23 weeks and 1 day - Best Case Scenario

A friend asked me the other day for an update on the pregnancy, and how things were going. I explained where we were at with appointments, roughly when I thought the cerclage would be, how our last ultrasound went. He listened closely, and then said, “Wow, it sounds like everything is really going according to the best case scenario.” For some reason, that struck me. I get so focused on orchestrating shots and appointments, trying to make sure I’m grateful for every moment, worrying and overanalyzing… that I forget that everything is (knock on every bit of wood I can find) going the best it possibly could. Even though the odds (and finances!) were against it, medicine and a miracle came together. I’ve got a fantastic OB, a great doctor who is going to do my cerclage, and all I can do at this point is just trust that God put us on this path for a reason.


Tomorrow afternoon, I have a couple of appointments. I’ll go in the early afternoon to meet my high-risk OB and probably schedule the cerclage. I’ve done a lot of research on him since deciding on the Shirodkar, and he’s fantastic – does a lot of research studies on pre-term labor, went to great schools, etc. I’ll then have my 8.5 week ultrasound at my RE’s office – I’m so nervous and excited, I want to make sure everything is okay, and just keep worrying that it’s not. I’ll try and post in the evening when I get home and have more info…

22 weeks and 6 days - "Acceptable"

I had someone recently tell me how well they thought I was doing with Maddie’s passing. I just smiled and said thank you, but thought about how deceiving appearances are.


There is, whether it’s right or not, a statute of limitations on how long you can “acceptably” bring up your child’s death to people. Facebook status updates, mentioning my child in conversation and e-mail, etc. – there’s a finite amount of time where that is something that I personally feel comfortable doing. What happened to my baby (and so many others) is a horrible, awful tragedy – but it’s my husband’s and my tragedy. It’s not really anyone else’s. I don’t want people to remember Maddie out of some dull sense of duty, or because I force them into it – I want them to remember her out of love, and to honor her beautiful memory. I don’t want to force people to pity me – that doesn’t do anything good for either of us.

So, I’ve taken to usually not mentioning Maddie unless it’s truly appropriate to the conversation. If someone asks me how I’m doing, I say “fine.” I will take care of myself as I need, but people don’t necessarily need to know the full answer – they don’t want it when they ask that question. They don’t need to know that I cry for her every day – it doesn’t increase or decrease my memories of and love for her. There are some relationships that become closer and some that fall away after the loss of a child, but in time, it’s natural that the topic fades from others’ minds. All I need to do is make sure she never fades from mine.

Half-post

Cheryl was really sweet, and asked in my comments about info on the cancer I've had previously.  I didn't want her to have to go wading through other comments for my response, so I figured I'd make a quick blog about it.

One of the reasons I really am strongly recommended every year to get a flu shot is because I had cancer a couple of times.  The tumor first showed up when I was about 8 years old, but was misdiagnosed until it was removed when I was 16.  I then had a recurrance at age 22, at which time I had radiation.  It's a very rare type of cancer, and is incredibly rare in children - it's a cancer of the salivary gland, and I was only the 16th child ever recorded with it.  Luckily, it's an incredibly slow-growing type of cancer - but it means that, instead of chance of recurrance going down at 5 years, it increases for me.

I had a PET scan (a very intensive full-body scan that's supposed to find areas of high metabolization, which often indicates malignancies) this summer that came back clean, so that's good news.  It's unlikely that the cancers had anything to do with my infertility, since I exhibited the symptoms of PCOS in my teen years, before there was any spreading or treatment.  However, it does make me more paranoid - which explains why I am a constant worrier.  :)

22 weeks and 3 days - Reasonable

I think there are quiet days, days when there aren’t a ton of words.


Although it was a little frustrating to be stuck inside the last three days, it was a relief to be on virtual bedrest. I felt like the baby was more secure, safer. I went to the flu shot clinic today at work. I went and got an H1N1 vaccine about four weeks ago and everything was fine, but I panicked a little then and I’m panicking a little again now. It’s totally irrational – I know that the vaccine isn’t new (just the dead viruses), it’s been used on millions of pregnant women over the years, there are no adjuvants, I’ve been told to get it by two doctors, and I even have a friend who’s finishing up his doctorate in immunology. I know that there’s no reason to be upset, but I just have this tiny fear that my very, very light egg allergy is going to cause problems, or that the baby will react poorly, or… something. I know that I won’t be content until this baby is born safe into my arms, but I’m just fighting to be reasonable sometimes.

Thanks, all, for letting me vent. :)

22 weeks and 2 days - Day 3

Day 3 of being snowed in.  This blog may turn into a retelling of "The Shining" here soon...

22 weeks and 1 day - Day 2

Ugh.  Day 2 of being a shut-in due to a monster blizzard.  Luckily I can work from home (and have been busy), but this is frustrating.  I understand that there is a chance of being in a situation like this if I get put on bedrest, but I'm sick of these walls!

Hope everyone is staying warm.

22 weeks - My Butterfly

I've had dreams in the past, since Maddie's passing, that she was with me in the form of a butterfly.  It may be a metaphor that has been used before, but it brings me comfort. 

This is just one of the many reasons that it just touched my heart when Bree made this beautiful butterfly for my little girl:

Thank you so much, Bree, for remembering my little girl.  You're an amazing woman.

21 weeks and 6 days - Five Months

Yesterday was pretty rough. I think it might be because Maddie’s 5-month birthday is today, I’m not sure. I feel weak to admit that I had one of those days where I laid in bed for a while and cried for her. I am so grateful for this new pregnancy, and so very blessed – but it doesn’t make what happened to Maddie go away. It doesn’t make me feel better about all of that, it just makes me feel different. More guilty, more… I don’t know. Just more.


Happy 5-month birthday, Maddie. I love you.

21 weeks and 3 days

On Monday, it will have have been five months since Maddie was born. Today, however, is 21 weeks and 3 days – the exact number of days pregnant I was when we lost her. It’s so hard to believe that she’s been gone as long as she was with us physically.


She was such an amusing, sweet baby. When we went to her 8-week ultrasound, she was so tiny, but was bouncing all over along the bottom of my uterus, waving and kicking. When we went for her gender scan at 18 weeks, she was so incredibly active that they had to trick her into settling down long enough for them to get the heartbeat for us (she wasn’t shy about showing us that she was a little girl, though!). I just treasure every second I had with her.

21 weeks and 2 days - 'Tis the Season

I admit it. In the past, I was kind of a shop-a-holic. I had a thing for expensive purses, for example – my husband would usually take me to get one each Christmas for my gift (and, when you get a purse, you have to get a wallet, right?). I was always going to the mall for new clothes, etc. I’ve found that a lot of that has changed since losing Maddie. I just don’t really care about a lot of that stuff anymore. I don’t really need to impress anyone, and that stuff just doesn’t matter at all to me personally now. So much gets put into perspective – what you keep, what falls away.


So, I began staring down the barrel of Christmas. My family is wonderful, but our annual gift exchange has evolved into us all just exchanging gift cards of the same amount every year. I’m so grateful for everything I receive, and love giving – but we’re all adults, we’ll just buy ourselves stuff when we need it. There’s no light in someone’s eyes when they open up a Best Buy gift card. So, I had a proposition. Instead of exchanging gifts, I suggested that we all instead donate an amount of our discretion to a charity of our choice. Then, on Christmas Day, we tell each other to where we donated and why in lieu of the exchange. To my delight, they loved the idea. Now, I’m trying to decide to where I should donate. My first thoughts are the National SHARE Foundation, or to LightACandle. I’m going to be doing a similar exchange with a girlfriend whose baby was six weeks premature this year, and I’m thinking that March of Dimes may be appropriate for our exchange. Does anyone have any other thoughts, or is anyone else doing something of the like? 

21 weeks and 1 day - Breathing (for the moment)

Whew. We had our ultrasound today, and all is good. Better than good - fantastic.  I’m 6w4d gestationally, and measuring 6w1d (so right on track). Heartbeat was strong – 120 bpm. Everything went so well that they said that I don’t need to go see my RE tomorrow for the ultrasound there – we just made an 8 week appointment there. It was such an amazing moment to see the heartbeat, after I was so very worried – I cried (as I always do), it was just so beautiful. I won’t breathe until I’m holding that baby in my arms, but seeing the heartbeat brings the rate of miscarriage down under 5%.


My consult with the perinatologist is on December 17 (same day as my next u/s at the RE). I will indeed be doing a Shirodkar cerclage, so I feel really relieved. You know, I was thinking about it – throughout my life, my goal has always been to have as few people as possible see my business end. I want to go to Heaven being able to say that I really had the least number of people possible who could possibly discuss that part of me. After all of the fertility treatments over the past four and a half years, pregnancy, and then the process of losing Maddie – I’ve kind of decided to start a tally from here on out. Obviously the list will be incomplete, but I’m sure it will be distinguished.

In the interest of that – oh, look, here’s my uterus! :)

21 weeks - Not So Ironic

I often see people misuse the word “ironic” when they are just describing something mildly coincidental. There are definitely things in this life that are ironic. Getting a positive home test on Maddie’s due date was a tiny bit ironic. Hitting your husband with a golf club when he’s a professional golfer is kind of ironic (or at least shows a pretty well-developed sense of the absurd). Misusing the word “ironic” is a little ironic.


I started thinking about this as I look at the next few days. At 21 weeks and 2 days of my pregnancy with Maddie, I went into the hospital in labor. Thursday will be 21 weeks and 2 days since she was born and taken to Heaven, and we’ll have an ultrasound at the RE that afternoon to look to see if we can find the heartbeat for her little twin brother or sister (we also have an appointment tomorrow morning at the OB). This isn’t really ironic, but it is a somewhat strange coincidence.

Cheryllookingforward, who’s a wonderful woman, has posted before big appointments how nervous she was, but how she felt like she was overreacting by worrying so much. Cheryl, you’re not crazy at all. I’m so incredibly nervous for the next couple of days. I worried that my low-grade fever this weekend hurt something, that every cramp I have is something bad, that we’re going to walk in tomorrow and find horrible news. I just figure that I’ll take the next couple of days as they come, and be happy that I have Maddie and this baby today.

20 weeks and 6 days - Sick

Both my wonderful husband and I came down with a stomach flu on Friday, and proceeded to spend three days of our four-day weekend with a fever, throwing up, and everything else. Hope everyone else had a good holiday – now I’m just back to regular morning sickness, which is a place I’ll happily reside.

20 weeks and 2 days - Thankful

This has been a horrible, horrible year in so many ways - but focusing on that does nothing good for me.  I have so many reasons to be grateful.

I am so intensely grateful for my wonderful, amazing husband.  He is always supportive and sweet, even when it seemed like I wasn't going to be able to even function.  He's kind and smart, funny and wonderful.

I am grateful for a stable job that allows me to use my skills.

I am grateful for friends and family.  So many have provided support at different times, given generously of their hearts.

I am grateful for a God who has carried me through a horrible time, given me a focus and hope.

I am grateful for the wonderful women who come here and listen to me ramble, who share their own stories.

I am incredibly grateful for the gift of this pregnancy.  I worry every day that something bad is going to happen, but am just so lucky for every day I have with this baby.

I am grateful for my Maddie.  She was given to me on God's schedule, even though it wasn't mine.  I am so blessed that she was given to me, and she gives me hope everyday.  I want to live my life in a better way so that I might see her again someday.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

20 weeks and 1 day - What to Choose?

I will be 6 weeks on Saturday (or Sunday, depending on how I measure). I’ll have two ultrasounds next week – one with my OB on Wednesday morning, one with my RE on Thursday afternoon. Praying and hoping that all goes well, we should see the heartbeat both times, and I’ll discuss plans for my 14-week cerclage with my OB. Unfortunately, I don’t know what kind I want yet.


I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to over-research things during this pregnancy, but I’ve broken that rule about cerclages – and, unfortunately, haven’t been able to find a clear-cut answer on which type is best for treating incompetent cervix. I’ve looked at tons of studies, and there isn’t a clear statistical difference between using Shirodkar and McDonald, at least not in any studies I can find. All I find is anecdotal evidence and preferences.

Here are my choices. I absolutely LOVE my OB, and trust him with the world – he’s wonderful. He only does McDonald cerclages, and we live in a relatively low-population area, so I’m not sure how many he does. There are two high-risk OB’s about 60 miles away – one does Shirodkar, one does McDonald. I’m not sure if I should go with my local OB and get the McDonald, or if I should go to one of the doctors who does them more frequently. If I do, I don’t know which style to get, as there are different risks to each. I’m just torn. I’m thinking about just asking my OB if he would prefer to do it, or would prefer referring me out, but I don’t know. Does anyone have any experience with the different types of cerclage?

20 weeks - Tiptoes

Today’s already started as one of those days. The worry days. I keep thinking of Maddie, of what happened to her – and this new baby, and how worried I am of losing him or her. We have a death certificate for our firstborn child – it’s just impossible that I would feel secure about this pregnancy. Every time I walk, I worry that I’m straining something. Every time I go to the bathroom, I’m worried that I’m going to find that something has gone terribly wrong. Every cramp I get, I worry that it’s a bad sign, rather than just assuming it’s the normal pains of a growing uterus.


I don’t want this baby’s time in my womb to be spent with me on tiptoes the whole time, but I find that I can’t really help it. I’ve just been trying to spend every day thanking God for giving me one more day with the baby, hoping that he or she can feel how much I love him/her, just as I pray that Maddie can feel the same thing. I think that’s really all I can do.

Happy 20-week birthday, Maddie.

19 weeks and 6 days - Stages of Grief

Sometimes it strikes me how different people are. I read a lot of blogs about baby loss and infertility, and there are a few that are notable to me in their (righteous) anger and pessimism. I absolutely want to say from the outset that I am not at all saying that anyone is better or worse, right or wrong – we all just deal with things differently, and these blogs are our outlet for that.


The reason that I mention this is because, the more I think about it, “anger” really wasn’t one of the five stages of grief that I went through. There were a few things that made me frustrated – I’ve had to deal with and reconcile the fact that work circumstances could have made/helped this happen when it did (this has been weird, since I love my job and don't want to be angry). I’ve been frustrated that women aren’t checked more often for cervical issues because of the insurance companies until it’s too late. Mostly, I’ve felt guilty and sad that my body ultimately failed Maddie. I think that incredible sadness has been my overriding feeling, although I definitely went through bargaining, questioning, denial. I’ve just felt like anger takes up a lot of energy that I don’t have to spend. Now, as I begin this huge rollercoaster of a second pregnancy, I conserve my energy even more.

How about everyone else? Were there any of the stages of grief that you missed or skipped?

19 weeks and 3 days - Worry, worry, worry

I'll be five weeks pregnant tomorrow.  I'm only a week and a half out from getting to hopefully hear my baby's heartbeat, and I should get to hear it twice in one week.  My OB wants to see me at 6 weeks to do an ultrasound and make plans for the cerclage, so we'll see him on 12/2.  I then go back to my RE for the 6 week ultrasound the next day on 12/3.

I hate these stretches between appointments, because all I do is worry that something is going to happen.  I worried about it when I was pregnant with Maddie, and I know now what can happen.  At the same time, I realize that there really isn't anything I can do to control this - I couldn't be much more high-risk if I started juggling fire for a living, so there really isn't anything tangible I can do to make this much better.  I wanted to micromanage and over-research everything when I was pregnant with Maddie; now I realize that it doesn't make much difference.  This is in God's hands now.  Just hoping that it's His will for us to have a healthy baby come next July.

19 weeks and 2 days - All Mixed Up

Got the results back from beta #2. Ideally, they look for your numbers to double over the course of two days. Mine almost tripled – went from 1079 to 3007! Maddie’s numbers were incredibly similar, but were a day later – hopefully this little one has fingernails A friend sent me a study that shows that really high hCG levels coincide with better rates of pregnancy at 20 weeks, so hopefully this is a good sign for us – right now we’re just focusing on (and praying about) making it to the cerclage at 14 weeks!


I know my hormones are pretty ramped up right now, but this all has made everything with Maddie seem a little bit fresher again. I think it’s just doing all of the same things, and everything being so very similar that is making it come back up so much more even than it was for a while. I want so badly to have a healthy, happy baby – but I miss the one that we have so much. I am so glad for her that she’s happy, and that’s all I can want – it’s just hard.

19 weeks - Still Cautiously Optimistic

Well, I have been debating on whether or not to post the results on here, but hopefully everyone in “real life” understands how big of a deal privacy is for me with this.


Just got back the results from my beta – hCG was 1079 at 18dpo! The doctor said, “If I hadn’t put the single embryo in there myself, I’d think there were possible two!” So, my numbers are really good, and we’ll be going back on Thursday morning to make sure that they double. I’m currently 4 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Estimated due date is July 25, 2010 – about 18 days after Maddie’s birthday. We pray to have her fraternal genetic twin born one year later in the same month. :)

We are, however, remaining incredibly cautiously optimistic. There’s still so much that can go wrong. We’re praying for our little miracle, though. Thank you so much everyone for all of the wonderful support!  I'm off to take another Tums.