Summer Blog Challenge, Day 40- The Hardest Challenge I Have Been Faced With...

The hardest challenge I have ever had to face was the decision to try to get pregnant again, and then the actual pregnancy itself.


Before our sweet baby girl came to us I had had two early miscarriages in a row.  My first miscarriage was what they term a missed miscarriage.  The baby had stopped growing earlier on, but my body still acted as if it was pregnant.  I found out when I thought I was about 12-13 weeks pregnant.  I had went to the ER because I just felt something wasn't right even though I had no outwardly symptoms of a miscarriage.  The ER confirmed what my instinct seemed to already know- my baby had stopped growing around 7 weeks.  A couple of days later, I went to the women's clinic at the same hospital and received my only picture I would ever have of that baby.  My tiny, motionless little Peanut. Floating.
My second miscarriage happened almost exactly one year to the date from my first one.  But this one happened much more quickly, and naturally.  I was 8 weeks pregnant and started spotting and cramping.  I lost Blueberry that same weekend.


Two miscarriages in a row combined with my age and the fact that I had a healthy 12 year old son put me into the secondary infertility category.  My OB ordered every blood test possible- everything came back normal.
She performed a saline sonogram- everything looked normal.
And she said to go ahead and try, that she would see me for my first prenatal appointment.


Never had more hopeful and fearful words been spoken to me.
We had no answers, no reasons why but she wanted us to just jump right in there again and try.
We fortunately got pregnant right away... with the quintessential honeymoon baby.  The first trimester was one of the hardest and one of the most blessed things I have ever had to experience.  Each ultrasound started with anxiety, fear, sometimes panic, and ended with relief and joy.

I am not sure if my husband and I will try for another baby.  We still have a couple of years to decide.  But the possibility excites me and scares the hell out of me all at the same time.  My pregnancy with baby girl was so anxiety-ridden and scary at times that I am not sure I would want to endure that again.  Plus, with the next baby I would be over 35.  That opens up a whole new bag of fears.  For now, we are enjoying and cherishing our precious little girl.  I feel we will know what decision to make about adding to our family when the time comes... 

And now I wait...

I finally heard from the nurse at my OB's office this morning.  (You know, after I had left 3 voicemails since last Friday with no call back until today?)  The nurse pulled up my ultrasound records as she talked to me.  While she was doing this, I expressed to her my feelings of anxiety concerning this particular week, Week 7.  I really need to have an ultrasound this week or next.  I need to see the heartbeat again and know that Bean is okay. 

She informed me that the baby's heart rate was 105 bpm at last week's ultrasound.  While she said that is normal for a baby of 6 weeks gestation (and I confirmed this through checking multiple credible sources online), they always order a second ultrasound within 7-10 days of the last one if the heart rate was not at least 120.  I was assured this was just standard procedure for my OB's office. 
At this point in the conversation, I was literally baffled.  Why has someone from their office not called me yet??  Today is 7 days since our last ultrasound!  When were they going to inform me of this mandatory second ultrasound anyhow??

She then preceded to tell me that she wants me to schedule an ultrasound for a follow-up viability tomorrow.  Okay, I even hate the sound of that... follow-up viability.  Blech. 

I am scheduled for this follow-up viability tomorrow afternoon at 3:00.  I feel like myself and this pregnancy are standing at the edge of our first major precipice.  I will have a better idea of the outcome of this pregnancy in almost 24 hours.  If the heart rate has gone up, I will be able to breathe and relax a little.  We would have made it through my scary week with a still growing and very much alive baby inside of me.  I hate to think of the other alternative... 

So, for now I sit and I wait.  And I try not to let the anxiety and worry make me crazy...

Trust is a Funny Thing...

It is hard to get the trust back when you have been horribly betrayed not just once, but twice.  When the betrayal has ripped out your heart, caused you countless tears, and made you just feel sick to your stomach.  How do you forgive and allow another chance after so much heartache and pain??  How can you be sure that it won't happen a third time?

My body is trying to win my trust back.  I am still skeptical and very cautious, but I can see that it is really making a concerted effort, a heartfelt attempt to make me believe in it again.  And I need to forgive it...  I need to be able to trust it again.  But I am holding back a bit.  It has broke my heart horribly two times now.  Doesn't my body realize that it isn't so easy for me to just forget and move on??

Trust is just one of those things with me.  Once you have betrayed it, I have a very hard time ever confiding in you again.  I may take you back as a lover or a friend, but I will always be analyzing everything you say and do, fully expecting you to betray me again.  I will not allow  you to get as close to me as you might have been before the deception took place.

But I can't distance myself from my body right now... Distancing myself from my body would mean distancing myself from Bean.  Bean is a part of me, my body is a part me, Bean is a part of my body. 

I have realized over the past two days that my distrust in my body's ability to keep my babies safe and healthy is the source of almost all of my anxiety and fears surrounding this new pregnancy.  If I can just find a way to trust my body again, maybe I can find a way to alleviate the anxiety.  The trust is coming back slowly...  Wednesday's Beta result and yesterday's ultrasound are a very good start.  I guess it is my body's way of buying me roses and taking me out for dinner.  ;)  I am starting to soften a bit, and let my walls done a little more.  Please don't let me down again, body.

My Worldess Wednesday

It's In the Cards

So, during our trip to Puerto Rico I had the opportunity to sit with a fortune teller from the island and have my cards read.  I have been wanting to do this for a while now.  The husband hasn't always been 100% behind this for fear that they will tell me something that I do not want to hear and that it will cause me more worry.  But the chance literally fell into my lap this time.  At a dinner that the hubby's company was hosting, they had paid for various local entertainers to be there.  Fortune tellers were hired. ;)

After waiting for nearly 45 minutes, I finally sat down with the dark haired and somewhat exotic looking card reader.  She shuffled the deck, and asked me to split it into 3 different stacks with my left hand.  Then I was to flip the top card of each stack, again using my left hand.  One stack represented my past.  One my present.  And one my future. 
**Word in italics below represent my thoughts on the reading of each card.


My Past- She saw that I had a happy & vibrant childhood & that I was creative in my youth. She really loved this card for me.  She looked back at it more than once & touched it and just smiled.  She told me that many people in my adult life were not always aware of the happy girl beneath the surface of the adult me, but she was there.
Dead on.  I had a wonderful childhood. :)  I look back on my childhood very fondly.  And I was very creative then.  My sister & I would play pretend for hours every day.  At one point, I had my little sister convinced that the sound of the water pipes banging was little creatures who lived in the walls.  I even went so far as to create these little creatures for her once.  ;D 
I am slow to let people in during my adult life, so there are few who know the playful me well in my adult life.


Present- She saw that I have many people surrounding me that support me, and we can all relate to each other on something.  She also said that I am stronger and happier now than I have ever been.  She spoke of my spirituality and that there are people in my life who do not understand what I believe because I embrace different things, not just one idea or concept of spirituality.  She referred to me several times as a career-oriented and driven person and that I need to relax some.
When she mentioned the support system I have, I automatically thought of my gals on Twitter and my fellow bloggies whom I can relate to on trying to conceive and pregnancy loss.  I teared up a little when she said that.  I am stronger and happier now than I have been in YEARS.  I had some very tough times the past 3-4 years and I can honestly say I have come out of it a better woman.  She was right on about my spirituality.  I was raised Christian, but not all of that clicks with me.  There are elements of Buddhism that speak deeply to me.  My spirituality is not any one particular religion.  And for that, I have had devoted Christian friends and family members not always understand me or agree with my thoughts or beliefs.  I am not really career-oriented at this time in my life- one of the first things she got wrong. ;)

Future- She flat out told me that I worry too much.  I worry about this, worry about that. And I have apparently been doing a lot of that lately.  She told me that I need to calm down, and breathe and just live life in the moment, and not always worry so much about the future.  She even suggested that I start meditation. :)  She said all my worrying wasn't necessary because she sees great happiness in my future.
Yes, yes, and yes.  I had been worrying more than I would like to admit since we found out I am expecting again.  Thoughts of loss, and of something being wrong, worry was creeping in everywhere- my thoughts, my dreams, waking me up at night...  And I actually have been considering mediation since reading about it in one of the pregnancy books I have been reading. :) 

After feeling pretty good about her reading, and knowing that most of what she said was specific to me and not just some generic reading, I took a deep breath and asked her the question I had been dying to utter since I had sat down at her tiny table- What do you see for me as far as children goes?  She smiled and told me that she sees 2 children. She pointed to my  present card and said, "one here", and then to the future card and said, "one here".  I then told her I was pregnant and that I had miscarried before. She told me the 2 before I was not meant to hold now, but that this one now I would hold.  She told me to talk to the baby, tell him or her that I would be holding them soon and would take care of them.  She said that I need to take care of myself, and again, to not worry so much. ;)
I found it very uncanny that she knew that I already have a child in the present.  That blew me away because I had said nothing to her about my son.

I walked away from her table with a renewed feeling of confidence and peace.  If nothing else, I at least felt that I was now in the right frame of mind for this pregnancy and that could make all the difference this time. 

The Ramblings of a Hopeful, Fearful Mother-To-Be....

**Warning:  This may come off disconnected and very random, but I feel if maybe I can grab & put down in writing these thoughts that keep running through my head then *maybe* I can gain some control over them.  I find that these thoughts sometimes wake me up at night, or float through my consciousness while enjoying a breathtaking view in Puerto Rico, or when I subconsciously run my hand over my belly that is beginning to round slightly...  Thoughts that cause very real feelings.  And most of the time, these are feelings I don't want to experience.

Do I have enough pregnancy symptons yet??  I don't know...  I do pee a lot (sure sign!), and I sleep more (9pm has become my new bedtime the past week).  Shouldn't my boobs be sore?  Not sure....  When did they become sore the past 3 times?  And maybe it is a good sign that they are not sore.  Do I REALLY want this pregnancy to be in any way similiar to my last 2?  And nausea...  none of that yet.  Are my hormone levels not high enough yet or not high enough for where I should be?  What if I am not getting morning sickness because Bean has stopped growing already...

Wait. What if there isn't a Bean??  What if this is just a gestational sac??  I don't even know for sure that there is a baby there yet.  I have never had a blighted ovum before (At least, not that I know of. I never got to see Blueberry on a ultrasound, so who knows...).  I will have my first ultrasound in less than 2 weeks, so I will know then for sure.  But some nausea would be good in the mean time.  Just for reassurance....
But of course, I don't want terrible nausea.  I had awful nausea and vomitting with Peanut, and I know now that didn't mean that I was having a healthy pregnancy as so many had reassured me.  It meant that I was carrying around a tiny baby that had stopping growing weeks before and my body was reacting to that...  *sigh*

This week there have been painful and heartbreaking losses in my Twitter family.  Very real and vivid reminders of what can go wrong (and what has gone wrong before for me) in a pregnancy.  And there have been joyful news of new pregnancies.  Babies that will hopefully be born within days or weeks of Bean.  My emotions have been a whirlwind this past week.  Every time I hear of a pregnancy loss, the feelings, the heartache of my last two losses come flooding back to me.  And then I feel guilty- Guilty that I am feeling such sorrow (what if this isn't good feelings to feel for Bean?) and Guilty that I carry new hope while others have temporarily lost it. 

Then the "what if's" creep in....  I hate these the most.  The what if the unthinkable happens again.  Will I be able to try again?  Is there something wrong with my eggs then?  And then, the thought of the next step- being referred to the reproductive center and then more testing.  I try to keep these thoughts at bay the most.  These are worries of something that hasn't even happened, and something I have no desire to will into reality. 

So above are my ramblings.  I just want to throw in a **Disclaimer here:  These are NOT thoughts, fears, worries that engulf my being all day and night. These are recurrent fleeting thoughts & feelings that pop into my mind when I least expect it.  Most of the time, I am thinking thoughts of hope and positivity.  I am planning for the future that will include my husband and I's first baby together.  I talk about next year with the inclusion of a new baby and all that entails.  I talk to Bean every day, and so does my husband.  We send him/her love everyday. 
But just like on a beautiful sunny day, a gray cloud will appear and make you wonder if your lovely picnic will be rained on...

My Wordless Wednesday

When a Postive Pregnancy Test Doesn't Always Mean Baby Right Away...

To most women who are trying to conceive, the home pregnancy test result above brings them feelings of joy, elation, confirmation that they can create life.  To those of us who have suffered a miscarriage (or in my case, multiple miscarriages), this result brings about a different feeling.  At first there is excitement and happiness- We are pregnant again and here is a new chance to start our family!  Then that feeling is promptly followed by anxiety and worry- Will this baby stick or have I set myself up for another round of heartache and grief?

After testing 3 (yes, 3) Big Fat Negatives just 5 days before, I tested "Pregnant" this past Sunday morning.  I was staying at my parents' house for the weekend to celebrate my sister's birthday and my cousin's baby shower, so my mom and my sister were the first to know.  (And yes, I woke them up by flashing my pee-laden & capped pregnancy test in front of their faces! ;) )  Then I promptly took a pic of the test result (the one you see above, in fact) and texted it to my husband.  My dad was the next to know, as I told him when we met him for lunch and I ordered a cheeseburger from our favorite hot dog joint.  Dad: "What did you order a cheeseburger for?"  Me: "Because it isn't recommended that pregnant ladies eat hot dogs. ;)"  His response was to call me a Fertile Myrtle and given that I have been pregnant now 3 times in the last 16 months, I guess that is kind of true.

I am obviously not staying as hush-hush about this pregnancy as I did the last.  I am also not going to be screaming it from the Facebook mountaintop anytime soon either.  But I figure that what I did when I was pregnant with Blueberry didn't do us much good last time.  Being superstitious (aka, not jinxing ourselves) and telling only a handful of people (which did not include my parents that time) didn't help.  We still lost our baby.

So, I am trying to approach this pregnancy with a new outlook and a new game plan.  People I love and care about will know.  I feel that I need the prayers and positive thoughts from each of these people to help me carry this pregnancy to full term.  How can anyone be rooting for our little Bean when no one knows that we are pregnant through the most treacherous part of the pregnancy for me??  The Bean and I need the love and strength that each and every one of you can provide.

Whether I allow myself to get excited or not, or I let my hopes get too high doesn't matter.  If I lose Bean, the pain will be the same for me.  I have to believe in the power of positive thinking and actions, and of prayer (and of a kick ass positive OB and the progesterone suppositories I will soon start ;) ) to get me through the next 8 weeks and then the next 8 months. 

I have to believe that this baby will stick.  As someone who has suffered major anxiety problems in the past, I have to keep my stress levels low.  (And yes, easier said than done to be sure!)  Mediatation, prayer, journaling, blogging and prenatal yoga will be my best friends through this pregnancy. 

I have to believe that Bean will be in my arms in 8 short months, because what is the alternative?