Monday one of my co-workers brought in his 4-month old. She was so sweet to hold, so...compliant. So different than the squirmy and sometimes brutal 10.5 month old that I'm used to holding. I was thinking how sweet it will be to have a little bitty one again. And it will be. But not this one.
On Tuesday, I started miscarrying. I'm OK. I was only 6 weeks along so physically it really hasn't been any worse than a period. Emotionally, I'm OK too. While I'm disappointed that there won't be a baby in July and I grieve a little for that vision of the future. I'm not one to consider the embryo (if there was even one, could have been a blighted ovum), a baby. So I don't mourn as though it was the death of my child. I understand people who do, and I don't dismiss or diminish their grief at all. But that's not me and there won't be any angel baby badges gracing my message boards.
Nor am I discouraged or worry about the next pregnancy. Had this happened on my first pregnancy I would feel a lot differently but I don't have that fear that I'll never be a mother and that makes trying to conceive number 2 very different that number 1. I don't want to diminish the importance of a second child. I am a second child myself, so they have a special place in my heart, but it just doesn't carry the same angst.
I am sad. I was looking forward to being pregnant again and having a summer baby. But I'm not devastated. We will be trying again as soon as possible and hopefully next time will turn out differently.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Pregnancy FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about my pregnancy
I'm reposting this from the blog I kept when I was pregnant the first time.
On the message boards I frequent there are a lot of questions that get asked over and over. Understandable since new people probably haven’t seen all of the old posts. Because I am lazy, I am compiling my standard answers here so that I no longer have to generate them each time the question gets asked.
Should I get the NT screen/CVS/amniocentesis? Which and how much testing you should do is really an individual thing. Some people need to know with absolute certainty that there baby has no chromosomal issues and others don’t want to know anything at all. Frequently people say that it depends on if you would terminate. I don’t agree with that. I think there is a lot of benefit in knowing in advance that your baby will have issues even if you have no intentions of terminating, such a planning the appropriate hospital for the birth and research the disorder before you are overwhelmed by caring for a newborn. Like I said, it’s a personal choice.
Now reading that, you might assume that I had a lot of testing. I didn’t. Scott and I took it one step at a time. We had the NT screen and blood test that came back very good so we decided not to do the CVS. Had our risk been higher, we would have probably had more invasive testing. Likewise, had our AFP test or 18 week ultrasound shown any soft markers we probably would have had an amnio, they didn’t, so we didn’t.
When did you start showing/wearing maternity clothes? For comparison’s sake, I am 5’10” with a long torso and was unfortunately carrying about 20 extra pounds when I got knocked up.
Bump noticeable to DH and I: 14 weeks
Bump noticeable to those who knew I was pregnant and were looking: 18 weeks
Bump noticeable to all others: My first stranger comment was a 22 weeks.
I started wearing maternity clothes the majority of the time around 16 weeks
Are you getting the seasonal/ H1N1 flu vaccine? Yes and yes.
When did you start feeling the baby move? 16 weeks. Very tiny, light movements but by 18 weeks she was moving quite a bit.
When could other feel the movement? DH felt it around 22 weeks. Babies have a delightful tendency to freeze up when anyone else’s hand is on your belly.
When was your first OB appointment? My OB's office does the first prenatal appointment at 10 weeks. It seems like the average is somewhere in the 8-10 week range. It is an excruciatingly long wait when you are in the first trimester and wondering what is happening in there.
How often are your OB appointments? Every 4 weeks from weeks 10 to 30.Every 2 weeks from weeks 32 to 36 and then every week.
Does your doctor do anything different because you are AMA (advanced maternal age)? Nope. It never comes up. The only time my Dr mentioned it was when discussing screening testing options. I am on the same appointment schedule as a 26 year old would be. I don't get any more tests or U/S's than anyone else. Simply being over 35 doesn't make the pregnancy high risk.
When did you start getting internals? 36 weeks. I had to take my pants off for the Group B Strep swab so it just makes sense.
When did your baby drop? Around 35 weeks. She was very low the whole time so it wasn't too obvious but I did feel more pressure in my pelvis and my fundal height stopped going up.
When was your first OB appointment? My OB's office does the first prenatal appointment at 10 weeks. It seems like the average is somewhere in the 8-10 week range. It is an excruciatingly long wait when you are in the first trimester and wondering what is happening in there.
How often are your OB appointments? Every 4 weeks from weeks 10 to 30.Every 2 weeks from weeks 32 to 36 and then every week.
Does your doctor do anything different because you are AMA (advanced maternal age)? Nope. It never comes up. The only time my Dr mentioned it was when discussing screening testing options. I am on the same appointment schedule as a 26 year old would be. I don't get any more tests or U/S's than anyone else. Simply being over 35 doesn't make the pregnancy high risk.
When did you start getting internals? 36 weeks. I had to take my pants off for the Group B Strep swab so it just makes sense.
When did your baby drop? Around 35 weeks. She was very low the whole time so it wasn't too obvious but I did feel more pressure in my pelvis and my fundal height stopped going up.
How far along were you when you delivered? 41weeks 5 days via c-section after 4 days of induction attempts. Left to her own devices, she would still be gestating.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
One woman's joy is another woman's heartbreak.
About two years ago, when the hubs and I first started to try to conceive (TTC), I started frequenting the message boards. I stumbled onto a sub-group of 30-something women within a larger general TTC board. The nature of TTC boards is transient. Some come in, get pregnant right away and move on. Others take a little longer. Then there are the board veterans. These are the women who live with the heartbreak of infertility. They watch women month after month get knocked up and move on while they once again cry at the arrival of their period (I refuse to use the term Aunt Flo outside of the message boards. I really hate that term.). This group of "older" women had a mix of all the stages of TTC.
Over the course of the next year, the group remained and we all became great friends. True, we had never met in real life but we were definitely friends. We talked to each other about all aspects of our lives, including but not limited to, baby-making. During that time many of the women became pregnant, others did not, others suffered the disappointment of miscarriages. I was one of the lucky ones. Despite the different paths we were all going on, our friendship remained.We eventually took our friendship off the message boards and on to Facebook, so that there would no longer be an aspect of our lives left outside of The Book. While we talk mostly about the rest of our lives, we do still talk about TTC especially with those that are still trying. Because the women have become such good friends, my heart hurts with every failed IVF attempt and every IUI that one can't afford. I would give anything for them to have a child, I know how great it is. I hurt every time they discuss a sister of cousin who is pregnant or the pain of having to sit through a baby shower or any of the other ways that life slaps you around when you are infertile. I would do anything to prevent that pain for them
So how will I tell them that I'm pregnant again?
Over the course of the next year, the group remained and we all became great friends. True, we had never met in real life but we were definitely friends. We talked to each other about all aspects of our lives, including but not limited to, baby-making. During that time many of the women became pregnant, others did not, others suffered the disappointment of miscarriages. I was one of the lucky ones. Despite the different paths we were all going on, our friendship remained.We eventually took our friendship off the message boards and on to Facebook, so that there would no longer be an aspect of our lives left outside of The Book. While we talk mostly about the rest of our lives, we do still talk about TTC especially with those that are still trying. Because the women have become such good friends, my heart hurts with every failed IVF attempt and every IUI that one can't afford. I would give anything for them to have a child, I know how great it is. I hurt every time they discuss a sister of cousin who is pregnant or the pain of having to sit through a baby shower or any of the other ways that life slaps you around when you are infertile. I would do anything to prevent that pain for them
So how will I tell them that I'm pregnant again?
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