Giving hope a chance

Chris and I met at the perinatologist's office yesterday. I was terrified; he looked pale and frightened. We compared stories of our drives over--we both felt like we could pass out at any moment. The anxiety level was sky high. It didn't help that the perinatologist's office is INSIDE the hospital where Addison was born.

After a 45-minute wait, it was our turn. I recognized the tech from our appointments when I was pregnant with Addison and we started chatting. She started to remember us as well. The doctor certainly acted as if he knew who we were. He was kind, compassionate, and at the end of the appointment told me to call him anytime. And I believed he meant it.

But what I really want to write about is the total and utter RELIEF that I now feel. What an emotionally exhausting visit! The nuchal translucency result looked good--likely no Down's. Anatomically, the doctor said everything looked normal. The blood results for other issues will be back in a week or so. The subchorionic hemorrhage was obviously still there, big, looming, scary...but he seemed certain it would resolve with time. And he got the money shot. He thinks we're having a boy. We are thrilled. We know that nothing is 100%, nothing is totally certain, I will never feel completely confident that we're brining home a healthy child in March. But I am ready to feel cautiously optimistic. I'm ready to HOPE. And for me, that's a really big deal.

PS: Thank you all for your loving, supportive comments. It really touches me to know that you are there are rooting for me.

White Knuckling

I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread. I don't know exactly how far along I am (about 12 1/2 weeks) probably because I'm too scared to get attached to this baby. Frankly, I don't know if it's alive or dead right now. But I'll find out in just about exactly 12 hours. I will see the perinatologist tomorrow. Finally. And then I will see if there is still a heartbeat. I will also see if one of my scariest thoughts has become reality (some terrible genetic fuckup with the baby). VERY secondarily, we may find out if this is a girl or a boy. But, really, I can't even get that far in my head because I don't know if we will even see a live fetus. I have absolutely no instinct about this baby; my instinct has failed me in the past, anyway, so why would I trust anything I feel? I had another pretty decent bleed a few days ago, and I've been spotting very dark blood nearly every day for a week. I just don't feel good about it. I'm nervous. Okay, I'm downright terrified. And so I wait, but not much longer. I hope I can sleep tonight.

Life or Death? Please let it live.

We were at Disney World in Florida for Labor Day weekend. Calvin is 4, and just barely over 40 inches tall, so he was able to ride a lot of the fun rides.

Sunday morning when I wiped there was a tinge of brownish blood. I thought...well, here we go. Either I'm going to lose this baby or not. No more blood the whole day. We enjoyed ourselves at Magic Kingdom and tried not to think about what might happen.

I've actually never had bleeding or spotting during a pregnancy. None with Calvin or Addison; none when I had a missed miscarriage in 2008 at about week 10. They just found there was no heartbeat during a routine check-up. But I know it's not a great sign, even if it's not always prelude to disaster.

Today we were scheduled to fly back home to Georgia at 6:30pm. I woke up around 8am and felt a small gush; I thought maybe I had peed myself. In the bathroom I ended up bleeding quite a bit of red blood. I inspected it and saw a few small clots. It's pretty much the last thing I wanted to see. My intuition failing me, all I could rely on was my instinct to get home so I could get to a hospital. Unfortunately, Labor Day is not the day to get a flight easily changed. So we were stuck.

We decided to go to a hospital to get checked. After nearly 4 hours, we got an answer. It's a subchorionic hemorrhage measuring 4.2 x 3.7 x 2.5cm. The good news is that the baby is alive and measuring right on target - 10 wks 6 days. I was told I could travel home (and we just made it back) but was instructed not to carry anything heavier than my purse. Of course I had been schlepping Calvin around all weekend when he got tired of walking.

The bad news is the unknown. At this point, it can go either way. Either this baby will make it, or it won't. And even within that simplistic-sounding statement, there are so many either/or scenarios. My big fear is the genetic fuckup. Either there will be one or there won't. I'm not "allowed" to talk about fear and anxiety to many people in my real world. They don't want to hear it, and make me feel as if I am creating my own destiny by fearing the worst. If I had that much control over my world, Addison would be alive and healthy and I wouldn't have to be going through another fucking pregnancy right now.

So I'll see my doctor tomorrow. I'll call when his crappy-office-hours office opens at 9am. I literally have 3 days available to take off from work for the rest of the year. I don't even care. Sometimes life takes a priority to work. And this is one of those times.

It's hard to let myself feel all these feelings, so I'm not. Not yet. I fear I will have a literal nervous breakdown if I lose this baby. I just don't want to lose it. I just can't go through it. I don't want to have to explain to Calvin why another baby died, when we just had the guts to tell him there is another baby in my tummy. I don't want to waste more time on pregnancies that don't equal babies. Damnit, I want this baby to live and thrive and grow and be born healthy. Hey, Universe, is that too much to ask for?

Perhaps.

It Lives

My first OB appointment was a major test of emotional strength...which I failed horribly. But the bottom line is that I'm not as far along as I thought, so that is apparently why my symptoms seemed to disappear last week. It's actually more likely they never fully had developed.

I'm happy to say that I'm good and nauseated now. Sick as ever. Puking my guts up and still wanting to heave again. I never thought I would be happy about that, but I am. As of today I am apparently only 6w4d. We saw an ultrasound of a bean and a pretty steady 119 heartrate on Friday. According to the size of the bean, I apparently ovulated on day 19 of my cycle and had a definitely positive test just 12 days later. That is so incredibly odd, but whatever. I didn't really know it was possible to get a positive reading so early. In fact, I was getting the really faint images of the "line" just 9 days after the alleged conception. My period was due and I thought I was further along than that, otherwise I would have never been testing so early. My cycles are still effed up, but I obviously ovulate (even if on wonky schedules) and I'm still as fertile as ever.

So, I had a breakdown in the exam room (after the first ultrasound with a crappy machine and before being ushered into the Ultrasound Room with the good machine and a tech) and I was just sobbing and telling my husband something to the effect of, "I can't lose this baby; I can't go through this again." It was almost like I was watching myself from a distance in that moment. I want to be positive and say it's all going to be okay. I want to at least give this thing a chance, in my head, to turn out well. I am going to try. I really am.

And my poor new OB. I have been the most low-key, low-maintenance OB patient EVER in the past--even through my missed miscarriage. But now this poor new guy is going to have to endure me in my "new normal" state. But he said all the right things, and took us in his office after the exam, and patiently went over the game plan of how we will attempt to avoid a dead baby this time around. All I can say is, GO TEAM!

Trusting Myself

I'm fighting the paranoia. I'm approaching 7 weeks pregnant (maybe) and yesterday I had a definite "it's dead" day. I don't see the doctor until Friday, so I have no choice but to wait it out until we can see if there is a living baby in there. And, of course, I'm not so naive to think that seeing a heartbeat this early will equal a living baby in 30-something weeks.

I had a 10-week missed miscarriage before I got pregnant with Addison. From the beginning of that pregnancy I felt that something was wrong. I said out loud, on multiple occasions, "either this is the best pregnancy ever, or I'm going to lose this baby." I had seen and heard the heartbeat at 6 weeks; who knew it was going to disappear over the next month. Well, I kinda did.

And then with Addison, I had a feeling like everything would be okay. As sure as I was that the one before was going to fail, I knew that pregnancy would last. And I was right--for the most part. I mean, she died, of course, but not until much much later.

And now here I am. And I don't know what to think. Because I can't trust myself. I can't trust my intuition. I can't trust my body. I can't trust the natural process of a baby growing and thriving and being born. Part of me says, this is a boy. I can feel it. The other part of me says, this baby will never even live long enough to become a baby. (It would help if I would just puke already!!) And so I wait.

Poor Chris is more paranoid than I am because I'm giving all sorts of crazy signals because I'm so confused. I think he's already emotionally preparing for going in on Friday, finding no heartbeat, and scheduling the D&C. It's not like we haven't been down that road before.

I'm glad I have a very busy job because the days go by quickly and my mind is occupied the whole day. It keeps me from grabbing my boobs constantly to assess tenderness levels, or attempting to determine whether I have any smell aversions developing.

Anyway, blah blah blah. I bore myself to tears. I hate worrying, even though it was in my nature even before losing Addison. And now that trait is set in stone.

For one night only

After I gave Calvin a kiss goodbye this morning, he said, "Mommy, when you have a baby in your tummy I will kiss your tummy and the baby will like it." I told him there was no baby in there, but I would let him know if there ever was. Then he said, "But everyone has two babies." I guess he meant two LIVING babies.

I related this story to my co-worker this morning and then commented with a sigh, "I wish he knew something I don't know."

Ovulation testers were a total bust this past month, but I'm still 3 days late for my period. We did manage to have sex on day 16 and day 20 of my cycle. I never saw a clear "ovulation" reading on the damn sticks, although the closest I came to seeing the pink line darker than the control line was day 20. Day 16 was just for fun. I complained to my mom's voicemail this weekend about my frustration with my cycle, where's my period, am I ever going to have normal cycles again...and she responded with a voicemail wherein she actually said the words: "just throw out the ovulation sticks, relax, make love every other day, and it will happen." Seriously?
I thought she knew better than to say crap like that--at least to me.

Well, turns out my whining was for nothing, because 5 pregnancy tests (3 brands) later, I finally got a reading I could trust 100%. Thank goodness for digital pregnancy tests. Yeah, I have a college degree but can't tell if it's a "real line" or an "evaporation line." I guess I've become one of those "4 out of 5 women" they talk about in the commercial who can't accurately read a pregnancy test. Doh!

So, for this one night only, I am going to bask in the glow of happy that I feel. Tonight I will not stress about possibly losing this pregnancy or finding out some terrible news about the fetus down the road. I will not worry about brain damage or cord accidents or SIDS or genetic fuck-ups. I will let go of fear and anxiety for this one moment and just be...well...happy.

Fear with a capital F

I was in the shower this morning when it hit me. The memory of holding Addison for the last time. Of course, I didn't know it would be the last time. And even in that moment, Chris and my mom and my sister Sarah and I all discussed how good she looked--that she would seemingly hold on forever and make this even more difficult for us all. It seemed at that time the state of limbo we were in--with her being alive but not really, just waiting patiently in the hospice for death to come--was the worst it could possibly be. That once she died, we could get about the business of mourning and get past this terrible thing. For the longest time, I had this idea in my head that I couldn't shake--the idea that I could have "closure." I'm realizing there is no such thing. People talk about starting new chapters in their lives, moving on, looking ahead. It's an illusion. It doesn't really happen like that. This so-called closure is actually a slow, painful drift through time, punctuated by strong floods of shit that knock you off the lifeboat you were barely clinging to in the first place. At least, that's how it's feeling for me these days. One of those shitstorms hit me this morning in the shower. I had that guilty, horrible feeling again because I actually WANTED Addison to die once I learned of her condition and prognosis. To then have her around one day--one minute--one second longer--just seemed to cut the wound deeper. During the visits I had with her those days that she was "alive" I held her, rocked her, breathed her in, memorized her, and told her to let go because there was nothing to fight for. A brain dead baby born in a coma has nothing to live for. No hope. No future. So we pumped her full of morphine and hoped that she would somehow forget to breathe. Quickly. I thought during those days how pathetic it is that we don't allow for euthenasia in this country. We can put down a dog who is suffering, but not a human. For Addison, it would have been the most ethical, loving and kind thing to just end it for her. I felt that way then; I feel that way now; and I will live with the guilt forever for having these feelings. I can justify them in my head, but to be a mom with those feelings toward her own daughter...well, that is unforgiveable. The week she lived was hell, and my life has become hellish ever since. Perhaps I will choose to punish myself forever for hoping, during those horrible days, that she would just die already.

I know, now, that I can never replace Addison. I would never even want to try. I think in those first weeks and months after she died I subconsciously thought I could replace her in a way. Like, if I just got pregnant and had another baby, it would create a wrinkle in time that would undo Addison altogether. With 8 months of grief under my belt, I'm now fully aware of the emotional trials and tribulations I will likely endure during a future pregnancy. I follow enough blogs to know there is no such thing as a "happy ending" after losing a child. I turned 36 a few days ago. I thought I would be done having babies. And yet, our family seems incomplete without 2 living children. I realize that the overwhelming emotion I have surrounding a potential future pregnancy is fear. That's not even a strong enough word to accurately describe how scared I am--about everything pregnancy related. I know too much. The door has been opened and I have entered, against my will, a world that I never even wanted to know really existed.

And yet, I've begun peeing on sticks for the first time in my life. I've been pregnant 3 times. I have timed sex 0 of those times. I've certainly never peed on a stick to figure out likely ovulation. But I'm getting older, and the fear that I won't be able to get pregnant "by chance" is one of my oh-so-many fears:
I'm afraid I won't be able to get pregnant.
I'm afraid to have a daughter to show me what Addison could have been.
I'm afraid to have a son, which would mean never raising a daughter.
I'm afraid the pregnancy will end early.
I'm afraid to have a c-section too early.
I'm afrait to wait too long and having the baby die before birth.
I'm afraid the baby will have a chromosomal disorder due to my age.
I'm afraid I will have to make a real choice about the future of my unborn baby.
I'm afraid the baby will be born with severe problems.
I'm afraid the baby will die of SIDS.
I'm afraid I will lose everything I currently have and everything I don't even have yet. I'm just plan afraid.

Forget grief and rage and guilt (the standards I've been feeling). Overwhelming fear is the current overriding emotion right now. And even with fear in my soul, I have to do it. I don't want to wait. Even without trying to get pregnant, I'm scared. So I guess I'm not choosing to face the fear; I'm choosing to continue down my path in spite of it. And what if....everything worked out. What if I got the line on the stick and conceived and got the line on the "other" stick weeks down the road and the baby lived and thrived in my womb and it was born healthy and lived to be able to tell me "I love you." What if. I will still mourn our loss of Addison. And I know our family will never be complete without her. But such is life. I have no other choice but to continue living in spite of the pain and fear. I guess I'll just shoot good thoughts out into the universe. Universe, would you please cut me some slack?