And...

And the most important thing... she looks totally perfect!

More details to come later.

Been a Long Time

I have been doing my very best to keep myself busy. At least where I'm at now, you can assume that no news is good news. I'm fighting the anxiety every day and sadly, still in that 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' kind of state. But so far, I'm fine and baby is alive.

Last week Jim and the kids all came down with a bug. A different bug for all of them but nasty none the less. Thankfully, I managed to escape without catching anything. That can only be thanks to lots of prayers, lots of hand washing, gargling with salt water and taking my vitamins. I wrestled an awful lot with the whole H1N1 vaccine and seasonal flu vaccine issue. It's just so horrible as a pregnant mom. It feels very much a case of darned if you do, darned if you don't. You don't get the vaccine and you end up in the hospital and hopefully you and your baby survive. You do get the vaccine and you cross your fingers and pray that there are no negative side effects.

I decided a while ago against getting the vaccine. With my history of vaccine reaction... which was only one vaccine but a two month (at least) long reaction (and I haven't carried a pregnancy to term since). I decided that I would not introduce anything extra into my system and do my best to stay healthy and quickly react if I started to show signs of illness. I've spent months questioning this decision but I am very at peace with it now. It makes me so sad to see (I'm a group co-owner on several boards on a parenting website) loss after loss. Many of them "coincidentally" coinciding with receiving the H1N1 vaccine. Sadly, the only thing they can do is report it to the CDC on the VAERS website. They all have been the same, go in, check on baby, baby is great, get vaccine, go back in 4 weeks later, no heartbeat, double check with u/s and baby measures nearly to the date of the last appointment. And these aren't all early losses, we're talking 24, 25 weekers too.

Moving on! I've really been working at keeping the anxiety in check since tomorrow is our "big" anatomy scan and hopefully this little one cooperates so we can find out which way the scales are going to tip. I really, honestly, truly just want alive and healthy. We have one of each and really have no preference. However, I will admit that I'm terrified that it's going to be a boy. I would LOVE another boy but given my apparent inability to keep boys alive lately, it scares me. I would be thrilled to have a boy but I'm afraid that, with a boy, I won't be able to relax to the point that I might be able to with a girl.

When we found out that Collin was a boy, again, I did cry a little. Partly because I was afraid that I would lose him too and partly out of relief that maybe I would be able to just kind of pick up where we left off with Eli. Of course we know how that turned out. So, I think that makes this "finding out the sex thing" kind of tough. Of course the planner in me would never be able to choose to NOT know. I also think it will be easier, when we tell the kids, to tell them "what" to expect. That should alleviate any of the "I want a ________!" issues since it is what it is anyway, without having to have a deep discussion about it... hopefully. But science loving Karleigh may ask more questions, and that's ok.

It is reassuring to sit here and "worry" while getting my bladder and bellybutton kicked and punched. Jim was even able to feel a nice strong knee? elbow? last week.

We'll be spending Thanksgiving up at my parent's house, the kids and I will stay the whole weekend while Jim has to come back down and work some u-g-l-y hours this weekend. But I will try to pop on before we leave and post how it went. 9:45 am Pacific time tomorrow... breathe in, breathe out...

Onward

We've now gone past the point where I delivered Eli. I don't know what I expected to feel.
Joyful?
Thankful?
Relieved?
Excited?
Hopeful?
Comfortable?
Yah, kind of all those things. And I do, to an extent. But I also feel really emotionally drained and tired. Weird, I know.

Now it's time to move onward. This has felt like the longest week in history but it's nice to have it behind us. There have been lots of prayers for peace, patience, a beating heart. So far, so good.

It seems like I've started reporting the reality here and most of the emotional stuff has gone out the window, so to speak. I suppose it's likely that it's part of the self preservation or coping mechanism that I've developed over time. Who knows! Either way, the holidays are fast approaching and hopefully we'll be able to enjoy them and the promise that we pray they hold.

Cruise Control

I had my 16 week appointment this afternoon. Of course I checked heart tones this morning and baby was still kicking away so going to the appointment wasn't as full of anxiety as it could have been but it's still a little weird.

It was very quick (except for waiting for Dr. C!) the whole pee, blood pressure, weight thing and then listen to heart tones... which were 160-ish this afternoon. We also scheduled the anatomy scan and next appointment for 3 weeks out. Hopefully those three weeks will go by quickly and everything will continue, on cruise control, as Dr. C says.

Trying to Ignore Time

The reality is, is that I can't just ignore time. I sure wish I could though. I do know it's been a long time since I blogged though.

And believe me, I feel a bit guilty about it.

I have been trying to ignore time though. This is a really anxiety filled time in this pregnancy for me. In fact, if you add the 4 days ahead that this baby was measuring a few weeks ago, to the gestational date where I sit today, it's literally same time that Eli's heart stopped beating. It's just crazy to me. I feel at such a different place than I did when I was beyond shocked to lose him.

The kids did not have school last week due to parent teacher conferences so Jim also took one of his weeks of vacation. It was nice to get out and do some things as a family without really focusing on a day other than to make sure we didn't completely miss an appointment or something. It was a pretty busy week too which was nice.

Here are just a few pics of some of the things that we did, in no particular order of course!


We hit up our local wildlife refuge... again... the kids love this place. Fall is certainly here! It really is a lot of fun to return to the same place, multiple times a year to watch it change with the seasons.

We took the kids to see Disney on Ice in Portland. They loved it! It was a neat show with lots and lots of music and skating. We snapped a family pic in reflection of the Rose Garden.

For Halloween, we went to my parent's house for a few days. The kids went to the carnival at mom's school on Friday dressed as Little Miss Muffet and a spider and totally enjoyed themselves. Then they trick-or-treated a little bit on Saturday and certainly acquired plenty of cavity inducing goodies.
Speaking of cavities and such... Karleigh lost yet another tooth! And gained a cavity. The fact that this is her first is pretty good. I had horrible baby teeth loaded with decay. Luckily, my permanent teeth came in good and strong and I don't even remember what get a filling is like. She'll get hers filled tomorrow. We also found out that just as soon as her 6 year molars come in, we'll start her orthodontic work. Oy! Luckily we have coverage with our insurance. Her jaw is just too small for the teeth that are on their way in. I'm sure she'll end up with an expander to help make room. I had the same done, but not until high school and that wasn't because of crooked teeth but an attempt to combat my TMJ issues.

We managed to make it out to the pumpkin patch when the weather was beautiful. We had had a long day but the kids still had fun!

We even snapped a pic of us during the hayride. We had originally planned on hitting the same farm where Karleigh had her field trip a few weeks ago but it was insanely packed... thousands of people. So, we drove out to our regular pumpkin patch that we've been going to since before Karleigh was one and it was perfect! We had much more space to ourselves and we were even the only ones on the hayride at the time. Oh, and after getting home and seeing this picture... I gave Jim a haircut!

So, I've been trying to ignore time by just keeping myself busy. I do have another Doc appointment on Wednesday while the kids are in school so I'm hoping, of course, that it goes well. I'm also hoping that, at that time, I'll get to schedule the "big" ultrasound. I'm hoping after that that I'll be able to start thinking about bringing a live baby home and not just hospital bills and memory boxes.

Normal

"Normal" is so nice.
"Normal" is all I asked for.

While in the shower this morning I got to thinking "huh, it's been 8 days since my 1st trimester screening. I wonder how my blood numbers were?" Then I proceeded to have a discussion in my head about the fact that the maternal fetal medicine office said that they would call if the results were abnormal and would just mail me a card if... when!... they returned normal. I got out of the shower, dressed and the phone rang.

Unknown Name
Unknown Number

That is code for my doc's office.

I answered the phone and it was V, Dr.C's nurse. She said "Hey! We got your results back. They're totally normal! I just had to call and let you know instead of making you wait!"

"Normal" is what I got!

I didn't ask her the ratios because knowing that it was normal is good enough for me. It's really a relief. Rylan's AFP which is just a blood draw but also a screening test returned positive and that was really stressful. I also passed my first trimester screen with Collin but I still feel good today. He didn't live long enough for me to receive my official results. They called while my mom was here and I was at the hospital prepping for surgery. This baby is still alive and I'm starting to feel little movements. So far everything is normal.

I am very thankful for normal.

Another Milestone

I've got to say, I've pretty much been a ball of nerves the last few days. Rylan's birthday was a great distraction while leading up to this afternoon's NT Scan. I did not have the scan done with Eli but we did with Collin... and his heart stopped the next day. My scan with him was at 12 weeks 3 days. Today I was 12 weeks 4 days. I just wanted to get these next few days done and over with. I'm trying not to wish my life away but it's hard to relive certain things. Luckily, we were able to go back the the Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) office where we had our last scan done so they had my whole history and the ultrasound tech was great about reading my entire file prior to seeing us.

I found it really comforting to have so many things different this time around. We were in a different room. Different tech - this one came over from 7 years at the OHSU MFM office. She was great and understanding and really warm. This baby was moving all over the place - which Collin did not do (and in hindsight bugged me). We saw this baby swallowing. A stomach. A full bladder. The diaphragm. Fingers and toes. Eyes and nose. Brain. A perfect three vessle cord. A heart beat of 167 beats per minute. And the whole reason we were there the Nuchal Translucency measurements averaged out at 1.9 or so. At this stage of the game anything below 3.2 is considered "normal" and the lower, the better.

The best thing was this baby is measuring a bit ahead at 13 weeks 1 day... in essence, catapulting us right past some of the days that would have carried a lot of nervous energy. That is not saying that I'm thinking everything is 100%, for sure, going to be ok but it feels a bit better to have such a great appointment behind us.

We also got a number of pictures but these were the "best", in my opinion.

This one is the profile, hand up near face, black spot near the middle of the baby is the stomach, the black spot closer to the leg is the bladder.

Look! It's a brontosaurus!!! Just kidding, it's a hand and an arm but our baby is already looking to be quite talented in the shadow puppet skills department. :)

Perfect little feet and legs. The MFM showed us how we could easily see that there isn't even a clubbed foot.

And in honor of Halloween approaching, the obligatory, scary alien-skeleton shot but that's exactly what he/she is supposed to look like right now.

I also had an appointment last week with my OB that went great. Turns out, I'm the first and only patient to whom he has prescribed Femara. But so far so good!

While I'm really happy with the outcome of today's appointment. I also don't want to forget that tomorrow is October 15th which is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. So, while I'm celebrating a great appointment and continuing to be cautiously optimistic for this spring, tomorrow is a day set aside for us all to remember those babies who didn't get the chance to live the full lives that we expected.