancy is not wanted, the baby at the end of the pregnancy is SO wanted.  Are we allowed to separate those two concepts?  I know outside of adoption and surrogacy, there’s really no other way to get a baby without the pregnancy part.  Is it odd that I have really totally separated those in my mind?

 

So thinking about this after she and I parted-  it really began to hit me that I am changing. I don’t hate the pregnancy part of this experience anymore. Believe me, I did at first. I know that may be hard for some to hear depending on where you are at with your fertility journey. Some women go for years wanting a pregnancy and I have twins drop in my lap a month before a hysterectomy. I didn’t want to be pregnant again. And I really really hated that this was happening to me again.  I have to forgive myself for feeling that way at the beginning. But I didn’t expect to come this far. I actually started rubbing my bump today and felt a tad happy that I’m showing already. I lost Abby before I was showing and the lack of that physical showing bothers me sometimes.  Maybe I just feel like at least if I lose these babies, having a visible bump means no one else can ever deny that they weren’t here. But I *liked* it that I’m showing. I *liked* something about pregnancy. This pregnancy. For just a moment, pregnancy was something other than an awful scary time. 

 

So I’m moving forward. Not there yet. Don’t know when I’ll get there or where there will be. 

Still going

I had a good NT scan this week. Of course, the nasty voice in my head just reminds me that Abby’s NT scan was perfect as well. But I can only take what I know at the moment about this pregnancy and there are two kicking active little guys in there.

Yep, I did say guys. The tech is almost certain that we are having two boys. Crazy. I just wanted my little girl. Them I just wanted to be done with pregnancy. And now I’m carrying two little boys. I can’t help but be a little disappointed- I think I mentioned it before (and felt very guilty for admitting it) but I was really hoping for one girl. Not necessarily just to replace Abby- I know it doesn’t work that way. I just love the mother/daughter bond and really wanted that one more time. And the other really big factor is that I’m certain these babies (IF we make it that far) will have some NICU time and I know girls do better than boys in the NICU statistically. I hoped that might give me a little edge. Goodness knows I need one.

It’s been a scary week, coming off several of the crazy medications we tried with this pregnancy: bye Prednisone and neupogen. Definitely won’t miss them, but it’s scary to do at 12/13 weeks when your last loss was at 16 weeks. Supposedly the damage had been done in the first trimester and thate why (one doctor thinks) I lost Abby. Hopefully these drugs work miracles and I’m giving these little guys the best I can give.  I just keep pleading with the universe/god/anyone tht I please get to keep these babies. I cannot handle losing two more babies.

Worthless

The first person to ever make me feel worthless was my father.  Definitely not the daddy/daughter memories you want to have. I was constantly told that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough and I lacked common sense.  I was told that it was a ‘good thing you’re smart, because no man will ever want you for your looks.’ I was ‘lazy’ and ‘in for a rude awakening when I got out into the real world’. 

 

Keep in mind- I was a straight A student. Top of my class. I won state awards for music and spent most of my time hanging out with church youth group friends. By most people’s standards, I was a good kid. That didn’t stop me from getting verbally abused by my father. He even did his best to minimize my accomplishments-  somehow the man who couldn’t even tell you where I went for music lessons was telling people that it was because of him that I won competitions. He had the nerve to complain about hearing me practice my instrument and wouldn’t let me practice whenever he was home. But he was happy to put on a face in public that pretended he was supportive.  Needless to say, you don’t build a very good self-esteem growing up with that. 

 

And despite breaking off ties and not speaking to him for over 5 years, his voice is still the one I hear in my head. The voice that I hear whenever I do something less than smart. Whenever I feel inadequate. Even when I do something good or right, I still hear that it wasn’t good enough. 

 

Ive tried to squash that voice. I’ve spent years talking about that in therapy. I’d like to think I’d made some progress at getting that voice gone. I think I was just pretty successful in my 20s and I didn’t have so many opportunities to feel like a failure. 

 

Then I started losing pregnancy after pregnancy. I felt like such a failure of a woman- I couldn’t do the one biological task that women were ‘supposed’ to be good at. And I haven’t been able to quiet that voice very well since.  I feel pretty worthless when I look at my history.  Every thing that goes wrong even when I have no control over it just makes me play in my head in stereo that I suck. 

 

So I managed to ruin Christmas this year. I have been crampy for several days and I woke up during the middle of the night to another massive episode ofbleeding. That was just enough to completely distract me from the day and more than enough to piss off my husband. He wanted me to ‘just get over it for a day’. Believe me, I wanted to get over it, too. 

I said I was trying and he filled in with my father’s line that it wasn’t good enough then. Ouch.  He was probably right, but I don’t need any more reinforcement of the negative shit. I feel worthless enough on my own, thanks. 

 

Found one!

So, as I am a glutton for punishment, I busted out the Doppler once again this morning. Husband left early for a haircut and Sweetie was still blissfully sleeping past 7am.  I figured there are two of them in there, I should be able to find one measly heartbeat.

And then it hit me. I was looking where you would find an early HB with one baby (down low by the pubic bone). Duh- I looked up higher since there are two beans crowded in there and found a beautiful heartbeat in about 30 seconds.  I stopped at one and decided not to look for a second. Heck, even at my OB office they will do an u/s every time rather than use a Doppler with twins.

And now I feel like the new Doppler should just retire (and I’m regretting the $$$ I wasted!). I wish I could share it with a blogging buddy who has gotten good news recently. It’s been such an active time- so many BFPs and then so many sad stories as well. I know that’s the nature of Infertility and Recurrent Loss, but it gets so hard to be so up and so down with fellow bloggers. When we are so powerless to do anything but sit back and hope for each other.  I know it’s odd, but I probably feel more positive about other’s pregnancies even more so than mine.  I do cheer on other’s though- each pregnancy makes me say ‘take that and screw you’ to Infertility and RPL.  Here’s to beating them.

 

Why do I do this to myself?

I had another good ultrasound yesterday. Hopefully my last internal ultrasound as I hit 11 weeks on Saturday. 

 

But it’s also that most awful time- I’ve had 5-6 good ultrasounds and things seem to be going well. My OB office doesn’t want to see me weekly anymore, especially not with the holidays. Of course, it’s too early to feel the babies moving, so there’s nothing to reassure me at this point in time. 

 

So what did I do?  I bought another freaking Doppler. I threw out the last one after Abby died. There was no point in keeping it as I wasn’t going to get pregnant again and I really didn’t want the bad reminders. And then I go and do it again and for some reason I try it out tonight. 

Of course, I heard nothing, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway over the sounds of my own sobbing. What horrible flashbacks to that horrible night where I tried to find Abby’s heartbeat with no success. Remembering that I tried to joke with my husband that ‘this kid must not like me to be scaring me like this’ (as I was still trying to hope that she was hiding.) Flashbacks to being on the phone with the on-call OB who tried to direct me as to how to find the HB (yes, she was clearly thinking that I was just a nervous Nellie instead of someone who was really good at using the Doppler). Then remembering the RN in the ER telling me that she’s not very good at finding heartbeats so don’t read too much into it if she can’t. Then the final blow of the ER MD using the portable ultrasound and seeing my lifeless baby there on the screen. 

 

There are some memories we just shouldn’t relive. I don’t know why I bought this damned Doppler, but I should have known better than to do this to myself. 

Best laid plans

I got a call yesterday from the hospital where I was supposed to have my hysterectomy. It was originally scheduled to be this week. They wanted to know why I hadn’t done my Pre-surgical workup and I just chuckled a bit thinking that I clearly wouldn’t have passed that bloodwork. 

So much for making plans, right?  It was supposed to be so smooth- I have met my out of pocket max for the year so this surgery would have been ‘free’. My husband was off for the holiday so he could lift Sweetie and let me rest. I was going to recover from surgery and then be free to move out of the house with my Sweetie in the new year.

Yes- the other big plan on my agenda was to be divorcing my husband. I found some emails on my husbands phone that showed me he had (planned to?) cheat on me while I was 7 weeks pregnant with Abby and he was out of town on a business trip. He insists that nothing happened. Isn’t that such the typical response?  We have fallen apart since we lost Abby, but I’ll admit it really shocked me that he was doing this when I thought we were in a pretty good place before our world crashed around us. 

So I was trying to reconcile how I felt about making my Sweetie grow up without two parents around. We still parent well together, so do we ‘stay together for the kid(s)’?

And then more plans are thwarted by the second pink little line and the crazy ultrasound that told us there were two. How do I move forward with any plans now that I have a high risk pregnancy and potentially two more little ones coming?  Or worse, the heartbreak of losing two more?

I used to love making plans. It was my job before becoming a mother- managing projects and keeping things going on time and on budget and fixing any issues that got in my way. I was pretty darned fearless. Now I try to figure out what I should do next week and it’s enough to send me into a panic attack. Guess I’ll just hold off on the planning till I can get back on some Valium. Sigh.

I’m just not that into your pregnancy

Have you seen that movie ‘He’s just not that into you’?  I think we need a pregnancy version of that movie. I’m so very tired of feeling like the world needs to revolve around pregnancy and pregnant women.

Now a disclaimer- I totally realize this post is ironic because a majority of my recent posts are pregnancy updates. I’m not talking about blogs- I think blogs are a persons unique sacred place where they can talk about themselves and whatever else they want to without apology. It’s their right and others can choose to read or not, whatever they can handle at the moment.

So anyway…has anyone else noticed how many (most?) pregnant women seem to be incapable of talking about anything other than their pregnancy?  I have Sweetie in a park district class that has 8 other 2-3 year olds. Of course, 3 of the other moms are visibly pregnant- all due Jan to late Feb.

So this class is 6 weeks long and there’s not a ton of time to really get to know the other moms, so we spend a fair bit of time making small talk. And of course since three of them are pregnant that means all the small talk HAS to be about pregnancy. Gag.

So I tried an experiment this last class and tried to suggest lines of conversation that had nothing to do with pregnancy. Here’s how it went:

Me: So have you had a chance to do any Christmas baking?  Does [insert toddlers name] have fun helping out in the kitchen?

Her: No, this belly of mine gets in the way too much to do anything in the kitchen anymore. I guess I’ll just have to wait till this baby arrives and then we’ll bake some valentines cookies. Although then I’ll have a newborn to carry around!  I have an old carrier I used with [toddler], do you know if the ergo works with a newborn?  Maybe I should put a different one on my registry?  I know you aren’t supposed to register for the second baby but I just couldn’t help myself.

Take 2:

Me: So are you traveling anywhere for Christmas or do you have family coming for the holiday?

Her: No, my mom is coming in January so she’s here when the baby comes. She’s going to drive me crazy because [toddler] didn’t come till 41w4d and had to be induced and I’m certain this one will be late too so she’ll be here forever. My OB said we could talk about inducing at 40 weeks this time but I don’t know if I want to be induced again. I kind of want to try to have this one naturally and I’ve heard that’s harder when you are induced. Although I kind of liked my epidural with [toddler].  Were you induced with Sweetie?

Take 3

Me:  So are you done with all your Christmas shopping?

Her: Ugh, shopping is such a pain when you’re 7 months pregnant with a toddler.  I just can’t get motivated. Although I did find myself some more great maternity clothes at Motherhood that I just had to buy. Heck, I deserve some Christmas presents for myself right?  I’m SO much bigger than I was with [toddler], I’m really hoping I just stop growing now.

Yes- my attempts to talk to three different pregnant women about anything other than pregnancy were massive fails. Is it just me?  Were my questions just bad?  I guess I can go back to just being quiet and ignoring all the pregnancy chatter and pay attention to Sweetie.

I do find myself looking at some of the other women in the room who aren’t pregnant. Are they like me in the early stages of pregnancy and that’s how they tolerate this constant discussion about pregnancy?  I wonder if any of them have also had issues with infertility?  Does this constant discussion about pregnancy irritate them or hurt them as well?

Superstitious

So it’s Friday the 13th. Not sure if I’m the superstitious type or not.

Of course that may change as of this morning. I woke up to race to the bathroom thinking I just had to pee. But no, I was gushing blood. Bright red blood. I also left a lovely trail from my bed to the bathroom.

So I was not expecting this- the ultrasound on Monday had showed the SCH pretty much gone. So was this fresh bleeding?  And it was very thin like red blood mixed with fluid. I worried that we were losing the sac for one baby.

So it was off to the OB this afternoon. My husband came along as I think he was more freaked out than I was. He doesn’t like the sight of blood and I think the mess in our room this morning really got to him.

Babies are good once again and there is no evidence of anymore SCH. Go figure.

10 weeks down. Hopefully 26 more to go.

Glass is half full

Well, it was my weekly ultrasound/OB visit.

Half- Full: Babies are still looking good and are measuring 9w4d. They are at that cute gummy bear stage and they are wiggling around a lot. Their heart rates were 146 and 150, which is quite a bit slowed from last week. I guess that’s normal from what I read but it still freaks me out just enough that they are just going to keep slowing till they stop like Abby.

Now for the Half-Empty: my BP is high enough that my OB wants me to start medication already. This is not good news. I have a lot of white coat hypertension especially when going in to my OBs office for an ultrasound, but I think this is different. I knew with being on the prednisone that it could elevate my BP. And being overweight doesn’t help any. Hopefully the medication helps. I hate taking yet another drug. Ugh.

Then there’s the confusing issue- when does a high risk patient with twins see a MFM? My OB said there was no point until a level 2 ultrasound at 18-20 weeks. I see lots of Internet stories of seeing them sooner. Guess I need to do more googling. It’s just really tough to let my mind go that far ahead.