33 weeks of dreaming

MeMe is now a 33 weeks and is steadily getting bigger and bigger.  It’s so great to know that I’m so close to having her.  My mom says I look like I’ve dropped already.  We’ll see what the US says in 2 days. One good thing is that everyone that has seen me claims that I’m “all belly” which is a great compliment, but I know it’s not all true.  Thanks anyway.  MeMe is chillin, kicking me hard when I’m lying down.  When I’m standing and fussing around, I feel random BH contractions.  Yesterday, I kept feeling like I had be pee all the time.  It was either all the water I drank (it’s too freakin hot!) or she was hanging out by my bladder.

Husb and I had a date to watch a great movie (District nine)  and have dinner with some of my work-friends last Saturday.  It was fun, but wow, the birthday girl is a lush!  I couldn’t imagine having as many shots and long island iced teas that she had and to still be mobile.  My ass would’ve been knocked out!  It was good to see folks.  Everyone keeps asking what we’re doing for the baby and wants to be invited to whatever it is.  Sure people, it’s coming.

We are getting geared up for the big event in 3 weeks. I’m super excited.  I keep looking through my overnight bag to make sure I have what I need.  That bag has been packed since I was 16 weeks! Just in case I ended up hospitalized AGAIN! MeMe’s bag has been packed too, but I can’t remember when I started stuffing it.  Husb finally set up the small refrigerator and has figured out where to put things in baby’s room.  I still need to buy that pack-n-play in the next few days.  Just very lazy and sleepy these days.   

I’ve been having vivid baby dreams.  But I’ve had them for months now.  They started with when I was pregnant with the twins.  Here are a few I remember most:

1) I dreamt that I gave birth to one baby girl with a club foot after watching a show on discovery health about a baby with a club foot. This was while pregnant with two babies.

2) After the twins and my aunt died, I dreamt that they were communicating with me through dancing sunflowers in our backyard.  They were dancing and swinging and happy together.  The next day I woke up, there was a huge sunflower that sprung up on the hill part of the backyard.  We never had sunflowers grow before or after that day after the dream. Spooky.

3) I dreamt that I had MeMe early and she was really small, but forgot to buy blankets for her.  She kept crying and screaming because she was cold and I felt like the worst mother ever.  When I woke up, I ran to the store to buy receiving blankets and one of those fuzzy plush blankets.  Mom also started sewing some of the blankets she was making at the same time.  Weird, huh.

4) I dreamt that I had MeMe and she was fine.  We were happy.  But I went to a public bathroom and found a homeless couple trying to kill their small baby.  I kept screaming “take her to the hospital and let her live, she’ll be okay!” and they kept trying to smother her while she was crying.  So I took the baby from them and ran to the hospital. I woke up crying. 

These hormones are too much!

20 weeks of joy and paranoia…

MeMe (gummy bear’s new nickname) has reached her 20′s. I’m so proud! Everyday when I’m in bed, I feel little taps in my uterus and round ligament pains. I hate those aches and pains, they freak me out. I get paranoid that I’m having contractions or that my cervix is trying to open. Then I feel my panties to make sure they aren’t wet. I am VERY paranoid of my water breaking. I remember very clearly what happened prior to the surprise of my life when my bag of water splashed all over the kitchen floor last year, so I am watching vigilantly for anything close to that. I am slowly starting to trust my body and my stitches. They are holding and my cervix is obeying. Good girl! I’m still taking those 17P shots in the ass every Monday in hopes of keeping my uterus quiet. One more week until we see Dr. S. again. It’s been 4 weeks since the surgery and this is the first week where I don’t have an appointment. I almost feel kinda normal now. Key word is ALMOST.

My next goal is for MeMe to get to 24 weeks. She made it to 20, it wasn’t a very smooth trip, but here we are. Thank you Lord!

14w3d, reality check

 

So I can comfortably say I’m in my second trimester and I’m feeling a little freaked out because with the twins, next week is just when everything went to hell and it took 5 days to finally deliver. 

 Over the weekend, husb and I had a discussion about what our plan of action is and we finally decided to get the stitch sooner than later and do the shots.  So we called the peri and they said we need a referral again to do it so we called Dr. M.  It turns out that according to Dr. T’s recommendation, our care would have to be transferred to UCSD( 30 miles away) until I’m 28 weeks, then I can go back to Dr. M.  What the hell!!! I just built rapport with Dr. M and now we gotta switch it up with the peri people.  Shit, there’s goes my confidence!  That had me a little frazzled on Monday and of course I had to work.  I spent a large part of my night doing research on MDconsult and I realized that doctors are sadistic and cruel.  They want ladies to go through multiple 2nd-trimester losses before they think a cerclage is needed.  Or get in trouble before a cerclage is needed which in turn will end up as a loss.  Docs really don’t care about you as a pregnant patient until you’re in your 3rd-trimester.  I guess they figure whatever happens between conception and 24 weeks is a toss up, so good luck and we’ll see you later.  

Back to my research of medical journals: “Patient’s with a prior 2nd-trimester loss were 10.8 times more likely to have a recurrent 2nd-trimester loss or spontaneous preterm birth, compared to those with prior full-term delivery.”  OUCH!!  Then in the conclusion of a study regarding 2nd-tri losses it stated “if in fact 2nd-tri loss and early preterm labor occur by similar biological mechanism, women with 2nd-tri loss would be candidates for therapy that reduces subsequent preterm birth such as p17 and not for cervical cerclage”.

Still confused. I feel like I’d be taking a big chance either way.  I have prayed and prayed and prayed over this decision.  My mother-in-law called me yesterday to check on me and said everyone was praying for me.  God has watched over this baby despite all the bleeding and spotting. 

My mom talked to one of her ob-gyn friends (Dr. Lo), it turns out it was the same doc that saw me when I was first admitted to the 1st  hospital.  She did a pelvic exam and saw the sac bulging in my cooch. My vaginal cultures were negative so what’s all this infection talk?  I bet by the time I went to the second hospital, I was head down and stuff probably started sliding back north and the contents of my uterus wasn’t as heavy so it didn’t look as bad when that peri saw me.  Dr. Lo said “GET THE CERCLAGE” since she has seen cases where it happens again. Even Dr. M said do both.  And the old peri said get a cerclage for the next pregnancy before I was discharged.  So I should feel good, right?

I’m still scared of the surgery.  Just because it’s surgery.  I want this baby so much and it took sooo long to make this baby, all the shots and meds and waiting, I will do anything to boost it’s chances of growing up. I wanted to have a “normal pregnancy” but I have to let that dream and my ego go. Plus getting shots in my ass every week sounds like so much fun! I needed help getting pregnant and I need help staying pregnant.  That’s my reality.

I better hurry up and get my hair braided before the referral goes through. I might be in the hospital for a looong time.

13 weeks of wonder…

Had my appointment with Dr. M on Monday and all is well.  Throughout this pregnancy I’ve been using the due date that the fertility clinic gave me, but all other docs want to use the one based on my LMP…so my official EDD is Oct. 11 and every Sunday starts a new week. Yay!  We couldn’t hear gummy bear with the doppler so she had to get the belly u/s and there was baby wiggling, but down kinda deep in my pelvis. HB 163, got to see the alien face again.  Baby likes to be seen, not heard. Dr. M still says no sex since she wants my cervix to keep healing and we updated her on the peri visit.  I gave Dr. M a copy of my medical records to fax to the peri. She read it real fast and came to the same conclusion as Dr. T.  Maybe the cerclage isn’t needed.  We said we wanted the progesterone shots, but Dr. M said that won’t start until 24 weeks!!! 24 freaking weeks….that’s too far away.  She wanted to get the consultation letter from Dr. T before she settles on when to start the shots. I’ve read as early as 16 weeks, not 24, yikes! So since we still hadn’t fully decided whether or not to get stitched, we insisted on getting my cervical length measured prior to making that decision.  I had a transvag u/s on Tuesday and my cervix is closed & 4 cm in length.  No indications for a cerclage, yet.  After much discussion with my mom and husb it seems like we can afford to watch and wait. 

1. One baby buys more time.  I think my uterus got over-distended with the twins.

2. I don’t have a congenitally short cervix. But if it is incompetent, at least we’ll be sure. Next check at 17 weeks.

3. The placenta is still a little low, not like previa low, so it’s better to wait for the placenta to  move up as the uterus gets bigger.  I can’t imagine putting the stitch in and cutting into the placenta. Oh HELL NO!

4. I’m taking 3 weeks off from work to rest, starting on 4/24.  Also I’m orienting a new grad nurse so she gets to do all the hard work until my vacation, which means more resting/sitting  time for me at work. Thank you God for sending her at this time! 

If I don’t hear anything from Dr. M in the next two weeks regarding the consult from Dr. T, she told me to call the office and see what’s up. But overall, so far so good in babyland.

 Alicia called me last night because her feet are super swollen and they found protein in her urine.  She sent me a pic of her feet and she looks like she has heart failure!  I told her if her other labs come back bad or her bp stays up, they will deliver her soon, now she’s freaking out.  She’s 35/36 weeks along, baby will be fine.

Husb and I went on a day trip to San Diego to the Natural History Museum.  They had the “Body Worlds 2″ exhibit where they preserve dead bodies and display the human form.  Kinda cool and kinda creepy at the same time.  It was AWESOME to see what the diseases I talk to my patients about really looks like up close.  There was an area  about human development and we got to see little 4 to 8 week embryos in jars.  Then they had little fetuses at different weeks of the second trimester and I was very disturbed by them.  They had a fetus that was like 14 weeks along, kinda looked like the twins, and I got goosebumps.  There was a woman standing with a 20 week old fetus still developing in her womb in perfect condition.  It makes you wonder, how did she die and did she know the baby was there?  I truly hope to never see a dead fetus EVER again.

So now is the countdown for the gender scan….place your bets!  At this point anything is great! Husb prefers a girl since he has a living son and my mom says it’s a boy since my husb has made 3 boys already. My dad hasn’t weighed in yet. I just want the baby healthy and to look like me

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 .