Friday, May 21, 2010

Pregnant

As most of you know from my Mother's day post I am pregnant!  So here is the background, it is a bit wordy.

I am sort of still in disbelief over this situation.  We were not trying, we were done.  I was planning on taking an educational sabbatical and/or changing careers by going back to school.  In my head I was planning on the special things we could do with just having one child.  At the same point, I was also wondering how we surround our little girl with relationships that would match a sibling. 

I suppose I should back up a bit.  We did want another child, we really did.  But this has been a rough year, well starting in July.  We had 2 losses and clinically I shouldn't have been able to get pregnant easily again.   It has been an emotional rollercoaster but at least for me, I felt like I was getting my head out of the clouds for once and was happy.  I was happy with our little family of three and then I started getting exhausted...  I took a pregnancy test, had some symptoms that led me to believe this was just leading to another loss and then had an ultrasound.  I had an ultrasound in which I saw a little heartbeat.  We were cautious but luckily followed by my amazing Reproductive Endicrinologist and graduated from him at 10 weeks. 

I went to my birthcenter at 11 weeks and saw the wonderful lactation consultant/nurse who helped with Celia's birth and led the breastfeeding group that I attended sitting in the office.  She said congratulations and then said "you don't look all together happy".  I guess, I was still in disbelief of the situation and relayed my fears.  It felt good to be back at the birthcenter.  I love that place.  I met with the midwife for probably an hour (honestly, tell me how many OB/GYN's meet with you for that long!!).  I heard the heartbeat on doppler, it took all of one second to find it.  I was suddenly at ease.  You know there is a but... coming here.   5 days later I started bleeding.  Pete and I headed to the birthcenter to meet the midwife on call who could not find the heartbeat on doppler.  You know the heartbeat that we had heard so clearly 5 days before.  She tried with two dopplers.  With my history, the bleding, and difficulty finding the heartbeat things were not looking good.  The midwife honestly would not give us any indication but she did tend to agree that no if you put all these things together, it wasn't looking good.  So we went back to our Endicrinologist's office for an ultrasound to confirm what we thought was my 3rd loss and guess what 162 beats per minute is what we saw!!! Oh and a stupid subchorionic hematoma.
A subchorionic hematoma, not as big as the one that I had with Celia, but the same stupid complication.  So I was put on bedrest for a few days and then told to just take it easy- no lifting, no exercise, rest when I can.  Yesterday I had a follow up ultrasound and I was nervous.  But again, 160 beats per minute and all is well.  Oh but the little complication is still there, but things appear to have stabilized.  So still on restrictions though I am finding it very difficult to follow!!  At least now I feel that I can share the pregnancy with most people.  I was so afraid of having to untell but at 14 weeks, things are looking good.

So that is our dramatic history of this pregnancy.  Celia's was perhaps just as dramatic so neither kid can argue about that!  With Celia I had 3 episodes of hemmorhaging and go to deal with an OB office that had a horrible bedside manner- I am talking everyone there. 

So that is where we are now.  Celia knows and I am letting her lead the questions for the most part.  She wants to name the baby "girl" (according to her), Patsy Doggy.  Hmmm... I am thinking no.  She is very insightful.  I told her yesterday that I had pictures of the baby and she looked at me like I was insane.  "But mommy, isn't it too dark inside your belly to take pictures?"  Huh???  Explaining ultrasounds to a 2 1/2 yearold is beyond my capability but she liked the pictures.

1 comment:

Jen said...

Congrats!!!! I bet she will a GREAT big sister!