It's been nearly two months since my last post and I think everyone that reads this blog knows that I'm pregnant again (!!). Roughly a month after we learned that Jon's semen analysis dramatically improved I got knocked up. Well...that was fast. Is it really that simple? It's so hard to fathom this new ability as a couple to just get pregnant "the first month trying" (at least the first official month following that 2-3 month waiting period post-op) given that it took 2 years to get to this point.
February 26th was 10 days past ovulation when roughly 33% of women who are indeed pregnant will have a positive pregnancy test--the remaining 66% will get false negatives. I woke up that morning with the intention of testing like I usually do every month, yet my basal body temperature that morning had taken an unexpected dip. I groaned thinking, "great, my period is coming early this month". I decided to take a test "just in case", but did not have any hopes that it would be positive. Home pregnancy tests are not to be read within the first 3 minutes, and should not be read after the 10 minute mark. Just as I expected, the first few minutes after taking the test it looked like it was going to be negative. As I carried on in the bathroom my eyes kept darting to the test anyway as I knew this early on the line doesn't show up right away. To my astonishment, I slowly saw an extremely faint line start to form around the 4-5 minute mark! It was so faint that I actually started rubbing my eyes and scrutinizing every millimeter of that line. Something was there.....
Prior to my first pregnancy last summer I had these monthly daydreams of how a positive pregnancy test would play out. I would see the line, start getting really excited and dreamed up creative ways I was going to tell Jon that we were pregnant. He was going to laugh that excited happy laugh he has and we were going to hug and jump up and down squealing with excitement. We'd skip through the day thinking "I'm pregnant! I'm having a baby!" and that would be that. It's funny how strikingly opposite this positive test was playing out. Instead, I just stared at this test in confusion, wandered back into the bedroom to see Jon just crawling out of bed sleepily eyed in which I muttered in the most non-reassuring tone, "Jon, I think the test is positive". In his most unenthusiastic tone he said, "oh.....". He walked into the bathroom to see for himself and came back out a few minutes later and said, "well, there's definitely something there, but it's really hard to see"......and that is how I told Jon that we were pregnant. I spent the day in utter confusion as I wondered if it was a false positive or evaporation line. Was I pregnant? I held my bladder at work that day for four hours, came home and tested again and the line formed again, darker this time and definitely not questionable. It was official. I'm pregnant!
Perhaps last summer's pregnancy was an experience I had to endure to teach me what NOT do in the next pregnancy. I decided to quit testing, stop taking my temperature, no blood tests and no ultrasounds. I would carry on these next few weeks acting like I was pregnant by reducing my caffeine intake and not consuming alcohol, but I would pretend otherwise that life was back to normal and I wasn't pregnant. I didn't need all that nerve-wracking stress that test carried with them.
As you may recall from my last pregnancy, I had bleeding scares on and off the entire time until I finally miscarried at 8 weeks. It was riddled with problems that made me feels less assured and confused as to whether I should cling to the identity that I was pregnant or not. This time that didn't happen. I had one bad scare at roughly the 5 week mark in which I went into the bathroom and saw the light brown spotting that was notorious last pregnancy. At the time same time, my legs had begun to cramp and ache just like they did last pregnancy after I had lost the baby. I put the two and two together and concluded that I was miscarrying. I left work that afternoon to go home for what I thought was going to be a night of painful cramping and heavy bleeding. I was extremely upset and frustrated. I was so sure I was miscarrying that I asked my sister how I should "collect" the embryo so they could do an autopsy on it to see why I was having recurrent miscarriages. My midwife called me that afternoon following the blood test I rushed in to get and was amazed to hear that my HCG level was fairly high given my gestational age. Yet, I continued to sit tight thinking this was the end......but it never came. As the weekend wore on the spotting cleared up right away and my leg achyness subsided a few days later---so wait? Was that a pregnancy symptom?
The weeks continued on into week 5, week 6, week 7......I woke up every morning wondering if today was going to be doomsday--the day that the bleeding started. I know it's awfully pessimistic, but when I've only had one experience to go off of, how do I expect this one to be any different? Many of you commented that I seemed a lot calmer this pregnancy than last which is certainly true. I attribute this to the fact that my spotting has been minimal this time (I've had several instances that clear up immediately), and during the 6th week I started to feel nauseous. By the 7th week I was feeling a little sick every day--not necessarily nauseous but I felt dizzy, and like I was coming down with a cold but the cold would never come. I knew these were reassuring signs that allowed me to wonder if things were going to work out this time.
As I approached the 8 week mark (which is when the baby stopped growing last time) I found myself becoming increasingly more anxious. It's not so much that I thought because I miscarried last time at 8 weeks that I was going to miscarry again at exactly 8 weeks---it was more that I thought, "just because things are going normal now doesn't mean I'm out of the woods because I clearly demonstrated that I can make it to 8 weeks and then abruptly miscarry". I decided to go ahead and schedule an ultrasound for what I thought was 7 weeks and 6 days.
That ultrasound was yesterday. As the date loomed near I started to feel my heart pound in anxiety anytime I thought about it. How the heck was I going to walk into this ultrasound not knowing if there was even a baby growing inside of me? What if they told me there was no heartbeat? I'd have to go through all that same emotionally draining crap again, plus fork over $1,500+ to have a D&C done again unless I decided to let it happen naturally which could be horribly painful and unpredictable. These were decisions I did not want to deal with again. The hours leading up to the ultrasound was horribly nerve-wracking. I can't think of a time I've ever been so nervous in my life.
Jon and I sat in the waiting room yesterday afternoon and I just felt numb. I pretended that if we found out things weren't progressing I would just shrug it off and say, "oh well, we'll get there someday". Yes, that would be my attitude because it would be easier to feel that than to feel devastated that we've lost yet another pregnancy. I was then called back to the ultrasound room....here goes nothing.
I was ordered to drink 16 ounces of water before the procedure so they could do a belly ultrasound first. I don't know the exact reason, but I think that a full bladder makes it easier to see the embryo/fetus. She put the device to my belly and I saw the embryo. I searched adamantly for the heartbeat which had been so easy to see on my past ultrasounds last pregnancy because it was signified by a flicker of light......but I didn't see the flicker this time. Oh no, I thought. No heartbeat. She moved it around and around, zoomed in on the embryo and then......Jon said, "I see the heartbeat!". The tech confirmed that it was the heartbeat. I didn't see it. I was looking for the flicker of light when I didn't realized that the heartbeat this far along actually looks less like a white flicker and more like an actual heart pumping.....and there it was! That heart was pumping madly away. Wow! I really did have something growing in there! She told me that my bladder wasn't full and that was why she wasn't getting a clear picture (stupid water retention--I swear I drank a lot of water beforehand!). Therefore, we had to do a trans-vaginal ultrasound to get a better image.
I still didn't sigh with relief so easily because I knew the other complications I had last pregnancy were low heart rate and slow rising heart rates. I also wanted to ensure that I was measuring along progressively. I emptied my bladder and came back into the room for the second part of the exam in which we started the transvaginal ultrasound. I held my breath as I watched her take her images and measure everything. As she assessed the heart rate I felt my chest tighten....I would be happy with anything over 140 BPM. To my astonishment she measured and indicated it was beating rapidly at 174 beats per minute! Wow! She then pointed the distinct features of our now fetus (no longer an embryo) which was not so clear last pregnancy during my 6.5 week ultrasounds. Our fetus had short little arms and legs, with a clear facial and body profile. She told me I was measuring at 8 weeks exactly which was right on schedule! Then, she started taking images for us to take home, and labeling them accordingly. I watched her write, "Baby!!!" on the image and suddenly a rush of excitement ran through me. The tech was confident enough in what she saw that she added the exclamation points for us....I know Jon felt the excitement too because he reached over and rubbed my arm as to say, "wow, we did it!".
My risk of miscarriage has now gone from an arbitrary 20-25% down to about 3-8% (depending on who you talk to). I'll take those chances over the ambivalence I felt before! Today is 8 weeks exactly for me which is when the baby stopped growing. This ultrasound has definitely helped instill more confidence in this pregnancy, but of course I still have a few more weeks before I enter the proverbial "safe zone" of 12 weeks....and even then I know I'm still not 100% safe.
Thanks everyone so far for all your thoughts and prayers. I'm absolutely amazed that I've made it this far without driving myself crazy and trust that this ultrasound will give me the confidence boost that I've been seeking for the past 4 weeks. I won't start telling "everyone" until after Memorial Weekend so please keep this to yourself for now. I will continue to update in a few weeks after I go in for my first prenatal visit at 10 weeks in which I hope I hear the heartbeat on the doppler. I will also have another ultrasound at 12 weeks due to my Factor V to check for "growth".
Baby Eckroth is due in early December!
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