3D/4D Ultrasound at 28 Weeks

Not long after we got pregnant, my parents went to their school's silent auction.  One of the items was a 3D/4D ultrasound, which they won!  In case you're wondering, 4D is when it's a video of the 3D ultrasound.

It was at a place called Baby's Debut Imaging in Galt, which was a really cool old house.  We would take 4 other people with us, so both sets of our parents got to come as well.  Luckily she kept her feet down instead of up by her face, but she did keep putting her hands in front of her face.  We still got some great shots, though.

I think this is one of the best pictures of her face.  Cute little cheeks and nose! :-)

This is what kept happening, hand right in front of her face.

We said this one was because both grandpas are known for (and were) cracking goofy jokes.  She's already got the forehead slap down.

We also got word from my doctor that the high risk doctor said she thought my cervix looked good.  So I am still supposed to take it easy, but we are less worried.  We're just continuing to pray that God keeps her safe and inside for as long as possible.

Preterm Labor Risk

Pregnancy is filled with random aches and pains, most of which are completely normal and bring commiserating stories from anyone you share them with.  Last Thursday I started having what felt like period cramps, but they weren't too bad.  I knew Braxton Hicks would be showing up soon as I'm entering my third trimester, but my stomach didn't harden (apparently a classic contraction sign), and the cramps were very low (like a regular period cramp).  On Saturday I got our weekly update email from Kaiser explaining everything about being 27 weeks.  One of the things they talked about was preterm labor signs and when to call the doctor.  One of them was menstrual-like cramps.

This started the question of whether I should call.  The cramps were not bad at all (more like day before the period starts, that "oh great here we go" kind of cramping).  They weren't happening at regular intervals, they weren't getting worse, but they were still happening periodically.  So Sunday I called labor and delivery.  She said I should empty my bladder, take a shower, and lay down.  If they got worse or kept happening, I would need to go in.  After doing those things (and falling asleep), they were mostly gone.  I say mostly because I was so hyper aware of every twinge that I was afraid I was imagining them.

Monday morning I went to work, still hyper aware of everything.  I noticed one cramp when I woke up in the morning, but didn't have any others.  My back was also hurting pretty bad.  When I got to work, my secretary and another teacher convinced me that I should just go in.  Better safe than sorry.  I have an awesome sub who was luckily available.  She knows my classes, my routines, my grading, and could pretty much teach without a lesson plan.  When she got there I gave her a verbal overview of the day and left (which is a huge blessing, writing sub plans is a pain in the butt).  I had called Kaiser and actually got the same nurse I talked to the day before.  She said they did want to see me, just to be sure.

They took me back alone first, asking the "do you feel safe at home, is there drug or alcohol abuse at home" questions.  Once they were sure Stephen was not an abusive alcoholic drug dealer, they let him come back as well (this was around 10:45).  They hooked me up to the monitors and we got to hear the heart beat for 20 minutes, which was very cool.  Her heart rate was fine, the cramp that I had did not register as a contraction, and it was looking like we'd be out of there soon.  The nurse said the doctor would come in and may or may not do an exam.

When he came in, he said he was going to do an ffn test and a transvaginal ultrasound to check my cervix, just to be on the safe side.  The ffn test is a swab that tests for a protein that gets released before delivery.  If it's positive, you will deliver within 2 weeks.  If it's negative, they don't really get any more information.  They did the swab and then the ultrasound.

*Update: Apparently I was wrong about my understanding of the test.  A negative result ensures that you will not deliver within the next two weeks.  A positive result is the one that doesn't give you any more information. *

After the ultrasound, he said he was a little concerned about my cervix.  The part that was still closed (which it should be), measured shorter than they like to see at 27 weeks (and 3 days).  He wasn't comfortable measuring the whole thing because the internal part was not closed all the way.  From what I've read, you can dilate internally.  He started talking about putting me on steroids (to stop labor and rush the development of the baby's lungs in case she came early) and possibly admitting me.  He said we would wait for the ffn test, which should be about an hour.  This was now 12:30pm.

The nurse brought us some leftover breakfast stuff (a muffin, cantaloupe, and baby juice box), but the lunch trays hadn't arrived yet.  At 2:00 she finally came back in and said the lab still didn't have results yet.  When she realized we still hadn't eaten, she brought us a lunch tray.  Maybe it was the hunger talking, but it was pretty good.  Then she showed Stephen where the food/water/ice pantry was so he could go get more if we needed it.

Finally at 3pm the doctor came in and said something was wrong with the sample and it couldn't be processed.  They couldn't redo the test because the transvaginal ultrasound gel contaminated possible samples for 24 hours.  He checked my cervix and said the outside was still closed and not dilated at all, so they sent us home and said they would schedule an ultrasound for the next day.  The nurse (who felt really bad that we'd just spent 5 hours there, 3 of which were basically wasted time), said if we didn't get an appointment to call the next day.

So Tuesday, I called at 3pm when I hadn't heard from them.  For the first time in my dealings with labor and delivery, I got someone who was very grumpy and dismissive.  She said there was a "glitch" in the system and that's why they hadn't scheduled it.  I kept pushing, and she finally said the doctor we'd seen was sending a message to my regular OB.  And if he was really worried, he would have us come back in.  That wasn't a good enough answer, but she wasn't going to be pushed any farther.  I hung up and emailed my OB.  By 4:30 radiology called to schedule us an appointment for the next day, and my OB told me to just come up and she would see me when we were done with the ultrasound.

Now Wednesday.  I went to work for my first two periods, but only sat in my chair and had the kids do everything for me.  (A benefit of teaching secondary).  At the ultrasound, we got the nicest tech we've ever had.  She talked to me through everything and was very reassuring.  Then she got Stephen and let us see the baby for a little while.  The baby's still breech, with both her head and her feet up by my ribs.  One of her arms was waving around above her head, and the other one was by her chin.  She was moving around and again refused to give us a profile (never have got a good profile picture).  We did get a good picture of her little feet, which were tapping away.  She looks great, her heart rate is perfect, and the fluid levels are good.  She weighs 2.5 pounds and is right on track for where she should be.

Then we went upstairs to see my OB.  She said most of the pictures of the cervix looked good, but there was one that made her a little concerned.  She said it wasn't necessarily dilation internally, it could be fluid or the angle the picture was taken at.  This was only an hour after the ultrasound, so she didn't have the radiologist's "official" reading yet.  She was also going to have a high risk doctor take a look at it to see what he thought.  She checked my cervix and said it was still closed (which is good), but a little soft (not good).  She also said that since I had been having cramps for almost a week and had not actually gone into labor, that was a good sign.  And even though my cervix isn't as long as they would like it to be, it is not in the "red flag" range either.  So we are basically at an in between, just need to be aware and call labor and delivery if anything changes.

With only 6 days left of school, she left whether I was going to work up to me.  I actually enjoy this time of year where kids get excited and sentimental about promoting, we go to Sunsplash, and then have promotion.  But, keeping the baby safe is more important than any of that.  On the other hand, some of the things that I still need to do (like pack my classroom) are much easier with eager middle school helpers.  So I'm not officially "off" of work, but I am on a modified "off" schedule.  I took today off completely.  Tomorrow I have my awesome sub, but it's not a "sick" day, it's an "activity" day.  I'll go in to finish planning Sunsplash and promotion, but can sit most of the time and won't have any students.  Monday's a holiday and we'll see what the radiologist and high risk doctor say before I decide on next week.  I would like to be at promotion at the very least.

At this point in the day, I am praying I don't have to go on strict bed rest because I will go insane.  I'm not on strict bed rest, so I'm up, but I'm trying to take it easy and not do much.  But when my laundry needs doing, the dishwasher needs emptying, the roses need trimming, etc, it is really hard for me to just sit.  But if it keeps the baby safe and inside for even a little longer, I will happily go insane.  Well maybe not happily...but I'll do it.

What to Say (Or Not Say) When Someone Miscarries

Let me start this by saying nothing has gone wrong with this pregnancy, the baby and I are healthy and fine.

I've thought about writing this post for a long time, but have always felt like everyone is so different in how they grieve that my one opinion would be helpful.  But  a few months ago a friend, who has never had trouble getting pregnant, asked for some advice on what to say to someone she knew who'd lost a baby.  She said she knew she didn't understand and didn't want to pretend to, but that left her at a loss as to what to say.

I hope I do not hurt anyone's feelings with this post.  I know many of the people who said these things to me/us after we miscarried were trying to be helpful and love us a lot.  But I also think it's important to explain how I saw things.  And I am fully acknowledging that this is how I dealt with my grief and it may be totally different for someone else.

I'll start with the things that were not useful to hear.

1.  Something must have been wrong with the baby
              While this is entirely accurate medically, I did not want to hear about how the perfect baby I had imagined must have been genetically abnormal or deformed.  The image I have of him/her is and always will be perfect.  It was insinuated to me that we were better off losing the baby than having him/her deformed, which just made me mad and hurt more.

2.  It wasn't God's will.
               As someone who believes in God and believes He has a plan for my life, I know that this is also true.  Even when I was at my darkest moment, I still believed God was with me and could feel His presence with me.  But I was also mad at God for letting it happen and questioned the fairness of it all quite a bit.  Saying that the death of a baby we had tried for for 2 years was God's will only made me more upset at God.

3.  When it's God's timing, you'll get pregnant.
                  This one is very similar to number 2.  Death is part of life and I believe God walks, or carries, us through it, but that doesn't make this a comforting statement.  Also, there is no one on Earth who can claim to know that I would get pregnant again.  There is always a possibility that I wouldn't.  So trying to reassure me that I could have another baby (as if that could replace the one I was grieving for) was just a reminder that I might never get pregnant again.  We would have and still might adopt, so I knew I would be a mom, but I had no guarantees that I would ever be pregnant again.

4. At least you weren't farther along.
                   This one still makes me clench my fist.  You cannot compare someone's grief to another.  And trying to mitigate the grief and sadness just invalidates the feelings that were going on inside of me.  Could it have been worse?  Yes.  Did that make me feel any better?  No.

5.  20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.
                  A true statistic that I have heard many many times.  But just because a lot of other people have gone through the pain does not mean that I will feel better when you tell me that.  It also felt like a very dismissive statement most of the time.  Like losing our baby was "bound to happen."  Definitely not something that helped.

6.  You'll get pregnant again.
                  This one is similar to #3.  You don't know that I will ever get pregnant again, no one can know that.  Is there a good possibility?  Yes.  But you can't promise that or offer it as a reassurance when the person knows it might not be true.

7.  Nothing at all.
                   Miscarriage is a strange grief because it's different.  There's no body, no funeral, and life just goes on as usual.  I remember driving in the car, sobbing, and wishing I could be as oblivious as the people in the car next to me who were laughing and talking about something.  A lot of people didn't know what to say, so didn't say anything at all.  I understand why, but I felt very alone at times.  And I did have people who talked to me, so I wasn't alone.  Had I not had those people, I can't imagine what the silence would have done to me.
           
As you can see, many of these things I intellectually know to be true.  But they either made me mad, more sad, or just didn't help.  So what did help?  Here's what helped me:

1.  People acknowledging the grief
             A simple "I'm so sorry" and a hug was an acknowledgement that my grief was real, legitimate, and that the person was there for me.  Don't ask "how are you doing" with the slight head tilt and pursed lips, though.  "Crappy, that's how I'm doing" was the answer I wanted to say.  I didn't really want pity, but I did want people to acknowledge my sadness.

2.  Offers of help
              But this has to be specific.  Saying "let me know if there's anything I can do" was never going to get a request from me.  Saying "can I bring you dinner in the next couple of days" is helpful and doesn't require me reaching out to you.  I know I have a hard time asking for help, so the only people who did bring us food or other stuff were people who offered very specific things.  Or just came.  Flowers and a card left on the front porch the day after we found out let me know that our friends were thinking of us.  Dinner so I didn't have to worry about what we were going to eat (which I could have cared less about the first couple of days).  A gift to remind us of the baby.  All of these things helped me.
              On the flip side, some people may not want the same kind of thing.  I did want a reminder of this baby, but others may not.  But if you are going to offer help with something, be specific about it so the only required response is "yes."

3.  Offering an understanding shoulder
              I had a lot of people tell me or email me about their own experience with miscarriage.  The ones who did it with sympathy and who answered questions for me helped me get through the roughest days.  There were some whose stories felt almost like they were "one upping" me, which was not helpful.  But for the most part, people shared their stories and offered a shoulder to remind me that I was not alone.  Everyone's story is different, so know one can understand exactly how I felt, but there is a certain camaraderie in grief.

4.  Help tell other people
             We'd had a hard time keeping the pregnancy a secret, even though we were still in the first trimester.  We were so excited that we told a lot of people, even knowing that we were at a higher than normal risk for miscarriage.  The most difficult thing we had to do was type out the texts telling everyone that we had lost the baby.  I forwarded the same one to most people, but having to think of everyone that we had told was hard.  If there's any way you can help the person tell other people about the miscarriage, that will take a weight off their shoulders.  And having to answer the same questions over and over makes it hard to just be sad and start to grieve.  Most of my responses became automated, and I didn't even have that many people to tell.  I was lucky enough to tell a few and let them handle the rest.

5.  Acknowledge the due date
             Our due date was engrained in my mind and there was no way it was going to pass without me remembering it.  You can read about that week here.  I thought I could handle it, but I ended up having my emotions bubble over.  I thought no one else had remembered, which made me even more sad.  It turns out that because I hadn't said anything, those who were closest to me had hoped I hadn't remembered.  I think it would have been better to do something to acknowledge the day and deal with the grief head on instead of trying to bury it.

Those are all the things I can think of at the moment.  And remember, this is just what I felt.  The best thing you can do is ask the person.  Do they want to talk about it?  Do they want to stay busy?  Do they want to have a lot of people around?  Do they want to be alone or just one or two close friends/family?

As Mother's Day approaches, I feel for the many friends that I know are still dealing with infertility and loss.  It's one of the most difficult days of the year and unfortunately a lot of well-meaning people trying to acknowledge mothers don't realize how much it hurts to not be considered one of them.  For those of you in that situation, I am praying for you.

Hopefully this helps with some difficult conversations, or at least makes someone stop and think.

25 Weeks

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted anything, so I figured it was time for an update.  At 25 weeks, I am beyond the "is she pregnant or just shouldn't have had that cookie" stage.  I can feel the baby moving a lot, and the movements are getting stronger.  She was actually moving a book I had on my stomach the other morning, which was quite funny.  I absolutely love feeling her movements.  They make me smile, remind me she's safe, and it's like having my own little buddy with me wherever I go.  So if you see me randomly smiling and watching my stomach, I'm not crazy.  Promise.

The last month has brought some pregnancy pains, but that's to be expected.  Most nights and mornings it feels like someone kicked me in the pubic bone.  It hurts more when I have laid down for a while, but it also hurts worse if I've been on my feet a lot.  So when I asked my doctor whether exercise or rest was better, her response was pretty much neither one.  And that it would get worse.  Thanks doc.

My feet and ankles swelled a little this week.  And yes, I was drinking plenty of water.  I tend to drink around 100 oz a day (teaching makes me thirsty).  But it was warmer than usual, and I was on my feet a lot.  There's only 4 more weeks of school, and then I can put my feet up more.

On the upside, my heart rate issues have gotten better.  The holter monitor showed that my heart was skipping a beat and then was irregular afterwards.  The only treatment is beta blockers, which could cause growth issues for the baby.  The risk for the baby definitely outweighed the benefits for me, so we decided to try to reduce my stress level and prevent them as much as possible.  They almost always started during a particular period at school, so I had to let go of some of the stress.  It helped that the next week was minimum days for STAR testing.  And as hard as it is for me, letting go of making everything perfect has also helped.  In perspective, keeping myself and the baby healthy are way more important than any lesson I'm trying to teach or event I'm trying to pull off.  I also took a day off in the middle of the week, and am taking another the week after next.  There have been less heart episodes since doing these things, so I think it's working.

This Saturday started the first of the busy Saturdays between now and July.  As in, I literally have something happening every Saturday between now and July.  I got to host my sister's first wedding shower this weekend.  People seemed to enjoy it and she got some great stuff.  My parents helped with all the planning and cleaning, which kept me from getting too stressed.  Next weekend, we have a family shower for her, which I'm looking forward to.  Most of my extended family hasn't seen me pregnant, so it will be fun to see everyone.

Speaking of, here is a picture from yesterday:

As uncomfortable as some of these aches and pains have been, I am still enjoying being pregnant.  Which sounds crazy and I can't explain it.  Maybe because there was a period where I was worried I might never get to be pregnant.  I always knew we'd have kids because we would (and still might) adopt, but I desperately wanted to be able to be pregnant.  As I've been typing, they baby has been rolling around, punching or kicking (not sure which), and making the computer bounce a little.  It's pretty weird that there's a human in there.  And if we had her today, she would have a chance at surviving with significant medical help.  (I don't by any stretch of the imagination want her to come now, but it was comforting to know that she could survive if something happened).

We've been working on the baby's room, mostly emptying out all of the stuff that has accumulated in there the last couple of years.  That room had always been the baby's room, even when the baby was years away from coming.  So we never really did anything with the room except put stuff in it.  We have the theme of the nursery picked out, so the next step is deciding on painting.  The theme is yellow and green flowers, one of the only girl themed bedding sets that wasn't almost all pink.  Here's the picture from the Buy Buy Baby website:

I like pink, I wear pink, my daughter will wear pink.  But I don't feel the need to have everything be pink.  Yellow is cheerful, the flowers still make it girly, and some of the stuff could be used again if we have a boy (not the flowery stuff, but the solid color stuff).  We've been collecting baby items at garage sales, consignment shops, and friends getting rid of stuff.  We bought a crib, changing table, and glider from Target on a really good sale (coupled with discount codes).  So everything is starting to fall into place!