Remembrance day

October 15 is Pregnancy & infant loss remembrance day. I wanted to take a moment to honor all the lost angels and mommies to angels. The pain of grieving never leaves, only stings less with time. I would not have my daughter now if we hadn’t lost our twin boys and learned from the experience.

From 2/08 until 10/08, I attended Empty Cradle support group meetings. I received a pamphlet from a social worker at the hospital. Once a month we would gather and express our feelings, telling the stories of our losses. Boxes of tissue were in never-ending supply. Several of our group had second trimester losses either due to IC or preterm labor. Someone’s story was always a little worse than mine, but sharing helped to ease the sadness. Those lovely ladies were soo supportive. My family couldn’t relate to my pain and would tell me to keep moving on.

I stopped going because of work conflicts (night meetings on work nights) and out of fear. I was a little superastitious about going while pregnant. I wanted good vibes from beginning to end. I still mourn and remember my boys in my own way.

At the beginning of this month, I received an email reminder of this month’s meeting being a special service to remember all the angels. I cried when I read it. I didn’t go. I stayed home, caring for my little miracle and prayed. A part of me wishes I went. My boys know I love them dearly.

One of my favorite songs “until the end of time” by. Justin Timber.lake still brings me to tears when I hear it. We played that song when I delivered Angelus and Augustin. But the lyrics are so wonderful, I find myself singing it to Amethyst.

“if your love was all I had, in this life, that would be enough until the end, rest your weary heart and relax your mind, ’cause I’m gonna love you girl, until the end of time”

And my favorite line that I dedicate to Amethyst…
“baby girl there ain’t no question, just to be around you is a blessing!”

O

Summer with Dom pt. 3

Just survived another week with Dom.  Last Monday (7/20), he came that evening and the peace between me and husb ended after only 24 hrs. 

The guest room is converted into Dom’s room when he’s here. So as soon as Auntie left, I stripped the bed, changed the linen, moved Dom’s toys into a position where he can find them and put his learning computer on the desk. Oops, I forgot to put Dom’s clothes back in the drawers.  They were sitting in a box to make room for Auntie.  I did put another dresser out for MeMe, put some of the clothes that “A” gave me in it, and rearranged some of the other stuff for the baby.  But the fact is…I forgot about Dom.  No I didn’t, I set the room up for him;he can put his own clothes away.  He’s old enough and definitely knows how to fold-n-stuff.  Husb says I’m too jumpy about the baby.  Pardon me for being excited about MY OWN BABY!  Dom has plenty of attention.

Husb is thinking that this is his last week with us until school starts. Okay so what.  He’ll be here on the weekends.  It’s not like he’s going away forever.  Our only focus should be on him at all times.  Yeah right.  I was more pissed that he was actually upset that I was excited about doing something for the baby.  What the hell!??! I swear, sometimes….

Wednesday (7/22): We went to Medieval Times in Anaheim as a trio and that was fun.  Got to cheer for the Yellow Knight who won his tourntment games, but he didn’t rescue the Prince from the evil Green Knight.  The Red Knight did that.  Overall, a fun experience.  I highly recommend it! 

The rest of the week consisted of husb planning things with Dom or leaving Dom in my care.  Not much of doing things as a trio.  That bothers me.  The only other thing we did as a trio was play Dominoes together.  We kinda used it as a math lesson. 

By Friday, husb said he wanted to give me my back rub for slaving all day to make sure Dom had whatever he needed, was entertained, and cooked dinner. Never happened. He spent all night hanging out and watching t.v. with Dom.  Saturday night, they washed the cars together and husb hurt his back, but still managed to go say hi to a friend that night that he hadn’t seen since he came back from Texas.  Sunday,  husb cooked us breakfast and slept the whole day. I ended up taking Dom shopping with me.  I bought the new Wii Sports Resort.  (Fun games, I like it better than Wii Sports).  Then, I got him some new shoes that are a size too big so he can grow into them. 

I found a bouncer for MeMe and bought it.  If it was up to me, I would’ve put it together to see what it looks like, but husb read my mind and started up with the attitude.  Let me be excited for my baby! 

Does he realize the pain and agony I went through not being able to get pregnant for years.  Or the pain of getting pregnant with twins and having to deliver them too damn early! Or the pain of holding my babies in my arms and letting them go.  That is pain that can’t be easily erased.  I hated having Dom around during that postpartum time simply because he was alive and loved his mother.  I didn’t get close to anyone’s kids, the pain was too deep.  But husb wanted me to cling to Dom and hoped he would take the pain away.  Nope, doesn’t work that way.  What takes the pain away is feeling MeMe kick and move and hearing her heart with my Doppler.  I’m watching my belly get big showing some stretchies and counting every week that goes by.  I’m not gonna curb my excitement because someone wants me to focus on their kid instead.  You are gravely mistaken mister.

Now it’s 29 weeks. Yay MeMe!  Almost there sweetie!

He went to drop his son off and of course, decided to go hang out at a friend’s house.  No massage tonight.  We really haven’t hung out or spent quality husb/wife time all week.  And he has the nerve to get all pissy about the fact that when MeMe is here, he’s not gonna get any love.  If I get nothing out of this union…

 ”At least I’ll have my daughter.”

Another unfortunate anniversary

It’s been a year since I lost “Adrien”. Damn, time flies.  Adrien was a true miracle.  No ovulation tests, no watching my mucus, no temping, no monitoring of my cycle whatsoever.  I hadn’t done that since 2005.  It was nice to know that I ovulated on my own.  I was also nice to know that my husb and I can make a baby the old-fashion way (saved us thousands).

But Adrien was not meant to be. Adrien was a chemical pregnancy.  Adrien came to us and was gone in a week.  Today, a year ago, I was bleeding like a period, went to the urgent care center and found my hcg level to be down to <2 with nothing showing on the ultrasound. 

Dear Adrien, you were a dream.  I’m sorry you could not stay and be realized.  Instead, God wanted you in heaven with your brothers.

Live and learn, Peri visit

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 .