The Birth & Aftermath

After the amnio, we came home and I immediately started to contract again.  I spent the next 5 days contracting every 3-6 minutes.  I got nervous twice when they were 3 minutes apart and went to triage.  Still no cervical change so they sent me home - always with offers of more procardia.  Umm.  No thanks since I nearly died with the first dose.  I was flat out totally exhausted by the time it was scheduled c-section time.  I asked my sister to come up to help my mom and the golden child watch A2.  And truthfully, to help the stress level with the two of them.  The golden child had chewed the inside of her lip raw over the weekend worried about the impending birth and my mom was a nervous crying wreck.

We showed up on time and things got rolling.  As they were about to take me back, they had to take back an emergency c-section -  so I got bumped for about an hour.  Baby A2 came up with my mom and sister and wanted NOTHING to do with the whole process.  He saw me with an IV, my gown, and get up and immediately requested to go home.  Now.  Please.  Thank you.  Do you see the door over there?  Let's hit it.  So everyone went to lunch and I went to have a baby.

I had a sort of bad impending doom feeling as I walked into the OR and straddled the table to get the spinal.  I tried to chalk the feeling up to anxiety.  The CRNA student prepped my back and tried to put the spinal in and missed.  Unfortunately, at that exact moment, the anesthesiologist walked in to see how things were going.  I didn't recognize her and pretty quickly figured out that she was a locum tenens.  Bad news.  She then proceeded to attempt to get the spinal another six times.  Six.  As in - not enough fingers on one hand to count how many time she jammed a needle into my back.  There was talk of general anesthesia.  I was freaking out about getting an epidural abscess or hematoma or spinal cord injury from her nincompoopness when the OB/friend came in all scrubbed and ready.  I finally had enough and asked her to stop - and asked her to allow the CRNA to put the spinal in.  She got in on the first attempt - I was hugely relieved.  Relieved for about 30 seconds until my blood pressure and heart rate dropped down to nearly not measurable.

You guys.  Seriously.  I have never, ever felt that sick.  I was puking and freaking out, watching the monitor, listening to the anesthesiologist bark orders for drugs that I give patients during codes when the situation is nearly hopeless.  And then give more.  And more.  And more.  They gave me 6 liters of fluid in a matter of minutes.  I finally started to feel somewhat better - like I might possibly live through the experience and they let Monk in.  He took one look at me and freaked out.  I would have to imagine that I didn't look exactly excited and happy to be there. 

The nice part about them overdosing the spinal was that I didn't feel a cotton picking thing.  At all.  Nada.  They took the baby out and he immediately started screaming - a scream I was so glad that I was awake, alive, and able to hear.  He was perfect.  His lungs were obviously mature.  They collected cord blood (has anyone else done that?!?), tied my tubes,  and the closing took a long, long time.  I had a lot of muscle damage that she sewed up.  The OB/friend left to fly to a conference in Vegas and assured me that her partners would take care of me well in her absence. They moved us to recovery where I was finally able to hold my peanut.  After all my worries about a giant monster baby, he came out well over 7 pounds and 21 inches - but I swear he looks and feels like a 5 pound peanut.  He is still curled up soooo tight.  He looks just like his older brother did - but somehow tinier (actual weight difference was a mere 3 ounces), and much much darker in complexion.  His blood sugar was low - 35 - and they encouraged us to nurse.  He easily latched on and contentedly nursed for close to an hour.    I suddenly got another wave of nausea and started puking - and puking - and sweating.  It was so awful.  And just wouldn't stop.  They finally called anesthesia to give me something else.  I don't even remember what it was but it helped immensely.

Things with the baby went well after that - He was mildly jaundiced but passed all of his other screenings well.  He nursed, peed, and pooped like he was supposed to.  Things with me were incredibly uncomfortable.  I had close to no pain at all with Baby A2.  I realized that this was my 3rd section - but it honestly was nothing even close to the other two in terms of pain.  I could barely move - even with decent and frequent doses of pain medicine.  It hurt to lift and hold the baby- it hurt to walk, to turn.  My lower back was extremely achy - and bruised like you wouldn't believe from all of the spinal attempts.  They kept telling me that my incision was fine, that it was a different baby, different experience.  It didn't feel right.  I finally asked to go home because I felt like maybe I would be more comfortable here. 

I went to the OB to get my staples out on Tuesday to be told that I have a massive incisional hematoma - something that she felt I should have gone back to the OR for to have evacuated.  Apparently no one looked at me as close as I thought they did.  At this point, there are really no options but to let it resolve on it's own.  I'm just now - a week out - able to get in and out of bed without help.  My blood pressure is up and I still have massive swelling - so I'm getting a work up for post-partum ecclampsia.  Seriously.   

Baby A2 has done so much better than I thought he would.  He and I have both had melt downs at times - more on that later.  Someone in my house has hungry lips and is ready to nurse.  Had to get the details down before I forgot them.  And ohmygoodness the in-law drama. Seriously.  I might have to start a new blog just about in-law drama after this birth.

Home.

We are home, nearly tucked in for the night.  It was a very, very rough delivery and continues to be a rough recovery, but we're both alive and healthy.  The baby has done great - he's a trooper.  He was 7 pounds, 13 ounces, 21 inches long.  He did have some post partum hypoglycemia - but never required NICU care.  It corrected with breastfeeding alone.  He's nursing well, has all of his parts in working order, and is only mildly jaundiced at this point. 

Baby A2 is handling things very well so far, much better than I could have hoped for though I sense some sadness looming on the horizon.  The golden child is in love with her newest sibling, and after being more helpful than I would have thought possible for a teenager, escaped tonight to a hot tub party with friends. 
For several minutes when I got home, baby A2 "helped" me nurse baby K (held my breast while the baby suckled), and the golden child held baby A2 propped on me to allow him to help without hurting my stomach.  It was, honestly, almost more than I could stand.  These three lives that I've somehow brought into this world, helping and loving each other and me through enormous change.

More details when I can sit up for longer than 4 minutes. 

My newest love, Baby K, dressed in his take home outfit.

FavoriteThings

Life will be changing pretty drastically around here in less than 24 hours ....which is exciting, and wonderful, and terrifying.  There are so many things that are perfect right now that I know will never be the same once the newbie arrives.  My sister had her 3 babies at the same time that I had the golden child - boom boom boom - one after another.  I distinctly remember being in the delivery room with her and seeing this tiny perfect being in his first moments on earth, and how wonderful it was.  And how, minutes later, when her older children were brought in the room, they seemed decades older to me.  The fourteen month old baby seemed suddenly gigantic and old and childlike instead of the infant he was before I walked in the delivery room. 

 Things I want to remember and keep just as they are right now:

• The fact that although the golden child has her driver's license and her own car, she mostly remains dependent and not at all excited about driving around.  She's still content to be here,with us.
• That the golden child could not be more excited about a new baby coming into our lives, even though she understands the sacrifices it will mean for her with college, and college visits, and spring break trips.  That she isn't somehow embarrassed.
• The unabashed way that baby A2 laughs at whatever strikes his fancy - deep baby belly laughs at things we would otherwise not notice.
• Baby A2's need for skin to skin contact for comfort
• The way A2 pronounces his "R"s ....especially when requesting a "haircut".  Haircut is perhaps my favorite word that he says right now.   Either that or "withgether".  As in, "Mommy, want to play soccer withgether??"  We can't get him to say together for anything.
• His insistence on referring to himself as "the baby".  If someone is carrying him out of the room, he often says "Ohno!  Where is your baby going, mama??"

He had several moments today when he nearly lost it when talking about "the little brother" who is coming out tomorrow.  I wish I knew how to comfort him, how to let him know that it will all be okay in the end.  That he will still be loved.  That even though our relationship will change - especially over the next few weeks when I can't pick him up and am wrapped up in establishing a new routine with 2 babies, we'll find our way back to each other.

I'm getting pretty nerved up now about the physical aspects of what's happening tomorrow - all of the discomforts of getting the spinal, the nausea and itching and pain afterwards.  Trying to not overmanage who will be allowed to come in when ...worried about every living sole that I work with peeking in to say hi when I'm trying to bond and nurse with the new (still un-named) baby.  Trying to figure out a way to not be mean to my mother in law who somehow managed to contract a plague like sinus infection 2 days before I give birth when I tell her I don't want her around or touching the baby.  Because umm.  Yeah.  How do you do that tactfully??  And of course - worried about the baby.  That he will handle the transition well.  That his lungs will be okay.  That I've done a good job managing my blood sugars and he won't experience any hypoglycemia after delivery.  That he's healthy.  That he has all of his parts and they're all in working order. 

I just want it to all be okay.

Trial Run

Yesterday was perhaps one of the most physically unpleasant days of my life.  Of course, I've decided to blog about it to keep it fresh in mind for all of eternity.

The amnio was scheduled for 9:45.  We woke up, got to the hospital an hour early as directed and things progressed normally.  Amnio was eventless - the fluid was amber and clear.  Typically,with mature lungs, it should be colorless and very cloudy.  I didn't really feel like they were going to be mature going into things, so I wasn't incredibly disappointed.  About a half hour after the amnio, I started contracting, which is mostly expected.  Contractions quickly escalated to every 3 minutes and became very, very uncomfortable.  The official fluid results came back as early transitional - but definitely not mature.    We then spent the next eight hours trying to stop labor.  They gave me three liters of fluid and 2 medications - none of which worked.   I didn't seem to be progressing as all - they weren't getting more intense or more frequent and my cervix wasn't changing.  They called the MFM for recommendations.  He felt like we should still try to stop labor for 2-3 days because the baby would probably otherwise end up in the NICU - maybe even vented.  WTF?!?  At nearly 39 weeks?!?  I don't get it at all.   He also thought that maybe because I wasn't progressing that my uterus was just pissed off about having no food for 24 hours and suggested feeding me.  I was reluctant - because that guaranteed another 6 hours of uncomfortable labor if it didn't work.  So we settled on an oral dose of procardia, which they assured me they would know if it would work or not within 20 minutes.  About 10 minutes into it, I thought I was dying.  I turned myself on my left side, adjusted my IV rate to give me a crap load of fluid, and asked Monk to get the nurse.  When she came back, I was feeling somewhat better - and my blood pressure was 60/20.  The baby didn't seem to mind at all and tolerated the whole thing really well.  After a couple of more liters of fluid, I started to feel a little better - just incredibly flushed, racing heart, and horrid headache.  And hey ...the contractions stopped.   So they fed me ...and sent me home with plans to return on Wednesday for the section.  I'm supposed to be on super limited activity.  No sex, no activity, no shopping or lifting and do what I can to avoid labor between now and then.  Who would have thought?  Who stops labor at almost 39 weeks?

We came home and settled in for the night.  We comforted my distressed mother, daughter, and two year old and tucked ourselves into bed.  I have another three days of pregnancy before a section and tubal ligation ....and hopefully a live baby to cuddle to show for it afterwards.

The only thing I'm really struggling with is how to parent a 2 year old and a newborn.  My 2 year old is very very cuddly and needy.  He still needs to cuddle and "touch nursies" several times throughout the day.  He is recently potty trained and sleeping through the night.  Today, when laying down with him for a nap, he kept trying to touch nursies (which I have been avoiding to avoid contractions) and when I said, "No", he screamed, "THOSE ARE NOT THE NEW BABY'S" !!!   I sense big big problems coming my way and don't have a clue as to how to deal with them to make this less painful for him.  There's a reason that my first 2 kids were 13 years apart - I swear.

Any and all advice accepted and appreciated :)

Nearing the end.

I don't know why it comes as a surprise to me that I suck at keeping my blog updated.  But yes.  I do, in fact, royally suck at blogging.

The end of this pregnancy is near.  C-section is scheduled for Friday at 3 p.m. if lungs are mature after amnio.  Holy crap. 

I just got out of Triage.  I felt close to no fetal movement for the entire day and eventually felt nervous enough to go in.  His heart rate was only 110 when I got there.  They promptly woke him up and everything looked good.  AFI was on the low end of normal - so I'm back for daily NSTs an BPP's until delivery.  I was supposed to work this week . . . but I guess not.  Which is good.  I'll stay home, cuddle the 2 year old, and drink lots of water.   I continue to have runs of false labor - lasting for a few hours and then it will stop.  We're woefully unprepared to have this little one enter our lives ... but it'll work out.

I'm still super worried about a post-partum hormone crash.  I put everyone on high alert to watch me after delivery.  Other than that ...anxiety seems to be fairly under control.  Except see above triage visit.   Ha.  I still delude myself pretty well, apparently.

Wish me luck.  Here goes nothing.

Three Years

Three years ago today, I wrote this post:

Trick or Treat

If you had told me then that those three years would have turned into this:

And this:

Plus an additional 34 week from all appearances healthy pregnancy -

I would have told you that you were insane.

Sometimes - life is too sweet.



Favorite Things

My favorite things about this week

• Somehow nearly everyone in my practice (more than 20 people) managed to tell me that I look like I'm ready to explode at any second.
• Anytime someone spills something in the office, they blame my water breaking.
• On the same day someone told me I was huge, another doc (not in our practice, but whom I work closely with) said, "Ohmygod ..you're pregnant!  I had no idea!" 
• I actually made it in and out of my NST in 35 minutes today with a reactive baby
• I got pulled over TWICE on the way home from work tonight.  
• I left work early yesterday and today because of contractions.  So when I started crying and told the cop(s) that I was contracting and got out of the ordeal without a ticket ...it was without lying.  I think they were afraid they might have to deliver me and promptly sent me on my way without a ticket.
• My OB took me off work AGAIN at my appointment today. 
• I've been having awful dizzy I'm going to pass out spells which I was telling her about during my exam.  I sat up when she was finished and promptly passed out on her table.  I believe in real life examples, I guess. Scared the living daylights out of her and the rest of the office.  I'm 99% sure the passing out and dizziness is because this breech baby keeps sticking his body parts into my aorta and/or inferior vena cava and blocks my blood supply.
• I promptly returned to work immediately after she told me no more working.  I did, however, agree to reduce my hours and promised to stop if I pass out again.
• Baby A2 is going to be a dinosaur for Halloween and couldn't be cuter or more excited about it.
• Baby A2 is going to Sesame Street Live tomorrow with my mom and I.  You might already know this because he has broadcast it to the world in general every 30 seconds since I told him about it yesterday.  I forgot how incredibly excited a 2 year old could be.  The tickets were $100 and I'm thinking we might actually even end up going twice in the same weekend.  Because seriously.  The kid is excited.
• The golden child,in all seriousness, asked me to buy her a "slutty" Halloween costume and described it as such.  Ummm.
• The irony of raising a toddler, a newborn, and a teenager all at the same time is still not lost on me.  Perhaps overwhelming.  But full of conflicting needs and fun.

And just like that ...it changed

So a week or two after that last post ....everything changed.  I don't know if there was some weird hormonal switch (my guess) or if I have some wonky pregnancy auto-immune craziness going on (what the overly intellectual internal med docs I spend my days with think) but I went back to feeling nomal.   No more crazy hatred towards Monk for unreasonable things and no more crazy emotional lability.  Coincidentally, my blood sugars also got way easier to manage.  Initially - they plummeted.  Plummeted to the point that I had several episodes of hypoglycemia and took myself completely off insulin and metformin.  Then they were normal for a couple of days without meds ...and then I slowly crept back to needing some insulin - but was also able to eat and stay in range.  Very much a relief.  Whatever the cause.  I did have some temporary freak outs when everything changed - it was very similar to what happened right before I went into labor with A2.  But here we are a couple of weeks later and he's still on the inside.

I'm back to twice weekly NSTs - which have only been dramatic twice so far.  On Friday, his heartrate was non-reactive for several hours.  He was active and moving a ton - but his heart rate wasn't accelerating as required.   While I was waiting for the OB to come and look at the strips and do a biophysical profile ultrasound, it occurred to me that this kid could potentially be taken out of me at any given NST appointment.  And ..holy cow I'm not ready.  No name.  No cord blood kit.  No diapers in the appropriate size.  No take me home outfit. 

You'd think the last 6 days I've had off from work would have given me some motivation to get that stuff done ...but it turns out ...umm  no.

Yikes.

Unbalanced

I honestly can't believe it's been a month since I've posted.  If I don't get a handle on this time thing pretty soon, I'm going to be sitting here with a newborn that I'm completely unprepared for.

This pregnancy has thrown me for a complete loop emotionally.  I'm an angry, rageful, crying, out-of-control witch.  The hormone swings are intolerable to me - much less my poor loved ones that are forced to live with me.  The only one that has been spared is the two year old, really.  To be honest, Monk takes the lion's share.  Why he hasn't left me is completely beyond me.  And quite frankly, sometimes I feel like I'm pushing him to make that decision.  Which is really strange - because I feel like I'm living duplicate lives at the same time.  The old rational me is still there watching over the reactions and decisions that the hormonal witch is making and just letting her run wild and use the excuse of hormones.  It's ridiculous.  As bad as it is - it feels temporary.  Like ...don't fight it too much because this too shall pass.  In a matter of 9 weeks or so now...I'm hoping it's done and over with.  I feel like I'm on the brink - maybe passed the brink on some days - of really experiencing true mental illness.   What absolutely terrifies, me, however, is that I feel like I'm speeding right towards a massive case of post partum depression.  My hormone switch has NEVER been even close to being this far off balance and I'm not sure what I'm going to be looking at when they pull the baby out and all the hormones come crashing down around me.  For the first time, I've felt tempted to start on medication as a pre-emptive strike.  And then the blaring reality of birth defects and side effects snaps me back into reality and I neglect to discuss it at my OB appointments.

Things on the physical front still suck too ....I still can NOT flipping breathe if I do anything.  Climbing a flight of stairs leaves me so short of breath and exhausted that I have to sit and rest.  A load of laundry is enough to do me in.  And getting the baby and myself showered and primped for the day typically happens right before nap.  Because I have to nap after such a grand effort.  To continue my life's predisposition for really bad timing, my job is changing significantly and I am now required to be much, much more physically active.  As in walking.  At break neck speeds.  All over the flipping place.  I wore a pedometer the other day - and with me moving as slow as I do compared to my counterparts, I still walked 7 miles in one 12 hour shift.  I come home from work in a near coma with my pelvis feeling dislocated.  I have a whole lot of time off built into my schedule now ...stretches of 5 or 6 days off every couple of weeks ...and I need every one of them to recover.  The pelvic pain hasn't been nearly as severe with this pregnancy as it was the last ...and it actually goes away completely when I'm off work ...but my god ..when it's there, every single step is excruciating. 

And ...of course ...I'm diabetic again.  Which, although I was fully anticipating it, is really seriously pissing me off.  My blood sugars have not been nearly as easy to control this time around despite a multi dose regimen including 6-7 shots of insulin per day.  I need massive doses of insulin in the morning even if I don't eat - and close to none at dinner.  All part of the raging hormones that are throwing me for a loop in every way, I guess.  I feel incredibly guilty every time I have an out of range blood sugar - even if it's only 10 points out of range, and because of that, I'm trying to eat close to nothing.  I've lost 6 pounds in the week and a half since diagnosis ...which I don't think is good either.

I'm a mess.  Straight up ...all the way around.  A mess.   We have no prep done for the baby.  We haven't even started moving baby A2 towards a new schedule that will give us some kind of sanity with 2 little ones.  I don't have a name or any idea of a name that might sound good.  I have no sleeping space arranged.  No second crib.  No double stroller.  No idea where to move most of A2's toys to make room for all the "stuff" that's required for A3.  ARRRRGH.

Sixteen

My baby girl, the one who taught me how to be a mom and forever changed my world, turns 16 in two days.

She passed her road test, which means that in two days, she will inherit my Prius and enter a world full of infintely more freedom. 

Be careful out there, baby girl.  Pleae be careful with your heart ...and mine.

Fatigue.

Holy crap.  I'm tired.  Like ...The idea of using my arm to lift baby A2's arms up and take his shirt off to put his pajama's on tonight is overwhelming.  Between that and still not being able to breathe when I exert myself at all ...I'm getting a whole lot of nothing done.  I also have insane restless legs syndrome and pica (there's not an ice cube in the state that's safe from me) - both of which are signs of iron deficiency.  So ..I'm half thinking there's some anemia contributing to the fatigue.  Anemia and iron deficiency would make sense to me since I came into the pregnancy straight after a year of continuous uterine bleeding and was still breastfeeding.  I'll get labs done next Wednesday, and I've upped my iron intake in the meantime.

Okay.  Can I just tell you that this 2 year old is running me ragged??  I have never known a child to have sooo much energy.  He is so much fun I can't stand it.  He's already a stand up comedian and spends most of his day trying to crack people up.  He gets into everything.  We take turns exercising the baby.  As in ..."Umm..it's your turn to run A2.  I've already done it for 2 hours."  We let him out back and he literally runs around the yard at breakneck speed until I die of exhaustion from watching him.  He's like a dog that requires a 10 mile walk before you can expect appropriate behavior out of him.  I live in Michigan which means that winter will be here soon.  I'm currently trying to figure out how to fit his trampoline into the basement so we can bounce him.  Like Tigger.  Which brings me to this point:  I have a huge yard that is beautifully fenced in.  Behind the fence is a massive field full of deer, snakes, and wild animals.  Although I feel like he's safe back there, I virtually never let him outside even for a second alone because well ..he's 2.  Anyway.  We were inside watching Dora this evening when I started this post.  Monk was out front cutting the grass and the golden child was upstairs.  I got up to pee ...came back to the living room to find no baby and no dog.  Looked everywhere.  Nothing.  Panicked.  Looked at the sliding door which was wide open.  And then to my horror, I discovered that Monk had left the gate in the back of the yard open to the field when he was cutting the grass.  A2 was strolling around in grass taller than him with our cocker spaniel tailing close behind.  I nearly died.  And then Monk nearly died an untimely death for leaving the gate open.  Holy shit.  I think I lost 14 years of my life in those 2 minutes.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do with a 2 year old that suddenly figured out how to open a door.  While I was peeing.  He should figure these things out while adequately supervised.

I'm already starting to panic ...because ohmygod ...it feels like this baby is going to be here in 2 minutes and I have not even slightly begun to prepare in any way, shape, or form.  Much less started my Christmas shopping.  And the golden child turns 16 in 2 weeks and I believe is probably expecting some sort of MTV style 16th birthday party .... and isn't going to get it.   Ayiyiyi.

I feel like I'm probably going through a normal developmental stage of adding another human being to our family ...but I'm so emotionally torn I can't even tell you which way I'm headed.  It breaks my heart that my relationship with A2 is going to change so much.  That I will come home from the hospital and my baby will suddenly have grown at least 6 feet.  I worry about how he'll handle it.  I worry about how I'll handle it.  I worry about the golden child ...and her needs getting pushed farther to the back of the line than they are now.  And my relationship with my husband ...what happens to that?  When do we make time for one another between work and 3 kids?  How can I possibly handle getting 2 to bed at the same time??  I honestly think that the first 2 were 13 years apart because seriously ...that's all I could handle.  I have no idea how to manage two very needy little people at the same time.  No idea at all.   

I read a beautiful post today @  http://sharah.wordpress.com/ and cried for nearly 2 hours afterward.  Because ...yeah.  Right there with ya, Sharah.  Right there.

20 weeks

So I'm currently on my night shift week ...which sucks when I'm not pregnant.  I don't deal with it well at ALL pregnant.  Thank God it's moved to every six weeks and we've actually interviewed a couple of people to work full time nights which would take me off the godforsaken rotation all together.  They better hire them ...or else I'm scheduled to do nights at 26, 33, and ummm... 39 weeks gestation.  Yeah.  I'm not feeling that at ALL.

Anyway.  I had my MFM level II ultrasound today.  I was beyond a wreck.  During my shift last night, I coded - as in code blue - unsuccessfully, mind you - a 20 something mother of four that was 9 days post-partum.  It was 2 in the morning, and my MFM was also there.  We both looked like crap for my appointment this morning at 9:30.  There are some codes that you will always remember for how horrific they truly were and how freaking horrible the circumstances that a family has just been thrown into are.  This was one of them.  Everyone there was rocked last night.  There are some things about pregnancy that just ....suck.  Like.  Really suck. 

Anyway.  Everything with this peanut looks great.  I couldn't be more shocked.  I really don't understand the 2 step integrated NT/Quad screen thing ...because I swear the whole purpose of it was to get the results in the first trimester.  I never DID get my results until today.  I knew that it was an excellent NT measurement. If I'm being honest, I never actually called to inform them that I didn't have the results because I didn't really want to deal with it until I was in the presence of the MFM anyway.  BUT - the results were stellar.  Less than 1:5000 for any of the tested chromosomal abnormalities.  Combined with a mostly perfect ultrasound (mostly because we couldn't see one kidney ...but he's pretty sure it's there) and exam (everything with me was great except my blood pressure :P - see code and lack of sleep above).  It's still a boy.  Measuring on target.  Placenta is no longer previa at ALL.  No sign of the SCH or any residual.   I'm still really, really not feeling movement.  I might feel a slight wiggle once or twice a day if I think about it really hard.  He didn't have any explanation for that ...baby seemed to be moving fine on the ultrasound.  Monk thinks it's just a lazy baby.  After the last couple of weeks with A2 ...I'm almost hoping that he's right!

I somehow managed to be at the appointment alone through a series of scheduling blunders.  I wouldn't recommend that to anyone.  I left his office full of good news ..and get this ...sobbed hysterically. 

Because I'm exhausted and overtired and hate the night shift.

And mostly .... because I can't figure out how we could possibly be so lucky.

Sweet Baby Boy.

Although it's hard to see ....he's giving me the finger in the picture.  I was seriously disturbing his cuddle time with the placenta.  Love it.

A-okay

Amazing what a decent night of sleep and another ultrasound can do for peace of mind.

Although ...the night of sleep.   Geezus.  Baby A2 fairly recently started sleeping through the night consistently.  Like ..maybe 2 months ago.  3 weeks ago, he started talking/yelling in his sleep.  All. Night. Long.  Last night, he kept yelling "SUPERMAAAAAN" about every 10 minutes.  I've resigned myself to no sleep for the next 10 years or so.

Anyway ...I called the OB and she sent me right over for a formal ultrasound.  The placenta is thankfully - so very thankfully - now more than an inch away from the cervix and pulling farther away all of the time.  I drank approximately 27 gallons of water between yesterday and today (clearly, an exaggeration ...but omg. the water) and fluid levels were much, much better today. 

The only problem is that I was contracting throughout the ultrasound.  Umm.  Still have really good cervix length, though.

Overwhelm.

I'm currently curled up in bed cuddling a lovey two year old and panicking.

Curiosity kills the cat. I was overwhelmed with gender obsession today and asked one of the docs I was working with to take a peek. We think there is probably a penis. Think. It could have been a hand. Or a cord.

Also? Happened to notice that I stil have complete previa. And really low amniotic fluid.

I'm not really sure what to do with this info other than panic. I did drink about six gallons of water, left work, and came home to lay on my left side. I'll talk to the regular ob tomorrow..and see the Mfm on the 25th. And obssess about congenital defects and abruption in the interim.

I'm exhausted and crabby. Work is in major suck mode. Right now my best case scenario seems to lead to bed rest, financial ruin, and no maternity leave.

Maybe I'll just go to sleep.

Hi ho ..hi ho ...it's off to MFM I go.

I can't quite getting used to seeing "advanced maternal age" as a diagnosis on my check-out sheet when I leave the OB office.  I swear to God I'm still in high school.  Advanced age??  Seriously?

But yeah ...apparently seriously.  This two step integrated NT scan thing is becoming a pain in my keister.  I had the second draw done just yesterday.  Which um...doesn't make sense to me.  I thought that the whole point of the test was to get results in the first trimester?  Anyway.  They still don't anticipate having results for another couple of weeks ...and I'm old ...and had another episode of bleeding on Wednesday at work so I'm being turfed to MFM.  I'm not sure for how long.   My weight is already up 6 pounds ...which isn't a great thing this early in the pregnancy.  I keep trying to remind myself that I'm starting this pregnancy out 30 pounds lighter than the last one ...but I really liked my 13 pound gain for the entire pregnancy the last time.  It's probably up 12 pounds today, in all honesty ...because I bought a loaf of pretzel bread at Whole Foods and between baby A2 and I, the entire thing might already be gone.  My god it's good.

AHHHHHH.  Sorry.  Had to get that out.  Stupid pelvic pain from symphysis pubis dysfunction is back.  Already.  I could cry just thinking about it, honestly.  I'm going to attempt to start PT now - even though they say it's useless and the pain is mild right now.  There's NO way I can go through what I did post-partum with the last pregnancy.  Can. Not. Do. It.  So ..I'll push through whatever during this pregnancy in an attempt to come out at the end with some muscle tone somewhere.  I'm really, really nervous about having this pain with my job.  Even on "limited" activity at work, I'm walking at least 4 miles a day.  By my fourth 12 hour day, every step is painful.  Towards the end of the last pregnancy, I could barely walk 10 feet without crying.  The OB still wants me off work - or at the very least working no more than 6 hours a day.  I convinced her to let me push through until I see the MFM so I can try and come up with some sort of compromise.  I have to work if we want to eat and keep our house. 

Other than the terrifying episode of bleeding, we've had a really good week.  I'm trying to adjust to having an almost 16 year old that has friends that are driving her all over everywhere.  It's painful.  And scary.  And somewhat wonderful to see her blossom.  We spent the day at the Detroit Zoo on Thursday.  Baby A2 could not be more fascinated by everything zoo lately.  My town has a cute little zoo that is the perfect size for him - with mostly farm animals.  He can run through the entire thing without a stroller and goes nearly every day with his Mimi (my mom).  The BIIIIIIIG zoo, as he calls it, was completely fascinating.  We spent over an hour watching the gorillas and chimps alone.  And I spent at least 20 minutes trying to convince him that an anteater was not, in fact, an elephant despite the long nose.  Too freakin' cute.

Hope everyone else is having a great summer!

16 weeks

LAZY THOUGHT BUBBLES POST

• Things are still chugging along here.  I'm feeling ...well....HUGE.  Seriously.  It's out of control.  Not a ton of weight gain but I'm so firmly into maternity clothes it's not even funny.  At 16 weeks.  I can't figure it out.  I was barely - and I mean barely - showing at this point with A2 ..and not at all with the golden child. 
• Baby A2 turned 2 (two!?!?) last week.  We had a really, really good time and celebrated over 2 days.  He thoroughly enjoyed everything about the birthday celebration ...especially the Elmo and Cookie Monster cake pops and blowing out candles.  Seventy four times blowing out candles.  So much fun.
• We had the kids wear "oldest" and "middle" child shirts to the birthday party and finally came out of the closet to my family.  They felt mildly silly when I pointed out that I was wearing maternity clothes.
• I'm not even kidding when I say that waiting 16 weeks to tell family (including my mom!) gave me a new understanding of how women and teens try to hide their pregnancies.  Every day that went by made me more reluctant to tell people and more worried about what their reactions would be.  I made myself sick with anxiety about it on the morning of the party ....and then everything was fine.
• No more bleeding for now ...though I've had some pretty intense cramping on a couple of days.  I remain pretty nervous ....actually, very nervous. 
• I'm still so. freaking. short of breath.  It's to the point now where it significantly limits my activity. I talked to a cardiologist that I work pretty closely with about it and he dragged me up to his office for an echocardiogram right away yesterday while I was at work.  I was about ready to throw up waiting for the tech to put the ultrasound on me.  About half way through the test, the cardiologist walked in the room to tell me what he was seeing.  This was bad for a couple of reasons:
• A doctor I work with every single day walked in to see me laying on a cart topless with naked disgusting I just breastfed for 2 years and now I'm pregnant again boobs.  I don't know that he'll ever recover from that image.
• Him giving me a play by play of what he was seeing was not nearly as reassuring as you would think it would be. He told me right away that my ejection fraction was normal - which WAS a huge relief.   It was what I was worried most about.  No evidence of pregnancy induced cardiomyopathy.  Then he says to the tech, "Is that real?"  to which she responds, "Not sure yet."  And then I committed myself to an inpatient psychiatric ward.  The end.  No seriously ...he thought that he saw a significant anomaly in the septal wall of my heart but wanted to confirm after the test was done.  I was on late shift this week, so he came down to find me in the ER around 11 p.m. and said he wanted a couple of extra images.  I nearly pooped my pants.  In the end - everything turned out fine.  He thinks it's a normal variant when he got the extra pictures, but wants to follow up after pregnancy.  Umm.. Geezus.  It was a nerve wracking couple of hours.
• Now we just sit back and wait.  Next ultrasound in a few weeks....should find out gender.  Still waiting for the results of the NT scan.  We won't even go there yet. 
• How's everything with all of you??  I suck at commenting...mostly because I can read blogs at work but get blocked from commenting by the censors.  Incredibly annoying.  I'm working on it ...I promise.

Relief.

I went in for an ultrasound/OB appointment on Tuesday.  Baby looks good.  Flip flopping all around.  It's so weird to have ultrasounds this frequently ....he/she totally looks like a baby now.  Like ...a baby baby instead of a blob.  Crazy.  The SCH is still there but tiny.  My placenta is lying directly on top of my cervix ...so at this point the OB is not sure if the continued bleeding is from the SCH or from the placenta.  In either case, I get to continue with weekly appointments and every other week ultrasounds.  And pelvic rest.  Seriously.  The pelvic rest is killing me.  Not to mention Monk.

I opted for the NT scan integrated two step test instead of amnio ...we'll see what kind of wreck that makes me.  I completely forgot to ask if there was a nasal bone present.  The NT measurement was 1.4 ...and seriously, I was ecstatic for like an hour over that.  As if it meant it guaranteed a perfectly healthy living baby 6 months from now ecstatic.  I tend to think that the blood draw will increase my risk again ...but I guess I'll deal with that bridge when I come to it.

Baby A's mood/temperament went completely back to normal on my 3rd day home from work ...so I'm still thinking that it was a get your butt home kind of communication.  He still uses his siren song whine, but in short intervals and clearly to express his displeasure in something (having to take a bath before we go to the park, etc.).

I'm struggling at work, lately.  I've gone through this periodically throughout my career, and it usually passes on it's own but this is a particularly difficult round.  I spend the majority of my time in a tiny little dictation room in the ER.  The dictation room is directly across the hall from a "consult room" where they put families that have loved ones that are critically ill so that we can go and talk to them.  Unfortunately, they also use it for a dead body viewing room if someone dies in the ER.  It's uncomfortable, at best, because you end up trying to work 3 feet away from a family at the height of grief/shock ...there is usually wailing, screaming, sometimes violence.  Very, very uncomfortable.  Last week, there was a major accident on one of the nearby highways involving 10 cars and a 5 year old died.  I sat and listened to a mother wail for 3 hours before I lost it myself and had to leave.  Yesterday, a 20 year old came in after overdosing on a new - legal - street drug. 

I can't figure out how to deal with the emotion of it all appropriately in this little space.

Guilt.

Surprisingly enough, I worked all six of my 12 hour shifts.  It'll actually end up being the biggest single paycheck of my life to date.  It's taking everything I have to store it away in a maternity leave fund and not shop til I drop for my entire 5-6 days off.  Yikes.  The bleeding completely stopped during my stretch of work ..and I thought ...yayayay.  Then I was home for a single day and it started again.

Baby A2 is going through a really difficult phase right now.  I'm not sure if I should blame it on me being gone for too long during that work stretch or some other quickly approaching milestone that I'm not paying attention to.  He sounds like a broken siren all day.  He literally whines/cries nearly the entire day for umm...no particular reason that I can figure out.  He's always been a super happy mellow little thing.  This is totally throwing me for a loop.  One of his favorite things (besides the zoo and the park) is to go out to eat.  Loves it.  Totally sociable, engages the waitress, gets excited about the food.  We went out twice yesterday because we were out of town and umm.   Holy disaster.  As in ...ohmygod.  How freaking embarrassing??  At the mall, we passed by the pretzel place and he literally threw himself on the ground shrieking "HOT NUMMIES!!  HOT NUMMIES!!"  which um.  Okay.  If I thought it would have helped, I would have bought him a stinking pretzel.  But it clearly was not going to help.  What was helpful, however,  was the lady that walked by and commented that he was a wretched brat.  To which I replied, "Yeah ..well.  We all have our days."  And seriously.  I know he'll be 2 in a few weeks and this is likely the beginning of what's to come .  I think I must have forgotten how truly awful this stage is ...or I'm missing something big going on with the little guy right now. 

Which brings me to a confession of sorts.  So ..it turns out I was still breastfeeding when I got pregnant.  Not often.  We were down to like once every other day ...but the kid would not give it up.  I was over it.  Like ...over it with a capital O.  He was not so much.  At all.  And then, as soon as I got pregnant, nursing was extraordinarily uncomfortable.  Psychologically, physically, the whole bit.  And I sort of cut him off cold turkey.  As cold turkey as you can get when you're already on an every other day schedule.  But this crazy behavior makes me think that he wasn't ready.  He still asks to nurse 3 or 4 times every. single. day.  And mostly, if he's not asking to nurse?  He's got his hand down my shirt feeling me up.  Feeling anyone up, really.  My mom watches him while monk and I are at work, and the two of them have a very close bond.  The other day I was getting ready to leave, and I hear him ask her to nurse him.  She busted out laughing.  The poor little thing.  I think he feels abandoned or something.

Mommy guilt.  Somehow, it's always going to be something I did wrong.

Progesterone

Seriously. I can't remember if I'm supposed to taper off these progesterone suppositories or quit cold turkey ....

Quantitative Loss

I went and saw the OB on Wednesday.  The SCH is nearly totally resolved.  The baby was leaping and jumping all over the place - so much so that she couldn't get a heart rate.  She's still very concerned that I continued to bleed and strongly suggested that I remain off work.   The problem is that I wholeheartedly believe in evidenced based medicine.  I asked her about statistics and if there was any evidence that staying off work on limited activity would improve outcomes for the baby.  And there isn't.  None.  It's just what is suggested because there is nothing to improve the outcome.  It's a last ditch attempt to try and salvage things.  She scheduled me for every week appointments and every 2 week ultrasounds.  She's doing everything she can to talk me out of an amnio for genetic screening because she doesn't want to rock the boat.  So I agreed to the 2 step NT scan instead.  We'll see.  I'm sure it'll ramp my anxiety sky high.

So ...I went back to work on Thursday.  With limited activity.  Driving between campuses instead of walking.  Hanging out in the ER to see patients instead of walking all over the 3 hospitals.  Literally putting my feet up in between patients.  I honestly think that it's probably much more limited activity than what I would have at home.  Chasing an overly active nearly 2 year old that climbs all over me non-stop is way more physically stressful than what I'm doing at work. 

And the bleeding stopped.  Go figure.

All but one of my losses has occurred between 10 and 14 weeks - and the one that wasn't occurred before I even adjusted to the idea that I might be pregnant.  Inappropriately slow rising beta followed by miscarriage a couple of days later.  It sort of felt like it never really happened.  The later miscarriages were very tough.   Emotionally and physically.   My biggest fear with this pregnancy is that I'm delaying an inevitable occurrence.  That the loss will come - but will come late in the second or third trimester or something.  Which seems ridiculous to me.  A loss is a loss  ...but I'm much more fearful of one occurring later in the pregnancy than now.  Which I'm unsuccessfully trying to wrap my head around.

Today is my one day off inside a stretch of working 6 12 hour shifts in a 7 day period.  I'm not sure I'll make it through all 6 shifts.  The OB said I absolutely shouldn't and work is being fairly flexible about it.  We'll see.  The golden child escaped with a friend up to a cabin for the holiday weekend.  We're planning on laying relatively low though there is sooo much yard work to do.  So much.  It's rainy and glum out ... which is seriously affecting my motivation to do anything.

Did I mention that I gained 3 lbs in 3 weeks???  I'm so freaked out about that.  Morning sickness with baby A2 made me lose 15 pounds or something in the first trimester which left me with an overall net weight gain for the entire pregnancy of 13 pounds.  I have morning sickness with this baby - but only when I'm hungry and it's relieved totally by eating.  Umm.  NOT good.  Couple a ferocious appetite with limited activity and no exercise and I feel I'm probably headed for disaster.

Relaxin'.

I'm thinking this baby, if it lives, is going to be deaf.  Because seriously?  How many ultrasounds can you have?  The really nice part of my job is that I spend the majority of my time in the ER and work pretty closely with the ER physicians.  Several of them have just had babies, and most of them are as paranoid as me.  Easy access to ultrasounds.  So, despite the massive amounts of blood over the weekend, the baby is still alive ...and kickin'.  Heart rate 170.

I called the OB yesterday morning just to make sure there was nothing else that I should be doing ...and she said, Umm. Yeah.  You should be on bedrest.  Wha?  This would pose a major - and I mean major - financial conundrum.  I have short term disability and we could technically make it ...but just technically.  Monk is going through weird job stuff right now because of his back injury.  I don't know.  So anyway.  I promptly responded by staying at work for the remaining 7 hours of my 12 hour shift. 

And I'm home today.  I only work 3 days a week ...and in my mind, I'm going to be ready to go back on Thursday.  The thing is?  I'm a horrible patient.  When baby A2 asks for me to pick him up ...I pick him up.  I really think that being home may be more physically straining than being at work.  I can pretty much adapt my job to be very non-physical if I need to.  I currently walk ..a LOT ..but could easily not.  I could have one of my partners see the patients that are far away and I could sit my butt in the ER - only getting up to go see 7-8 patients a day.  And I could sit through the majority of their evaluation if I had to.  Bedrest doesn't make much sense to me because I know that I won't actually follow through on it.  Monk - god love him - doesn't get it.  Even last night - day 1 of the trial - from 8 p.m. when I got home until 10 p.m. when I got the baby to sleep - he must have grumbled 27000 times about what I wasn't doing.  And honestly?  It wasn't a lot that I wasn't doing.  I would feel like a heel if I didn't at least try bedrest and the baby died.  So I'm trying it for 2 days.  We'll see what happens.  Follow up with the OB tomorrow and I'll go from there. 

Having an almost 2 year old has got to be the best thing ever.  He is soooo amazingly fun right now.  Full of enthusiasm and clapping and screaming, "HAPPY!!" when he gets something he wants.  Love love it.

Shocking

I know that this comes as a huge surprise to those that know me ...but honestly.  I don't have what it takes to be pregnant with a subchorionic hemorrhage.  Seriously.  This is rough. 

Everything had been mostly okay for about a week.  I went to buy flowers this morning with baby A2.  Not thinking, I picked up a hanging basket to carry out to the car while the guy I was working with was carrying everything else.  I was already holding baby A2.  I didn't notice anything at all until I set the flowers on the ground and got baby A2 buckled in his car seat.  Then sudden cramping, ripping sensation, gush of blood.

I'm bleeding quite a bit today.  Pretty severe cramping.  This is the ...fourth? fifth?  round of this kind of bleeding.


I'd like to curl up in a fetal position in a dark room and stay there.  But it's 79 and sunny ...and the baby that IS here and somehow managed to survive the uterus of doom loves the outside.  So it's outside I go.

I can't for the life of me see this ending well.

Weird.

So ...blogger went down and my last post went with it?  Very strange.

Anyway.  Bad day for blogger to be off for me.  All of the blogs I follow on google reader that are blogger blogs are messed up too. 

So.  I went and had an ultrasound yesterday, fully prepared and expecting to see a dead baby.  I had even tentatively scheduled a D&C for before my OB went off call.  And ...lo and behold.  The baby is alive.  And relatively huge!   Like ...2 cm crown to rump length from 0.18 cm 2 weeks ago.  Heart rate 165.  Measuring on track.

And I have a fairly large subchorionic hemorrhage.  Which I know close to nothing about.  I came home and read about them for a while, got duly freaked out, and quit reading.   I'm taking it easy and that's about it for now.  There's been no additional blood. 

I'm taking it one day at a time.  Trying not to anticipate.  Trying to remember to breathe.  Slowly.

Mother.

Today was unreal.  Absolutely gorgeous outside.  At one point, I was outside watching the ribs that I was grilling to deliver to my mom and grandmother for dinner, with Monk, the baby, the dog, and the teenager running around the backyard giggling and laughing.  And it struck me.  Who's life is this??  How did this happen?  I think the moment even struck the golden child ...because she said to me later, "Can you believe we even have a white picket fence??"  It was all very Norman Rockwell.  I don't want to upset this apple cart and can't help but think that I'm tempting fate.  Being greedy by having another.  Why would I rock a perfectly floating boat?  Why invite anxiety and heart ache in when we're fine without it?

I ended up in the ER on wednesday night after work.  I worked 12p-12a.  I felt more and more short of breath and uncomfortable all day long.  Ultimately, I decided to say something about the pregnancy and my concerns to the doc I was working with.  He essentially confirmed that my worries were valid.  At the end of my shift, we walked back to the other hospital (about a 1/2 mile trek that starts with climbing 2 flights of steps).  I think he was sort of horrified by how out of breath and uncomfortable I was.  We walked slow and it was still really bad.  He ended up calling my OB/friend, who agreed that I should go to the ER.  Which means that virtually the entire hospital knows that I'm pregnant - and not a single soul in my family other than Monk knows.  Not exactly comfortable.  Especially because we aren't planning on a reveal until the end of June. 

Ultimately - they ran a bunch of tests which confirmed that I had to have a CT scan.  I discussed the risks/benefits at length with the radiologist.  The radiation he felt would be a non-issue because of the direction of the rays and the abdominal shield.  He feels that the contrast was low risk as well.  I don't, but ultimately had the stupid test anyway.  Everything was negative.  The preliminary heart/cardiomyopathy stuff was all negative.  No blood clot.  I still have to have an echocardiogram and possibly a stress test next week.  Ended up not getting home until 5 a.m.

I could barely keep up playing with the baby outside today.  I hate it.  And regardless of the cause (I'm still hoping for just plain old pregnancy induced tachycardia), it's only going to get worse throughout the remainder of the pregnancy.

I hope everyone out there had a good time with family and friends today ...whether you're holding your babies in your arms or in your hearts.

8 week Freak Out

So it turns out I'm an emotional wreck. 

I'm on night shift this week ..which is never good emotionally.  This week is the 10 year anniversary of my dad's death - which I never deal with well.  I spent a lot of time last night re-reading my blog entries written during the last pregnancy ...and I think I wrote 27 times that I would never be pregnant again because it (anxiety, physical discomfort) was so horrible.

I don't do this well.

So.  Eight week check up.  Everything with the baby is fine.  Still there.  Heart still beating.  Hard to tell much beyond that at this point.

Then we talked about symptoms.  Probably the most concerning symptom that I've had - which has been there since I was on spring break and before I knew I was pregnant ...is really, really bad shortness of breath.  It seems to be getting worse.  It only happens with exertion.  At first I wrote it off to fluid shifts or something.  But ...it's gotten worse.  It's now to the point that I have to stop and rest while I'm walking from one building to another at work (maybe 1/4 mile walk).  Yesterday, several of the docs noticed I was breathing heavily just talking to them.  I also noticed that even while I was dictating a patient note I had to stop several times to catch my breath.  Not good. 

So ...I'm getting worked up for a couple of different things.  One - pulmonary embolism.  Because I drove to florida recently without stopping and have a history of a previous clot.  Great.  I love high dose radiation exposure in early pregnancy.  The second - and quite honestly my biggest fear and suspicion - cardiomyopathy.  Even typing that word right now made me cry.  I don't even know what will happen if that's what's going on.  No.  fucking.  idea. 

Because I re-read my blog, I have a fairly fresh idea of what a nutcase I am and keep rationalizing that this probably nothing.  But I'm still scared shitless. 

Someone promise to make me go on an anti-anxiety medicine after this pregnancy.  Assuming I'm still alive. 

For the love of God.

Ambivalence.

I feel so strange emotionally with this pregnancy.  With A2, I was obsessive about everything.  Um.  Everything.  Now I'm very ho-hum about everything.  Most of the IF blogs that I read have progressed to life after infertility blogs (thank God) - and I honestly haven't sought out new ones lately.  So...my brain got lazy.  It occurred to me the other day (as a surprise) ..umm..NT scan!!  Right.  yeah.  Supposed to do that.  But umm..when does that happen again??

I wouldn't say that I'm overjoyed with this pregnancy.  Definitely not disappointed, but not super excited, either.  The idea of having a newborn, a 2 year old, and a junior in high school is slightly overwhelming.  I guess it's more the idea of being a working mom with all of that stuff going on that it is overwhelming.  We have a lot of work to do between here and there.  As in.  Umm.  We need another bedroom.  Not sure if there is one handy that I can borrow, but yeah.  I was all set on having the babies share a room for a while when my cousin posted on facebook that her similarly age-spaced children were being urgently moved into separate bedrooms because she went to check on the newborn in the middle of the night and found the 2 year old standing in the crib with a blanket over the newborn's head.  So. Yeah.  End that thought right away.

Anyway.  This is what I'm doing. I'm alternating between being in complete denial that the pregnancy exists and preparing for delivery.  Yesterday I was prepared for miscarriage because I have waning morning sickness, severe cramping, and continue to bleed.  Today I'm pukey, exhausted, the bleeding is gone and there is no more cramping. 

Monk is in complete denial.  As in ....we're using condoms when we have sex because he doesn't want to take the chance that I might get more pregnant.  Um.  Yeah.

I have no idea what's going on.

Ultrasound

Quick post ...

Ultrasound today.  Nearly peed my pants in the waiting room.  I guess that's what geriatric pregnancy will get you!!!

1 gestational sac.  1 yolk sac.  1 teenie tiny itsy bitsy baby (crown to rump length .18cm).  (Seriously).  (That's small). 

Measuring 5 weeks and 6 days (both gestational sac and baby). 

1 perfect little heartbeat.  105 bpm.

Due date 12/14/11.

Holy crap.

So. Um. Yeah.

It's been a while.  A loooooong while.

It's been an interesting year, to say the least.  I've had some crazy gynecological stuff going on ...namely dysfunctional daily uterine bleeding for just about a year.  I ended up getting my gall bladder taken out at the end of August, followed by another D&C for ANOTHER early miscarriage in late September.  The bleeding never stopped after the D&C ...but improved somewhat.  It stopped responding to hormones.  We mainly blame it on some seriously intense adenomyosis.  And the ever present PCOS.  Ultimately, I decided very reluctantly to have a hysterectomy.  Which I was dreading in most ways.  I decided to actually take my vacation that was scheduled and not use all of my vacation time as sick time ...and planned on scheduling the hyster when I got back from a wonderful trip to Florida.  I spent 11 days in the warmth of the gulf where I watched baby A2 learn all about the ocean and the golden girl explore what it really means to be on spring break in a spring break town as a teenager. 

I was laying on the beach and turned over to stand up and ..umm...had the most crazy out of control pain in my right lower quadrant that passed about 2 minutes later.  I thought....hmm.  And then it happened three more times.  It was a familiar pain.  Round ligament pain.

So I came home from Florida and peed on a stick.  And saw two very, very dark lines.

It seems that I have an appropriately doubling beta currently in the 10,000's.  And it looks like I might be having a baby instead of a hysterectomy. Ultrasound scheduled for Monday.

Which somehow led me here.  We'll see how this goes.