Referral finally went through so, first peri visit on 3/27/09. Husb and I drove like 30 miles to a teaching hospital (UCSD) that had perinatal and genetic services. So we talked to Dr. T. (new chick) and discussed my pregnancy history, but first, she did a quick viability u/s. Lil’ bit is growing fine and looks more like a baby with the skeleton glowing and squirming around in there. My husb. calls the baby “gummy bear” so he was so excited to see his gummy bear moving on the screen. Fiesty one…think it’s a girl. We’ve seen baby 5 times now with a great heartbeat. At 6 w, 8w, 9w (ER), 10w, and now @ 11w2d. So begins the talk about my history. I had to relive the last moments with my twins. Very painful, but necessary. According to Dr. T. my case is not clear-cut. I could have IC or PTL or infections that started the whole process (raging UTI at the time). In other words, she can’t really tell so I had to get my hospital record with the pathology report for her to continue to piece the picture together. Same shit they told me when I lost the twins. Docs don’t really know what happened.
Apparently, with “true IC” a person may have discharge, leak or break their bag of water and the cervix is already dilated so delivery happens fairly quickly. In my case, I leaked, broke my bag, then had contractions in the ER, but I had to be induced to go into full blown labor and that happened like 5 days later since I was like 1-2 cm dilated. Plus because it was twins, it’s even trickier because of the weight of two babies, two sacs. But I remember feeling like there was something in my cooch the night before my water broke but I wasn’t sure. So I’m thinking IC because baby A’s sac was bulging. Either way, we have choices and she is not jumping on the cerclage bandwagon yet due to it’s risks, especially if it’s not really necessary. Go figure.
1. Take progesterone shots to prevent PTL that could lead to IC.
2. Get a cerclage and take progesterone to cover for IC and PTL
3. Do nothing, watch and wait, get my cervix checked every 2 weeks and pray it doesn’t shorten or else an emergent cerclage is needed.
In the meantime, start getting my cervix checked for length and vaginal cultures for any infections.
Hmmmmmm. The risks of the cerclage: rupture my membranes, screw up my cervix (even more than Dr. L’s dumb ass already did with the LEEPs), infection, andor fetal demise due to early labor. My husb made a good point that the risks of doing it are the same as the risks of not doing it. We’ve been through the scenario before and would like to PREVENT it. Watching and waiting freaks me out because I had seen Dr. L. less than a week before my water broke. In the two weeks that I’m waiting for another check up, I could dilate. Dr. T. said think about it, she’ll send recommendations to Dr. M. (we see her on 4/6) and to call the office if we have more questions or make up our mind. I want to do everything to save this baby, especially since we couldn’t save baby B last time.
We went the hospital that I delivered the twins at and got my chart. I should’ve done that a loooong time ago, but I just didn’t have the strength. I also realized that stupid Dr. L. should’ve gotten my pathology report and let me know what it said, but he never did. What the hell! Thank goodness, I am persistent and we have a new OB. So I read the report and learned some things.
- Baby A was a boy. So his name should be Angelus, not Angeline. Sorry baby. We couldn’t tell because his skin and body parts were macerated. So we had two boys. If they were alive, their names would’ve been totally different. Angelus’s placenta was infected and even his umbilical cord was infected. My poor suffering son. I almost cried reading the report. But we had to know.
- Augustin was not infected. Could we save him, maybe. But the risk of the infection spreading was too high. I always miss you both.
So the choice is ours again. I think we’ll take door # 2 .
