10 Weeks

Wow, double digits on the weekly counter feels good. Almost surreal . . .

Baby should be the size of a prune (about 3 centimeters long). If my doctor are going to keep the 1/24 due date then I will be moving these weekly updates to Thursday, just to be consistent with a 40 week pregnancy actually ending on 1/24. But for now, at least until the next ultrasound and appointment I'll keep them where they have been. 2 days doesn't make that big of a difference . . .

The 4 days that have passed since the ultrasound have been nice.  I haven't spent my time obsessing over whether or not the baby is still alive.  Which honestly, is the first time I can say that in this entire pregnancy.  To not have obsessive dead baby thoughts in an entire 4 day period is a HUGE mental milestone.

Of course, I'm not exactly convinced we are bringing this baby home yet either.  It's a long mental leap to imagine that 9 week embryo we saw Thursday being a healthy baby that we will bring home in 7 months.  So instead of obsessing about miscarrying OR obsessing about finding stuff to decorate a new nursery, I'm just putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to think much about pregnancy at all.  Some days that's easier than others.  I still feel fairly sick most of the time, and some days are much worse than others.  Although, my severe aversions do seem to be going away - I actually ate, and enjoyed, salad twice this weekend.  Bizarre insomnia issues are still kicking my butt.  I can struggle all day to keep my eyes open and have significant trouble going to sleep at night.  And even more trouble going back to sleep after I get up to pee in the middle of the night - which is typically happening once, but twice isn't unheard of either.

So all of that was a long winded way of saying that I *think* I feel pretty normal right now.  At least as normal as it's going to get.

NT scan is scheduled for July 12th.  I'm sure as that gets closer I will freak out more than once.  But for now, I'm trying to enjoy the little bit of sanity the ultrasound last week gave me.  :)

I love my husband, but . . .

. . . One of us is going to have to start sleeping in the guest room. He snores. A lot. Always has. What I have forgotten is how incompatible pregnancy sleep is with someone who snores loud enough to wake the dead. In a non pregnant condition, his snoring annoys me, I elbow him in the ribs, he rolls over and stops long enough for me to fall back asleep.

In a pregnant condition, his snoring annoys me, I elbow him in the ribs, he rolls over . . . But before I can fall back asleep, I realize I have to pee. Then I get back in bed and realize how queasy I feel and wonder if I'm going to throw up. And I lay there trying to suppress the nausea long enough to fall back asleep. EXCEPT, usually sometime in this 45-90 minute routine for me, he has started snoring again before I ever get back to sleep in the first place.

Crap. I am exhausted.

25mm of Perfection

There really aren't words for the anxiety leading up to the appointment today or for the collective sigh of relief my husband and I both shared just minutes into our ultrasound.

Basically everything looks perfect. Cervix is long and closed. Gestational sac looks nice and secure (no tears or signs of detachment). Yolk sac - which is still providing the nutrients - looks healthy. Tiny arm and leg buds were moving around. Brain looks to be forming appropriately. Heartbeat was steady and strong (although this particular machine does not calculate bpm). And just as important as that heartbeat - baby's growth measured exactly 2 weeks further along than our ultrasound from exactly 2 weeks ago. (He/she is currently 25mm long.) Really, could you ask for anything more???

One note about the placenta . . . It appears to be developing well, but it will be anterior. (Forming on the front side of the uterus as opposed to the back.) Medically speaking this is a complete non-issue. Unless the placenta forms over the cervix, it really doesn't matter where it is and as the uterus grows the relative position of the placenta changes. But an anterior placenta means that it may take me longer to feel the baby move as the placenta will cushion some of those early movements. And it also means that finding the baby's heartbeat on a Doppler device may be harder, particularly until the baby gets a lot bigger. In fact the tech told me that it is very likely that we won't find it at my 12 week appointment, but not to worry, they would do an ultrasound if that occurs.

So that's where we are. Breathing a bit easier tonight. Our next ultrasound will be our NT scan to occur sometime in the next 2-4 weeks (I'm hoping for more like 2). I'm sure I will freak out about that as it gets closer, but for now I'm going to try to enjoy the good news we got today, relax a bit, and get a good night sleep tonight.

Question

If I lay in this bed awake all night begging for this baby to still be alive tomorrow, does that increase the likelihood of a positive outcome?

Unfortunately I know the answer, but I still think its how I'm going to spend most of the next 8 hours. Fuck. I'm tired and just want my brain to turn off right now.

Just trying to get through . . .

I'm not sure if it's anxiety about tomorrow or if it's pregnancy hormones in overdrive, but I have been really sick in the last 24 hours. And for the first time in this pregnancy that has included a raging (almost unbearable) headache. I went to bed relatively early last night hoping that would cure it, but sure enough it's still here this morning. I try to avoid any medicine in pregnancy, but I just couldn't go without the Tylenol this morning. Of course, not being able to remember the allowed dosage for pregnancy I pulled out my old folder from my practice, and the first thing I saw was the ultrasound pictures from the last pregnancy. Dagger to the heart.

At first the sickness was giving me a lot of comfort. Now I'm just convinced it's a cruel joke. Lots of women have 1st trimester sickness and still miscarry. Why should I be any different? I don't exactly have a good track record for staying pregnant lately.

But enough of my pity party. I'm going to go spend my day trying to get some real work done, while simultaneously hanging my head over a trash can. And I'll probably cry a couple times too. I just hope the Tylenol kicks in soon. I need whatever relief I can get today.

9 Weeks

Sigh. I don't really know what to say today. If all is well, the baby should be about the size of an olive right now. But as I mentioned yesterday, I am having a hard time convincing myself that all is still well. The next 2 days are going to drag.

I found out yesterday that some things with my job are changing in the next several months. Changes that I don't know if I want to deal with assuming I will be 4-5 months pregnant at the time. One step at a time. Step 1: Find out if baby is still alive. Step 2: Worry about job.

Tick results

In what has proven to be a fairly stressful day so far, I am happy to report that the tick from last week did not carry Lyme Disease. I needed some good news today.

Feeling Really Down

I'm feeling very doom and gloom over the last 24 hours. Convinced it's all over and trying to prepare myself for that news on Thursday afternoon. Yesterday was 8w5d - the day we found out we lost the baby last time. And I just can not for the life of me fathom that there is any way this baby will still be alive on Thursday. My RE must have told me a dozen times at least that statistically *most* people will overcome RPL and go on to have successful pregnancies. I'm not feeling like the odds are in my favor, at all. I just want to curl up and cry.

Sushi

It is 10:27am and I am suddenly feeling like if I don't have some sushi I might hurt someone. (The cooked kind of course.) I have a meeting at noon so if I'm going to get some, I need to get out and do it quickly. Gah. Pregnancy is SO weird.

June 14th

Well, I think the anticipation of this day has been worse than the day itself (although it's not exactly over yet). Interestingly enough, out of 4 miscarriages, this has been my only real due date. With the first miscarriage, I was breastfeeding and we had no idea how far along I was, so there was never a due date. Guesstimate was sometime in February 2011. Then the 2 chemical pregnancies were over so quickly that I never really paid that much attention to what their EDDs were - although I'm sure I could have told you at the time. They were both sometime in March and April of 2012.

And now here we are - the due date of the 4th miscarriage. Crazy. In some ways it feels like the loss was yesterday. In some ways it feels like it was a lifetime ago. I'm not that sad today . . . in fact I'm having a hard time imagining this home being ready to have another baby in it. Of course, I'm 100% positive that's exacerbated by my ridiculous exhaustion and my constant feeling of needing to puke everywhere.

I will never know why I've lost so many pregnancies. I read stories about others with RPL and my heart breaks for them not understanding how they have the strength to get through. And yet, I'm here. Somehow getting through myself. Trying to be a good mom, a good wife, and hold it all together. And now I find myself at the last milestone of the last loss. And I'm desperately clinging to any and all shreds of hope that I don't have to spend another due date like this ever again.