I have a new niece

My sister had her baby a couple of weeks ago. I'm doing about 90% o.k. with it. Her baby is beautiful, and it truly is a miracle that she conceived and carried to term, and I'm SO happy for her. But it is still SOOOOOO unfair that I didn't get to have my miracle too.

I had a rough time at a recent good-bye party of a really good friend. At the party, the only people who were there who didn't have a baby that was under 6 months was me, the girl who was going away, and one of my other good friends. All but one of the babies are boys too. I just kept thinking, I should be huge and pregnant right now, and talking about how hard it is going to be to go back to those late night feedings, and complaining about my swollen ankles, or having to go through ANOTHER pregnancy through the summer. I would do ANYTHING to be able to complain like that.

-Andie

End of May now

I did go to my therapy appointment. Actually, I've been twice now. It is helping.

I am trying to decide what to do with this blog. I originally started it in 2006 to talk about my kids and my pregnancy at the time. Then I couldn't find it again, and I had a miscarriage. I finally stumbled back on it in December 2007 right after I found out I was pregnant with Christopher. I didn't intend to just turn it into a pregnancy blog, but that was the way that it turned out, and then I used it a lot after he died. But lately, for the last month anyway, I haven't felt the need to use it to talk about Christopher and my grief. But I don't know if I can just change gears and start talking about my regular life here. First, my life mostly isn't that interesting, and I don't really feel the need to talk about it. Second, since this blog has been mostly about Christopher, I sort of want to keep it that way. I don't know, I'll think about it for another week or so and see what I think.

I took the kids to the cemetery today. I even brought little S (he is 3) this time. I teared up a little when he was blowing kisses to, in his words "his little brother". K (she is 8) asked how you can miss someone that you never met. I told that it is sometimes harder, but that I just envision what Christopher would have been like, and also I miss the things that we would have done together and just being a mommy to another little boy.

I gave birth to him nine weeks ago yesterday. If I was still pregnant, I'd be almost 27 weeks. Into the third trimester. I probably would be starting to complain a little bit about having to be big and pregnant through the summer. I'd definitely be showing. Given my history, I'd probably be on bedrest/medication for pre-term labor. Yet, I'm not doing any of those things.

My sister is 37 weeks pregnant. I'm doing o.k. with it. Some days are harder than others but most of the time, I'm just happy for her and sad for me.

- Andie

It's May

Spring is in full bloom here. At first it made me sad to see nature starting over, seeing all the new life, when I felt like the world should be gray and dark and mourn with me. But it does help me to see the vibrant colors and hear the chirping birds and feel the warm sun on my face.

I think I'm starting to accept Christopher's death. I know that I'll always be sad about losing him, and will always wonder what he would have been like, and always wondered what his relationship would have been with me, my husband, his siblings, etc. But I'm starting to see that I do have a life outside of being that person who had a stillborn baby.

I have my first therapy appointment today. I've been debating about whether I should still go. I suppose it isn't a terrible idea. I've got issues for days, outside of dealing with Christopher's death (I know that may be shocking to some of my readers LOL)

-Andie

It's been a month

since I looked at the ultrasound screen and said to the dr. "He's not moving, is he? And there isn't any heartbeat." And the dr. said "I'm sorry, but he is gone."

I have days, I wouldn't quite call them good, but I'm managing o.k., and then wham! I'll have a day where I seriously feel like I'm losing my mind.

I keep trying to rationalize the loss to myself - telling me that it would have been worse if it had been our first child, it would have been worse if it was our first and only chance at having a child, it would have been worse if I would have been farther along, it would have been worse to lose a child when they were 5 or whatever. Which is likely very true. But honestly, it really is only serving to make me feel guilty about feeling this loss as strongly as I do.

I did go to the cemetary on Saturday. I took the girls. They had been asking a lot of questions, and I thought it might help them. They were very sweet. They gathered some wild flowers and put them on the dirt in front of the marker. And then they kissed the marker and then sent kisses up to the sky. We looked at some of the other markers in the area (he is buried in a section that is just for infants) and E looked down at the one that is next to Christopher's and said "Why does this one still have a big bunch of flowers on it?" I said that another little boy had died, probably just a few days ago and the flowers were from his funeral. E looked up and said "I'm going to blow some kisses up to heaven for him too, and for his mommy because she is probably sad too." I'm sure she is.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but it has been so tough to be trying to deal with the loss of Christopher while also grieving the loss of never having any more children, ALONG with the unfairness of having to deal with infertility and miscarriages during the time that I was trying to have children. Oh, and let's not forget the unfairness that I didn't get married until I was almost 29 because my first love was killed in an accident, and so I wasn't able to get started on having a family until I was in my 30s.

To depress myself the other day, I started thinking about what my family would have been like if every pregnancy that I'd had would have gone to term and I would have had a baby. I would have had a baby that was born in October 1998, September 1999 (This is K), December 2001 (This is E), June 2003, September 2004 (This is S), March 2007, and August 2008. I would have had 7 children, 9 1/2 years old to newborn.

Oh, and in case any of you are worried about my mental health, first of all, I do use this blog to get my thoughts out and so things always look a little bleaker in print than how I'm actually doing. Second of all, I have decided to go see a counselor. I wasn't going, because I couldn't see how it was going to help. I was depressed/anxious, etc. because of the situation, and there wasn't that anybody could do or any amount of talking that was going to fix it. But I think that it might be good to just vent to someone for a little while.

But man, how I wish there was a way to go back a month, and fix it so Christopher was still rolling around and kicking inside my belly.

-Andie

It's so real today

It's been three weeks since I found out his little heart wasn't beating anymore. I'm actually functioning better than I was last week, but my heart is just really realizing today that he is really, really gone today. I'm just SO SAD. Not to mention, the kids have all been sad about it the past couple days after not talking about it much since it happened (well, with the exception of S. He talks almost daily about how he is going to put on his Super Cape and go get the baby and bring him back - oh, if only it was that easy.)

There have been other reminders today - Today, I looked at myself in the mirror and I don't look pregnant anymore. Today, my pre-pregnancy clothes fit again. Today was the first day we didn't get any sympathy cards in the mail. And the cemetary called and said that his permanent grave marker was placed today.

- Andie

Oh, I miss him

I just wish I was still pregnant with him today. It just hurts so much to know that he isn't inside me anymore. I'm so sad that S won't get to be an older brother to his little brother. I'm so sad that I won't get to hold Christopher and rock him, feed him, and take care of him.

I have regrets today too - I feel bad that I didn't hold him longer. I'm really sad that I didn't have the nurses take a picture of me holding him. I'm sad that we didn't take any pictures of our own - of his perfect little feet, or his perfect little hands, of his daddy looking at his youngest son.

I wish I could feel his kicks inside me. I wish I could see my stomach getting bigger. I wish I needed to buy maternity clothes, and a car seat, and a crib and diapers. I wish I was still pregnant with him.

- Andie

Life never goes according to plans - part 2

I mentioned Part 1 in one of my posts below - I had a boyfriend in high school and I assumed that I would marry him when I was 20, and we would have four kids, and be blissfully happy and live happily ever after. I know now that that the blissfully happy probably wouldn't have been true all the time, but I really thought that all the the other stuff was possible, even probable. Then when I was 18, two weeks into my freshman year of college, he was killed in a bicycle/car accident. My life plan died with him. For years, I didn't know what to do because I just wanted to fix things so that I could have my original plan work.

But after ten years, I decided that since I couldn't fix things to bring my boyfriend back, I would just change my plan so that I would never get married and have any kids. Two weeks later, I met my husband, and we were married a year later. I was almost 29 when we got married. So the plan was changed a little, but I had found a wonderful man, and I was still relatively young, and I could still have those 4 kids and be blissfully happy and live happily after. So here's where part 2 began.

We got married during the summer of 1995. We decided to wait a year to try and start a family, and it turned into almost 2. In June 1997, I went to my GYN for my yearly appointment, and told him that we were going to start trying to conceive. I was not quite 31. I asked the dr. if he had anything that I should be doing/not doing to optimize our chances, and he just patted me on the head (he actually did!) and told me that he was sure that we would be pregnant within a few months and not to worry. Six months later, I was not pregnant and starting to get worried. We had just moved and both of has new jobs. I decided to wait until after the holidays and find a new GYN and find out if we needed to start any testing or anything. I had an appointment for early March of 1998. Well, in early February 1998, I was late. I took a test. Negative. OK. No big deal. A week later, I was still late. Took another test. Negative. Annoying, but I figured that I would just talk to my dr. at the appointment in a couple weeks. A week later, I was still late. I took another test and it was positive. I didn't think anything about the fact that I was three weeks late before I got a test. I just assumed everything was fine, and called my husband and told him that we were going to have a baby in 9 months. We called everything and told them about the pregnancy. A week later, I had a miscarriage. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew that my mom had had miscarriages, but she had always had "female" problems, and I had always been totally normal.

I spent the rest of 1998 being obsessed with getting pregnant again. We discovered that both my husband and I had some issues, but we had conceived on our own, so it was possible that we would be able to conceive on our own again, but it may just take time. I didn't want to wait any longer. My dr. said that we could try artificial insemination for a month, and then the following month, she would send us to a specialist to see if she wanted to do further testing and possibly more intensive fertility treatment. We tried a couple of inseminations in December 1998, and lo and behold, I got pregnant! I was really nervous during K's pregnancy, but it was a normal pregnancy, and she was born at 40 weeks, 3 days in September 1999.

We started trying naturally for another child almost right away. When K was 13 months old, we decided to visit the fertility specialist to see about doing another artificial insemination (AI). We tried a couple in October 2000. Negative. I was surprised because I figured that since it happened right away with K, it would happen right away when we tried again. We tried a couple AIs in December 2000 along with a low dose of a fertility medication (Clomid). Negative. In January, we tried AIs with a higher dose of Clomid. Negative. Wow. I always wanted to have 4 children. Was K just going to be our miraculous, only child? We asked our fertility specialist about doing in vitro (IVF). Our insurance would pay for almost all of it THANKFULLY, and the chances were higher of us being successful with IVF than AI. The specialist agreed and we started meds (lots and lots of them) in February 2001. We did the retrieval in late March 2001. We didn't end up with a lot of eggs, and then they didn't divide well. The dr. didn't think that the cycle was going to work. She had so little faith in the cycle that she decided to put 3 eggs back in, which she usually never does in a patient of my age (34 at the time). But I did get pregnant. E's pregnancy was not a normal pregnancy. There were bleeding episodes, and I went into pre-term labor at 29 weeks. I had hospital bedrest and home bedrest, but she was born at 40 weeks in December 2001, completely healthy. Wow, two healthy children!

We decided that we wouldn't try and prevent a future pregnancy, but our insurance had changed and we no longer had infertility coverage, and we didn't want to go through all rollercoaster of fertility treatments any more either. I still hoped that we would have another, but really tried to accept that perhaps my plan of 4 children wasn't going to happen.

I got pregnant when E was 8 months old. Wow, all this trouble get pregnant before, and now I would have children that were 17 months apart. A week later, I miscarried.

By December 2003, E was 2, and I was 37, I told myself that I was going to have to live with a different plan. I gave everything baby away except for the high chair and crib because E was still using them. I found out I was pregnant. I just assumed that I would miscarry. I always miscarried if I conceived naturally. I made it to 5 weeks, 7 weeks, and then the bleeding problems started. There was a problem with my placenta. Things would probably resolve on its own. I wasn't convinced. I made it to 13 weeks. OK, it was the second trimester, I think I'm going to have this baby. I had pre-term labor again, more bedrest. But lasted until 40 weeks 3 days and had a normaly healthy baby. However, it was discovered at delivery that he had a true knot in his cord. The dr. said that we were really lucky that he made it. I had 3 children! And S had come to us without any medical help! I would just be thankful. Who cares about my plan for 4 children?

As the months went by, I was grateful and thankful for my three children. But there was still moments where I would see families with four children and have little pangs. But it would pass. I was lucky. Most of my friends had had two or three children. They had had them easily. We had really had to work to have our three children. It really was amazing that we had three.

Then in July 2006, when S was almost 2, I was late. It just couldn't be true. I was almost 40. We had fertility problems. But sure enough, I was pregnant. The bleeding and placenta problems started at around 8 weeks. But I told myself that I had problems with S's pregnancy, but it had turned out o.k. My natural conceptions that ended in miscarriages all happened before 8 weeks. Everything would be fine. More bleeding problems at 10 weeks. But the baby looked fine. Did the nuchal fold test at 11 weeks. The baby wasn't in a great position, so they wanted to check it in a couple of weeks. Another bleeding episode at 12 weeks 5 days. I went in for an ultrasound and the baby's heart had stopped beating. WHAT????? How could this be? I was past all my miscarriage dates. I was almost in the 2nd trimester. Everything that I read said that if you see a heartbeat at 7 weeks (which we did) that your chances go down to less than 5% that you will have a miscarriage.

I was a mess for about a year. I couldn't believe that I had finally gotten myself used to the idea of not having 4 children, THEN to get pregnant, only to lose it at almost 13 weeks. But by the fall of 2007, I was doing o.k. again. I had finally really accepted that my plan of four kids wasn't going to happen. I really enjoyed being with my three wonderful children. My life was busy with all of their activities, I was doing a little daycare, and I was starting my fifth year of teaching preschool.

And in December 2007, I found out I was pregnant with Christopher.

Now, PLEASE don't think that I just kept getting pregnant to fulfill this dream of having four children and that my children are just numbers or physical representations of what I think is an ideal family size. Please don't think that I kept getting pregnant to replace the babies that I lost. But I can't be the only one who has plans and dreams about how their life is going to go. And it seems like so many times in my life that I've been so close to getting to have that dream, and then it is so tragically snatched away. And for me, it is so hard for me when I finally realize that I have come to the end of a path, and that there is no way to really fix things so that the plan will work.

I know I'm not the only one who has to learn to live with different life plans, and different paths. I know that life almost never goes according to plan, mine or anybody else's. I know that life usually isn't easy, and that it is mostly just about getting through, hopefully with lots of help from your family and friends. I believe that you have to have sadness so that you can have joy, and that if things were were always easy, you would never truly appreciate all that you really have.

But right now, it really does seem like I've had more than my fair share of sadness and trials. And it is hard for me to know that there will likely be more sadness, trials and broken dreams in my future. But hopefully, a little happiness too. Hopefully.

- Andie

Bad, bad days

Yesterday was really bad. Today is bad too. I'm sad about Christopher, but it is more than that. I'm just so sad about so many things in my life are hard and complicated. They've been like this for so long, and now with Christopher, it just feels like there will never be anything good to look forward to. And I'm just so afraid that I'm just going to feel like this for years and years.

-Andie

It has been two weeks

I found out two weeks ago that Christopher was gone. It seems like just a moment ago, yet so long ago too.

I'm getting better about getting through the days. I think my kids think that I'm back to normal. I haven't been crying much the past few days. But I still feel like it is going to be a long time before I feel anything close to happiness though.

On Monday, if I was still pregnant, I would be 20 weeks. I would have been half way through. When I think about that, it makes it seem like I was pregnant with Christopher for such a short time, but it felt like time went by so slowly, mostly because I was worried for so much of his pregnancy, and waiting to pass milestones, and waiting for test results. But even with all the worrying, and I'm sure if I was still pregnant, I'd still be really worried, up until the day that I gave birth to a normal, healthy, live baby, I'd still go back to the worrying if it would change the outcome.

I am trying to decide what to do, support-wise, to get through my grief. My husband is letting me talk to him whenever I need to, and that is really helpful. I'll probably go to the hospital support group for another month or so, but I do feel kind of out of place there since I will not be having any more children or adopting or anything and all the other women there are still interested in trying to have more children, or are currently pregnant again. I do have family and friends that I can talk to, but besides my husband, I just don't really feel comfortable talking about it anymore. I could talk to a therapist, but it is really complictated to work it out with my schedule, and honestly, I just don't see it doing a lot of good because I am just sad about losing Christopher, and the only thing that is going to make me feel better right now is to be pregnant again with him, and that can't happen. So I think I'm going to just have to just keep going, trying to get through each day, the best way I can. Some days will be bad, some will be o.k., and I'm sure I'll have some just horrible days out of the blue too. Maybe some days, in awhile, will even be good. I've already had a couple of moments that made me smile in the last few days, so I think it is possible. Which I guess is hope enough for right now.

-Andie

I'm doing a little better today

I had a talk with my husband yesterday and it helped a little. He talked to me about how much our living children need me. He talked to me about how if I just get lost in Christopher's death and do nothing, or just sleep, or just stop putting forth any effort, a year will pass, 5 years will pass, and I'll be at the same place, Christopher still won't be here, but I will have lost so many opportunities with our living children. And he is right. Even though all I want to do is just crawl in a hole and never have to interact with anyone, he is right. If I do crawl in that hole, it will just be a year, two, five years later, and my living children will have missed having ME during that time. And even though I'm not convinced that I'm a very good mother, I am THEIR mother, and I can start trying to do better now. I also need to show them that I can make it through this, so that when something bad happens in their life (which unfortunately something will), they will see that I had the strength to make it, and maybe it will give them some strength to make it through their challenges.

I still wish it had been different. I will always wish that Christopher could have been born healthy and normal in August, and could have joined our family here on earth. I still miss him a lot.

-Andie

I slept for about 22 hours yesterday

I got up with the kids at 7 am, laid down on the couch at 9 am and slept while they played, had them wake up my husband at 12 to get them lunch, continued sleeping on the couch until almost 4, then went upstairs and slept from 4 pm until 6:30 am this morning. My eyes are so puffy this morning that I can hardly see. I could still sleep more, but my daycare kids were back today, so I have to function until at least 5 pm today. Preschool starts again tomorrow. Playgroup is on Wednesday, but I don't think we will go. I'm not ready to face everyone yet and act like nothing has happened. The problem is that I don't know that I'll ever be ready.

I feel guilty that I'm so affected by this loss. I mean, I was personally devestated by my loss in 2006, and it strongly affected my faith, and I was really sad, but I didn't think that much about missing the baby. I was sad after my first one, but I was mostly sad because it took almost a year to conceive again and I was convinced that I would never have any children. I am sad this time too, but mostly, I just miss Christopher, and am just so sad that he won't be part of our family. I can hardly face each day because it means that my other children are a day older, and a day less from needing me so much. I know that children can't stay small forever, but now that I won't have a baby around, it is just somehow just really painful to see how far the others are from being little babies. And I can hardly face knowing that time will go by so fast, and I'll be thinking "Christopher would be 3, he would be 10, he would be graduating from high school."

And I know it will go fast. I had a boyfriend all through high school. It wasn't a traditional romance because we lived in different cities and I only saw him once or twice a month. But from the moment I met him the summer that I was 13, almost 14, we just had a connection. I liked him in a romantic, school girl sort of way, of course, but there was always something else. He was a year older than I was. The year I went to college, he left to go on a mission for our church. I had been at school for two weeks, I got a phone call from my parents. They told me that they needed me to come home (they lived nearby) because they had some serious news to tell me. When I got home, they told me that he had been involved in a bicycle/car accident and that he had died. My world crumbled. I had always assumed that we would get married and have a bunch of kids and live happily after. My life plan was destroyed. I cried every day for two years. I hardly dated for the next 10 years. Then I met my husband and got married a week before I turned 29. Now I'm 41. It's been over 23 years since my boyfriend died. Months go by without me thinking about him. But it just seems amazing that it has been that long since he died. I know that I'll just turn around and it will be 10 years since Christopher died.

I'm tired again. But I need to take care of the daycare kids and S. So I guess I'll go do that.

-Andie

Here's a copy of an e-mail I sent to another friend today

They (the flowers) did arrive last night. Thank you SO much. Purple roses have always been my favorite roses, but I knew that you probably didn't know that, so it was extra touching to me that they were purple. Someone gave me a rose bush plant a few years ago, and it blooms purple roses, so now those roses will help remind me of him every Spring.

I feel so lost, which I know is normal, but I just don't know what to do with myself. I feel like I'm always going to feel so empty without him. I feel like I will always wonder what he would have been like, what he would have been doing. It seems like everyone I know who has lost a baby at this stage or after (which sadly, I know too many) they all went on to have another child afterwards. I don't want to have another, and I'm too old to have another, and I just couldn't make it through another pregnancy. And I don't think that people who have another child are doing it to replace the child that they lost, but I do think that it must help take at least a little of the pain away. And I will never have that. We will never have another child. We won't adopt. And really, all I want is Christopher back anyway.

I don't know what to do with my faith either. Last time I had a miscarriage, I was convinced that there was no God and there was no meaning to life. I gradually started feeling like there was a God and that there were parts of my faith that I did believe in. Not all of it, but enough to keep me going to church, and I felt like it was helping me live a good moral life, and teaching the children good values. And now this. I've prayed a lot over the years, and never felt like my prayers were answered. During this pregnancy, I prayed more than I have ever prayed before. At the beginning, I prayed "Please bless that this child is chromosomally normal, but if it is not, please let me lose it early." I know that it sounds awful to pray like that, but it is what I wanted. Then when there was the chromosome scare, I couldn't believe that it was happening, but I held on to the hope that I had been praying for me to lose it early if it was a chromosome problem, so maybe everything was o.k. And then he didn't have a chromosome problem. I thought that my prayers had been answered. For once. Even though I had never really felt there had been any connection when I was praying, even during this time that I had been praying so hard, he HAD been listening. I, of course, thanked him, but the next few days, I only prayed once a day. Until the day that I tried to find his heartbeat. Then I just kept praying "Please let him be o.k., please let him be o.k., please let him be o.k." And he wasn't o.k. I don't believe that God can change chromosomes, so if he had had trisomy 18, I don't believe that he could have fixed it, but I do (or maybe I did) believe that he could fix a placenta problem, or a heart problem. And he didn't. So here I feel stuck feeling like there probably is a God, and that there probably is a life after this one, and I feel like there are good values taught at my church, but I feel like that that God doesn't seem to care about me personally.

I almost can't believe that I have three living children. Knowing what I know now, it seems astounding that I was able to have any living children, much less three. And S, our only living child that came to us without any medical help. He is so amazing to me now. But sometimes I feel bad that I am feeling so low now about losing Christopher, when I have three children already.

I don't know. I could go on forever. I know that things will be less intense as the days go by. I know I will find a place where I miss him, but I'm not consumed by feelings of grief. But I'll never find that place where I get to have him back, and that pain just hurts SO much.

- Andie

Here's a copy of an e-mail I sent to a friend yesterday

I don't feel up to writing it all out again, but it says what I'm feeling right now.
------------------------

I am having an angry day today. First day that I haven't sobbed constantly. I just can't stop thinking though that it doesn't really matter what I do, nothing will change what happened. I'm not saying that I am not grieving because of it, or that I'm trying to rush the grief process, but all I want is something to just fix everything and make it so that I can be pregnant again with Christopher and be able to watch him grow up. And I know that there is NO way for that to happen.

But I'm just so angry that this had to happen to us TWICE. And this time, we had almost made it halfway, and we had JUST found out that he was healthy. I had finally decided that my loss in 2006 was just a fluke. I had finally decided that I was really and truly going to have a baby in August. I finally let myself get excited about the fact that my sister and I were going to have our last babies and that these babies would be the first ones that were going to be in the same grade (We both had children in 1999, 2001, and 2004, but her kids are born before the deadline and mine are born after. We also both had early losses in 2002, and late first trimester losses in 2006. She is due with #4 in June, and I was due in August.) Instead, Christopher will never get to go to school with his cousin, learn to drive at the same time, go to college at the same time, etc. And Christopher's due date was my birthday. On the one hand, it is nice that we will always be tied together by that date, but on the other hand, every year, I will get older, and Christopher never will.

Project Linus' national headquarters are here, and I know the president fairly well, and she brought over blankets for K, E & S. I thought that was so thoughtful. The hospital also gave me a baby blanket from Project Linus while I was at the hospital. I've really been overwhelmed with all the people that have expressed their love and support for our family during this awful time.

- Andie

I just don't want to do anything

I did the dishes this morning for the first time in probably two weeks. I just kept thinking how I just wanted to go back to bed, but even if I went back to bed for three months, it wouldn't change anything.

I'm so sad and angry. I tried to do everything right so that I wouldn't have another miscarriage. I took progesterone until 12 weeks, I took a baby aspirin every day, I took blood pressure medication when my blood pressure when it got high during this pregnancy, I took a multi-vitamin from the moment I found out. I didn't eat lunch meat or hot dogs, I went on bedrest as soon as I got the low-lying placenta diagnosis, and I would lay down every time that I had a spotting episode. I went to the dr. as soon as I thought I had a bladder infection and got on antibiotics. I have atypical ezcema (I get a blister like I've been lifting a lot or that I got burned) on the pads of my fingers, and I hadn't had any episodes since my last miscarriage. Last week, I got one on my thumb and one as starting on my second finger. I had asked the dermatologist if it meant anything in terms of my miscarriage, and he said "No way." It was just an unfortunate coincidence that I happen to have a flare in 2006, and another one right before I found out about the miscarriage in 2008. I saw my OB a lot, and the specialist a couple times. I had convinced myself that my miscarriage in 2006 was a chromosome problem (we didn't do any testing afterwards because I was afraid that it would show that everything was normal. It was easier for me to just believe that it was a chromosome problem), and that it was just a fluke. So I felt so reassured when I found out Christopher didn't have any chromosome problems.

It just makes me wonder even more if I did something that led to his death. I had a pedicure the day before, and there was this big massage/pedicure chair. The person turned on the massage as soon as I sat down. It felt so good and had it going on my back for about 10-15 minutes before I thought "Maybe I shouldn't be having a massage like this when I'm pregnant, especially with all the complications I've had." I turned it off as soon as I thought that. Could that have caused the miscarriage? It had only been 9 days since the amnio. I hadn't had any leaking or spotting from the amnio, and just pain that first day. I had heartbeat check at the OB's office two days later, and his heart was still beating. I heard his heartbeat up until a week after the amnio. So could it have even been the amnio? Was it because I kept getting bladder infections? Was it because I took a double dose of acidopholus to try and prevent getting a yeast infection?

It just doesn't seem possible that I could have just been that unlucky twice. Both of my last two pregnancies ended so similarly. Everyone reassured me that everything was fine both times, kind of made me feel silly for being so paranoid, everything seemed to be going o.k., and then finally at the end, the ultrasound that showed no movement, and no heartbeat. Why did it have to happen to me TWICE? What could I need to learn from this experience that I didn't learn the first time? And why did I feel so driven to get my husband to NOT get the vasectomy. If he had done the vasectomy, then we wouldn't have had to go through this terribly, sad experience.

People had always said things during the pregnancy that made me feel like everything would be o.k. When I went to the ER with a bleeding episode around 10 weeks, and I was sure everything was over, I was talking to the sonographer after she found that everything was o.k., and I told her what a huge surprise this pregnancy was, and she said "Oh, then you don't need to worry. The surprises always make it!" Then when my dad was here, and we were telling him the whole story about how my husband was scheduled for a vasectomy, and I just felt in such an overwhelming way that it wasn't the right time for us to do it, even though I had been the one that had begged him for two years to get one. My husband said that he still felt like it was the right thing to do, but he would respect my feelings. We both agreed that we didn't want to get pregnant, but he agreed to postpone it for a few months until I felt better about it. 7 days later, at only the 8th day of my cycle, somehow, I ended up getting pregnant. Then all the placenta problems, and the Trisomy 18 scare, and then finally the good news. After we told my dad everything, he said "Well, after all that, he must be a real fighter and meant to be with your family." Just 3 days later, he was gone. He will always be a part of our family, but not in the way that we wanted.

I went to the mall on Monday and picked out a nameplace for his momento box. While I was there, I decided to go into a jewelry store. Christopher was due around the end of August, and my birthday is August 27th. I have never liked the look of my birthstone, and so I never had any jewelry with my birthstone. But I decided that I wanted to have some jewelry that I could wear that would remind me of him, but since it was my birthstone too, I wouldn't have to explain it if I didn't want to. I ended up buying a ring. It is very pretty. There is a square cut peridot with two small diamonds on either side. The band is gold.

I'm so paranoid about the safety of my other children. If I lost another child, I don't know what I would do. I don't think that I would survive it. I already feel like I've had my share of tragedy. Not that I wish tragedy would have to go to someone else, but it is my belief that tragedy is just part of life, just as joy is, but I'm ready for it to not be my turn for tragedy.

Nothing I will do will change anything. Christopher will never come back. I'm really too old to be trying again, and I wouldn't anyway. I wouldn't want to. I just want to have Christopher back. And that won't happen.

-Andie

I miss him so much

Monday (the day we met with the funeral home) and Tuesday (the day we had the graveside service) were two of the hardest days of my life. I just never imagined that I would be burying one of my children.

I'm just so sad. So much of his pregnancy was filled with worry and anticipation of the worst that I only had a few days of feeling like happiness about a new life coming into our family. I am so, so sad that I will never get to know him. I just want for it all to be a dream, but it's six days now since we found out that he was gone, and I know that it has to be real.

I will never have another chance to have another child. We will not be having any more children. I am sad about that, but I don't really want to have another child. I want to have Christopher.

We don't know what happened yet, and most likely never will. But it wouldn't matter anyway. It wouldn't bring him back.

My parents left yesterday. Today is the first day that I'm trying to get back into my regular routine. Well, I'm not doing preschool until next week, or daycare, but I'm watching S, and I am trying to catch up on some housework.

I keep crying and S (he's 3) keeps asking why I'm crying. If I tell him that I'm crying about the baby, then he keeps saying things like "It's o.k. Mommy, I'll just go rescue him and bring him back" or "I want him to come back Mommy." Me too. Me too. I know it is because he doesn't quite understand, but it is so painful to have to keep telling him that the baby isn't coming back.

We've had so many people contact us and express their sympathies. I do appreciate it, but when I try to talk to people, I just end up crying. I feel like I'll never stop.

In some ways, I keep thinking that I want time to stand still so I don't have to think "Christopher would be 2 years old, he would be 8, he would be 12, he would be 18." I know it will go so fast. And I feel like my other children are growing so fast and that I'm losing so many opportunities to be a good mother to them. But on the other hand, if time stood still, I would always feel like this.

I know that I'll probably never get the answer to the "Why?" or "Why did it have to happen now?" But it is just SO unfair. I've already had two early miscarriages, and my miscarriage in 2006 at almost 13 weeks. Why did I have to lose Christopher at almost 18 weeks? They found out he didn't have any chromosome problems, the placenta problem had resolved itself, he was growing normally (even a little large for his gestational age). I was well into the second trimester. We had seen his heartbeat so many times - always 155. Always completely normal. Everything should have been fine. It should have been fine. But it wasn't fine. And I'm not fine. I know that I'll eventually get to a different place and that I won't be so consumed with grief. But I'll never be the same.

I miss him. I miss him. I miss him.

-Andie

His name is Christopher John

The amnio results came back on March 24th. The baby does not have Trisomy 13, 18 or 21. We also found out that we were having a little boy. We were thrilled. We called people who knew that we were having the amnio and told them that the baby was fine. We finally told our children and they were so excited. My parents had come out to be with us while we waited for news. We went out to dinner that night and celebrated. We spent most of the evening discussing baby names.

I had gotten a fetal doppler through the mail, and I checked his heartbeat on Monday. It was 155. Tuesday evening, I checked it again. It took a little while to find it, but I finally did, and it was 155. Wednesday, I decided to wait a day or two between checks, and so I didn't check it that day. I went out and ran a couple errands with my sister and my mom.

Thursday, I woke up and I just felt like something was wrong. I got out my fetal doppler and looked for his heartbeat. I searched for 10 minutes, and I couldn't find it. I started to panic, but I decided to try and look again. Still nothing. I tried to tell myself that I just couldn't find it because I wasn't looking in the right place. But I was worried enough that I decided to call the dr. The dr's office called back and said to come in. When I got there, they said they would do an ultrasound, but the ultrasound room was being used, and it would be a little while. I had called my husband and asked him to come to my appointment, so he was with me.

We finally got called to the ultrasound room. I was still trying to convince myself that everything was going to be o.k. We had been through so much with this pregnancy, and we had just found out that he didn't have Trisomy 18. He was o.k. He just had to be.

But as soon as the dr. started the ultrasound, I knew. I said "He isn't moving, is he? And there isn't a heartbeat, is there?" And the dr. said "I'm sorry, but he is gone." I turned to look at my husband, and tears were running down his face.

On Thursday, March 27th, at 5:00 pm, we went over to the hospital to start the induction. They didn't start the medication until about 7:30 pm. At 5:09 am, on March 28th, 2008, Christopher John was born silently into the world.

During my time at the hospital, especially during the delivery, I was blessed with wonderful, caring nurses. My doctor was wonderful.

We left the hospital yesterday. They gave us a baby blanket and a box that contained his footprints, his birth certificate, and other momentos of his birth. We will be having a funeral service for him on Tuesday.

I'm feeling a million emotions and I'm sure I will continue to feel them for a long time.

I miss him.

-Andie & Christopher (born and died at 17 weeks, 4 days)

I had the ultrasound and amnio on Tuesday

I did have my ultrasound & amnio on Tuesday.

There was some potential good news. The specialist did an detailed ultrasound before the amnio. The baby measures on track or ahead of my dates. He saw a 4 chamber heart, a 3 vessel cord, a nasal bone, no cysts on the brain, no spina bifida, etc. He said that if he had seen me just to do the ultrasound, that he would conclude that the baby was a completely normal, healthy baby.

He then gave us the option of doing the amnio now based on the fact that we had a very normal ultrasound. It definitely made the decision much more difficult, but in the end, we decided to go ahead with it. I just felt like I needed to know FOR SURE one way or another, that either the baby was o.k. or it wasn't. At first, I really wanted to believe that the bloodwork was just wrong, and everything was fine, and I didn't need to do the amnio, but I've read enough stories where the ultrasounds didn't show any markers, but yet the baby still had Trisomy 18, so I decided to do it.

I won't lie, for me, the amnio was very uncomfortable. I also had like a constant contraction for several hours afterwards. But by the next morning, the pain was gone. I've had no bleeding or leaking. It's also been really tough because since I had the amnio, I haven't felt anything that I could definitely say "Yep, that's movement" and I was feeling plenty of movement before. It is hard not to worry. I know that everything is most likely o.k., and I'm only 16 weeks anyway, so it isn't like I "should" be feeling consistent movement, but since I was feeling consistent movement last week, and now I'm not really feeling any, it definitely makes me paranoid. I did have a quick check-up at my OBs yesterday though, and they heard the heartbeat, so I'm trying to be reassured by that.

The dr. said he wasn't sure whether my insurance would pay for FISH (preliminary results that test for Trisomy 13, 18 & 21) results. He said that he would submit them, and if they paid for it, we would hear Thursday or Friday, but the office is closed now, so I won't hear anything until next week, even if the FISH results come in. Hopefully Monday. If they don't do FISH, it will be Wed-Thursday of next week. I'm trying to be patient. It seems like all I do is wait anymore anyway.

-Andie (16W2D)

The waiting is killing me

I really don't know how I will make it. I am very frustrated that I was told this after the time that I could do CVS. We definitely would have done that and we already would have had the results. Instead, it is just one long day after another, and it is still 17 days until the actual amnio, then two days to get the FISH results (preliminary results that will be able to tell us if the baby has trisomy 13, 18 or 21). Not to mention, when I asked the nurse about getting FISH results, the nurse couldn't really tell me if they even do FISH results. And even if the FISH results are positive, we have to wait 7-10 days for the full results. We are most likely looking at the end of March at least. I've talked to my parents and they are coming out on the 20th of March, but who knows if we will have any results during the time that they are here.

I called the other day and got my actual numbers. My hCG and my PAPP-A should be around 1.0. My hCG MoM is .58 which is bad, but it isn't as troubling as my PAPP-A MoM number. My PAPP-A MoM number is .21. In the clinical studies, etc. that I've looked at, I saw nothing that indicated anything good with a PAPP-A number that was below .3.

I honestly have very little hope at this point for good news. There just isn't any good news out there with a decreased hCG AND a decreased PAPP-A, and mine just aren't decreased, they are very low. My PAPP-A is in the less than 1% range . That means more than 99% of people have a PAPP-A higher than mine. I think my hCG is below the 5% level. Everything just points to the very real liklihood that this baby has trisomy 18. And I know that these are just numbers and don't mean anything definitively, but it is so hard to hold on to hope when nothing leads me to believe that I should. If the baby does have trisomy 18, all of the options are heartbreaking.

We decided not to tell our children until after we knew that things were fine, and now we don't think that they are, so we decided that we aren't going to tell them about the pregnancy yet, and so I'm just trying to keep all of this from them, including any future plans that we need to make. Lots of people from our church know that I'm on bedrest because of the placenta problem and so I have begged them not to say anything about the pregnancy where my children are, but I am afraid that someone will slip.

This is so hard.

-Andie (13 weeks 3 days)

I'm not feeling reassured

I know two people who have had trisomy 18 babies. Neither of them carried to term. I e-mailed them today about my results and they were both concerned. Really concerned. The blood test IS just a screening and doesn't guarantee that I will have a baby with trisomy 18, but they felt that it is probably likely that I am carrying a baby with trisomy 18, especially with those odds. I told my husband about the appointment and then about what the people said. We are both just kind of numb.

It seems like I am forever waiting with this pregnancy. Now I have to wait for three weeks for amnio and at least a week after that to get results. I won't know anything definitive for a month.

I probably won't update this blog for awhile unless there is something definitive to report. At least until after my appointment. It is March 18th at 1 pm. I won't know anything until then, and probably not much that day either. It doesn't seem like it would do much good to write anything until then since it would just be posts about worrying and stressing about not knowing about whether we are going to have to make a really difficult decision.

- Andie (12 weeks 6 days)

Good news is that the baby looked o.k. yesterday

I had a quick appointment with my OB yesterday. He did a super quick ultrasound and said yes, I have a low-lying placenta, yes, I need to be on bedrest for a couple weeks. See you in 3 weeks.

Then I had an appointment with a maternal-fetal specialist today. That went - interesting.

He showed me my blood results in terms of the risk. My risk came back for down's syndrome with a risk of 1/150, with the cut off being 1/250 for a negative, but said that for my age, the risk of 1/150 was pretty good. Then he showed me my results for trisomy 18 and the risk was 1/10 with the cut-off being 1/100 for a negative. I was very concerned and said as much to the dr. He said "Yes, we like to see a higher number, but this part of the test has a pretty high false positive." He said that I was in between genetic tests right now - I was too far along for CVS and not far enough for amnio. Trisomy 18 is otherwise known as Edward's syndrome, and most of the babies born with it die in utero. Those that make it to birth usually die shortly after birth. It is basically not compatible with life.

He said that he would do an ultrasound today to check for any problems, but it was a little early to see anything definite in terms of markers for Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) or Trisomy 18. So he did the ultrasound and he measured the head and said that it was the right size, and he could see the heart and there was a normal heartbeat (155 beats per minute), he could see all arms and legs and they were the right length, he could see the bladder, and the stomach, and he could see a nasal bone. At the end, he said that he didn't see any markers for either trisomy, particularly trisomy 21, but repeated that it was still a little early to see anything definitively. He told me that I had some options - I could come back in 3 weeks and get an amnio. I could come back in 3 weeks and have another ultrasound to look for markers, and another one at 20 weeks for markers. Or I could decide to do no further testing/screening.

I asked if I could do an ultrasound at 16 weeks and then decide after that whether I wanted to do an amnio and he said yes, we could do that, so that is the plan right now. Although the more I think about it, I think that I'm probably going to have the amnio no matter what, so that we will know for sure.

So at this point, I'll have the ultrasound/amnio in three weeks. I won't get results from the amnio for at least 10 days after that. So I have over a month before I will know whether this baby has any genetic problems, and at this point, according to my blood test, there is a 10% chance that there is. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't worried. Really worried.

-Andie (12 weeks 6 days)

Today's the day

I am 12 weeks 5 days today. This is the day in my last pregnancy when I found out that the baby had died.

Thankfully, I have a dr's appointment today, so I should be able to find out whether or not this baby is doing o.k.

It's been a wild few days. I had another bleeding episode on Thursday. With the dr. still out of town until today, they couldn't bring me in to do an ultrasound. So they ended up sending me to the hospital and going straight to radiology instead of going through the ER. The tech was looking for signs of why I was bleeding and she wasn't looking at the baby at first, and I literally almost hyperventilated with worry because I thought something was wrong with the baby. But then she went over by the baby, and the baby is fine.

The causes of the bleeding are low-lying placenta and I have a small hematoma in my placenta. The tech called over to the dr's office, and the nurse said that I needed to be on complete bedrest for two weeks. But the good news is that most of the time, as the uterus grows, the placenta moves and the bleeding stops. The bleed should heal over time too.

I'm, of course, still a little worried, but nobody seems to be overly concerned, so I'm trying to relax as much as possible.

Oh, I also got the results back from my blood test that they did during my nuchal fold test and it came back with a positive result. This is the same thing that happened to my sister a few weeks ago. The nurse said that most likely my age is the the thing that made my result come back positive, but they want to have me see a high risk dr anyway. Partly because of these results, but also because of my age, my number of miscarriages, and now this placenta issue. So I have a dr. appt with the high risk dr. tomorrow.

I will probably get an ultrasound today and again tomorrow with the high risk dr. I've certainly got plenty of peeks at this little one.

Cross your fingers that everything is still going o.k.

-Andie (12 weeks 5 days)

Drama and Telling (m)

Well, after seeing the baby on Thursday, and starting to feel hopeful and like I really might have this baby at the end of August, then all of a sudden, it seemed like it might not happen.

We left for church and got there a few minutes before it started. I decided to go to the bathroom before it started. I was bleeding. I went back and told my husband, but decided to just hope that it would just slow down. Within a couple of minutes, I could tell that it was getting much worse, and I was really, really scared, and I was assuming the worst.

We took the kids home and called my mother-in-law to ask her to watch the children while we went to the hospital. Of course, we had to tell her why we were going. We also had to tell a couple of people at church because we both teach classes on Sunday, so we told a couple people before we left for the hospital.

The ER doc examined me and said that there was some blood but that I wasn't dilated, which was good. He sent me for an ultrasound. I was still assuming the worst. The person started the ultrasound and I couldn't see anything. I couldn't breathe. Finally, she said that the baby looked fine. She showed me the screen and there was the baby, moving around and with a heartbeat of 155. She said that she couldn't see any reason for the bleeding. The ER doc didn't seem to have any ideas where the bleeding was coming from either. They sent me home with instructions for strict bedrest for two days and no lifting for at least a week.

I told one of my best IRL (in real life) friends, and she told a couple other people who arranged to bring us dinner for this week. I finally decided that I needed to call a few more people so that it wouldn't look like I was excluding people.

It was not the way that I wanted to tell people. "Yes, we are pregnant. Yes, I'm having complications and we aren't sure if things will be o.k."

My dr. is out of town until next Monday, so the nurses said to just continue with the recommendations from the ER doc, and call if the bleeding gets worse. So far, I haven't had any bleeding since this Monday. I have an appointment on Monday to see my dr. I will be 12 weeks, 5 days. I had a dr. appointment during my last pregnancy at 12 weeks and 5 days, and that was when I found out that the baby no longer had a heartbeat. I am terrified that it is all going to happen again.

On the other hand, I'm doing everything that I can do, which isn't much. If I'm going to have a miscarriage, there isn't a lot to do to stop it. But I really hope that everything ends up o.k. I've started to become a little excited about this pregnancy. Please let everything be o.k.

-Andie (12 weeks)

Baby looks good (m)

My husband went to the ultrasound with me, which surprised me a little bit, but I was so glad that he came with me. I mean, everything was fine, but it was just nice to have him there.

At first, the baby was sleeping, which kind of concerned me, because during my last pregnancy, I went in for my NT test, and the baby was sleeping, and they could not get the baby to wake up, and then a week or so later, there was no heartbeat, and they estimated that the baby had died just a couple days after the test. But they had me suck on a peppermint candy and the baby woke up and started moving all over the place. The heartrate was 160. The baby was 5 cm, and measuring at more like 11 weeks, 6 days when I was 11 weeks, 1 day. The nuchal fold measurement was 1.7 mm, which according to my doctor is "very good". They did a blood test too, and the nuchal fold measurement will be combined with the results of the blood test and they will give me my risk of having a baby with genetic problems. I'm hoping for the best. I should have the results in a week.

We have decided to wait and find out the results from the bloodtest and to then make a decision on amnio. I think we are both leaning on not doing it at this point.

I asked to come in to the office in two weeks for a heartbeat check which would put me at just past the date of my last miscarriage. (I'll be 13 weeks in two weeks and my last miscarriage was at 12 weeks 5 days.) I'm hoping that if I hear the heartbeat then, I'll start to worry a little bit less. I can always hope, right?

Some days, I'm still like "I'm pregnant?????????"


- Andie (11 weeks, 2 days)

Two more days

My nuchal fold ultrasound is on February 14th at 1:30 pm.

The only people who know still are my husband and my sister. We haven't decided if we will tell anyone after this ultrasound, if everything turns out o.k. I'm still so torn about telling. It seems like I've known FOREVER, but it has only been 8 weeks. And there is still SO much of the pregnancy left, if it goes full-term.

I wonder what it must be like to have a carefree pregnancy. I've never had one. My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, way back in February 1998, and so I've always been at least a little worried every time I got pregnant. The last two pregnancies, I've worried a lot. I try not to talk about it out loud because there isn't anything that anybody can do about it. And I do try to just relax and hope for the best. But it is hard.

-Andie (10W6D, I got a new due date and so I am further along than I thought)

My dr's office called the other day

and they had me on the schedule with the nurse practicioner, and she is out now on maternity leave and needed to reschedule my appointment. I was afraid that they would make me wait another week, but they changed it from February 15th to February 14th. I will be 10 weeks 6 days on the 14th.

I'm still so stressed out that I'm going to go in and there won't be a heartbeat. I've felt this way every time I've gone in during this pregnancy, and it has always been o.k. But having my last pregnancy end in a miscarriage at 12 weeks and 5 days, well, it does strange things to your mind. I don't think that I'll be able to really relax and feel like I'm going to have a baby until I get past that date. Now my worry is that nipples don't hurt any more, and I feel smaller than I did a few days ago. That was one of my signs that something was wrong last time.

But there isn't really anything I can do but just wait. I haven't had any bleeding or spotting, and if I went in now for an ultrasound, then I'd have to go back in a week to do my NT test because right now, it would still be too early to do it. So I'm better off just waiting the six days and going to appointment. I just keep praying that I'm wrong, and that everything is o.k.

-Andie (10 weeks)

Everything is fine so far

I was overreacting. The dr. started the ultrasound, and he wasn't saying anything right away, and I had a moment of panic, but then the nurse said "See the heartbeat right there?" The dr. said that the heartrate was 160 and the baby looked like it was growing right on track. It definitely looked bigger than last time.

11 days until my next appointment. They will be doing a nuchal fold test at that appointment where they measure the neck fold during the ultrasound. The measurement should be under 3 mm. If it is around or above 3 mm, it indicates a possibility of down's syndrome or other genetic problems. They also do a blood test and combined the two tests to give you a fairly accurate look at the possibility of down's syndrome. I know that at my age (41), my risk is around 1 out of 100 chance that my child will have down's syndrome.

I haven't decided yet whether I will have an amnio. At first, I figured that I would if the pregnancy made to 14-15 weeks. Now, I'm debating about it. If my nuchal fold test comes back positive, I definitely will. But if my nuchal fold test comes back with little risk, I may not. I'm so confused.

I also am not sure when I want to tell people, especially family. My sister knows, and my husband, but no one else does. My parents will worry, and my in-laws will think that it wasn't responsible given our financial situation. Some days, I want to tell people around 12 weeks, but I probably should wait. I feel like I've known forever.

I am trying not to be consumed with worry and to just live my life, but it is tough some days. There IS a lot to worry about. There is the concern about whether I will have another miscarriage, whether the baby will have any problems, whether the baby will make it to full term and that's just until the baby is born. Then I have to worry about how we will afford everything we need for a baby, and I'll have to take care of a newborn again, and worrying about whether I need to get a job, etc., etc.

On a positive note, my sister is 20 weeks now and all seems to be going well.

-Andie (9W3D)

I called for a "sanity check"

I was really trying to make it until my dr. appointment on the 15th. But I have had such a bad backache and bad cramping for the past couple of days that I just knew that I couldn't make it another two weeks. If things are bad, I'd much rather know now. I haven't had any bleeding/spotting, which is a good sign, and the fact that I saw the heartbeat a couple weeks ago is a good sign, but everything was great up until 12 weeks with my last pregnancy, so I know that things can still go wrong after you see the heartbeat.

The dr's office just called back and I have an appointment at noon today. I should be 8 weeks 6 days. Crossing my fingers that I'm just overreacting.

- Andie (8W6D)

I'm not ready to assume anything

but I have caught myself thinking a couple of times about what it will be like to have a baby in the house again.

This baby is SO unexpected. We had infertility issues for many years, and even though we have conceived on our own several times, every pregnancy except for miracle man S's, ended in miscarriage. Not to mention, when we have tried to get pregnant, it has often taken us around a year to get pregnant. It has been a year and a half since the last time I conceived. We weren't trying this time, and I had just come to realize that I needed to come to terms with being done because my husband really, really, really was ready to be done.

K will be almost 9, E will be 6.5 and S will be almost 4. I never imagined that we would have a four year spread between children. I had big plans of going back to work in the fall. I need to go back to work in the fall. No matter what, I will probably need to go back to work in the fall. But my dr. wants to induce me at the end of August, if I make it that far, and I'll need to wait at least a month . . . .

I don't know. I really can wonder myself to death. I know that everything will work out. I know that if this baby makes it until August, that we will find a way to make everything work. But sometimes I wonder how will the money work out, what will I do since I don't even have a crib or any baby clothes or how will I take care of a newborn again?

But then I tell myself, let's just wonder about getting through one more day.

- Andie (8W4D)

I had to do my prenatal bloodwork on Monday

and it was quite an adventure. It is typically difficult to draw blood from my veins. They are small, deep, and they roll. I try and warn people ahead of time, and I also try and drink plenty of water beforehand so that they are "as good as they get." I went to the hospital lab to do the bloodwork because they usually have the best luck. The technician looked on my right arm, thought she saw one, and tried it. No go. She asked if they ever used my hands, and I said yes, they usually have fairly good luck with finding one in my hand. She found one in my right hand, tried it, and it started, but it was going very, very slowly, and they had 6 tubes to get. Finally after only slightly filling three tubes, the vein blew. So then another technician came in and tried. She looked at my left arm, and then my right arm again. She tried the right arm, and finally got a vein that worked well.

The dr's office called the next day and said that all my lab results were normal. I'd hate to have to go through that again, so I'm glad it was all o.k.

I've had a couple moments when I thought about telling a couple of my friends, but then I always decide against it. And I'm torn about telling too. Sometimes, I feel like telling people the "secret" now, or maybe after we get the results back from the amnio, but then I also think "Wow, it would be nice to be able to just go to the hospital and have the baby and THEN tell everyone."

Three weeks and a day until my next appointment.

-Andie (7W6D)

Wow. I didn't expect to see that . . . .

I had myself convinced that everything was all over. They took my blood pressure at my appointment, and it was 140/90, which is really high for me (I'm usually 115/70). The nurse asked if I was nervous. I said "Yea, a little." (A major understatement.) After a tortuous half hour wait for the ultrasound, the nurse practitioner finally comes in and starts the ultrasound. After about five seconds, she says "Well, aren't you cute?" and there was the baby on the screen. She then said "And the heartbeat looks great. It is about 150 beats per minute, which is great." I finally started breathing for the first time in about a week. She said that the area where there had been a subchorionic hemorrage was all healed. I said "Wow, I didn't realize how worried I was that it wasn't going to be good until now." She said that if I need to have ultrasound between now and my next appointment for "my sanity", she said to not hesitate to call. I thought that was really nice. The baby is measuring a few days ahead, which makes the early positive pregnancy tests make more sense. I apparently ovulated really early in my cycle. We definitely weren't trying, and if we had been, I would have just assumed that I was going to ovulate around day 14 like I usually do, and we would have missed it.

I, of course, am not ready to just assume that I'm going to have a baby in late August/early September, but I have to admit that I'm feeling just a little bit hopeful.

My next appointment is Friday, February 15th. I should be 11 weeks then. It will probably be a long 4 weeks.

-Andie (7W2D)

So I went and had my blood test yesterday

I didn't want to do it, but I figured that the dr's office would be annoyed if I went to my appointment on Friday and I hadn't had it done. I called to get my results this morning and the dr's office said that they weren't in. Of course, they called back when I was out. So I called them back and let them know that I was home and they could call anytime. That was an hour and a half ago and I still haven't heard back yet. I mean, now that I got the blood test results, I feel like I need to know that numbers, but I probably shouldn't find out. I'm either going to freak out because they seem too low or too high. I really should just wait and go to my appointment on Friday and have the ultrasound. On Friday, I should be able to see a little baby with a heartbeat. I haven't had any problems, but I'm still having a hard time feeling hopeful. I just keep wondering what the point is of going through this pregnancy, however long it lasts, but especially if it is over soon? And if I do manage to carry to term and I have a healthy, normal baby, was this baby meant to be? Did this child need to be here for a reason? Or is this all just random?

Andie (6W2D)

Edited to add: I did get my numbers back later today. My beta HCG level was 29,886 and my progesterone was 31.4. Totally normal numbers for where I am in the pregnancy. It makes me feel a little better, but it still doesn't guarantee that I'll see a heartbeat on Friday.

My sister had some testing done

She did some more bloodwork and had an ultrasound done by a specialist, and he said that there doesn't appear to be any indications that her baby has down's syndrome. They also were able to find out that the baby is a girl! She has two boys and one girl now.

I was finally able to straighten out the insurance situation. What a gigantic hassle!

I went on a job interview yesterday. I've been working as a preschool teacher out of my home for five years now, and I really don't want to give it up, but $$$ has been tight for most of that time too, and I felt like I needed to at least explore this opportunity. My BIL works at the company and sort of got me the interview, but I'm o.k. with that. LOL The interview went pretty well. I'll hear back at the end of the month.

Of course, I worry a little bit about the pregnancy and what that would mean if I needed to take a six week maternity leave only six months after taking the position. And when I was working when my girls were small, I always took a twelve week maternity leave. There is no way that I could take off that long if I took this position, not to mention, any leave I took would be mostly unpaid, and we couldn't afford for me to not be bringing in any $$ for more than a couple of weeks.

But I've decided for the most part to not worry about all that. Who knows whether this pregnancy will last and who knows whether I'll even get the job.

I wish that there was more things that I DID know as I went through this journey called Life. It would certainly make things less stressful.

I have an OB appointment next Friday. They will do an ultrasound to check for a heartbeat, and if there is a heartbeat, do loads of bloodwork.

-Andie (5W4D)

The world doesn't revolve around me

My sister is currently pregnant with a miracle pregnancy. She had three children fairly easily. Two years ago, she had a miscarriage at 11 weeks. Then a year ago,, she was diagnosed with a large liver hemagioma, and she has had some major complications as a result of it. She was told not to get pregnant again. In September, her husband was told that he now had an extremely low sperm count, most likely as a result of his recent diabetes diagnosis. In October, my sister discovered that she had conceived. She wasn't sure how it could have happened because they only time that it could have would have been very, very late in her cycle. They figured that they were in a "non-fertile" period. At first, it didn't appear that the pregnancy was viable because her numbers were so low, but after a couple more weeks, they determined that she must have ovulated/conceived very late. She met with a liver specialist who felt that she could continue with the pregnancy, but that there was always the chance, albiet relatively low, that the pregnancy would cause internal bleeding from her liver.

Everything has been going along fine with her pregnancy for weeks now. She is around 16 weeks now. She went this morning for a regular OB appointment. She had some nuchal fold ultrasound down at her 12 week appointment, and it showed a low chance of a child with down syndrome. However, they took some blood at the time too and they combine the results of the nuchal fold test along with the results of the blood test. She found out today that the bloodwork came back positive for down's syndrome. She is going to have more bloodwork done, and another ultrasound. She should have more definite answers in a week.

She seems to be handling it well. She said that it will o.k. either way. She has always felt that they would have a down's syndrome baby, and that if she does, she will welcome the child with love. She knows that it would be a challenge for herself and her whole family though.

I am quite fearful that the baby I'm carrying has down's syndrome. I'm ashamed to admit that I wouldn't handle the news as well as my sister is handling it.

- Andie (5 Weeks 2 days)

Not much to report

I honestly thought that this pregnancy would be over by now. I haven't had any symptoms of a miscarriage yet, although it is still really early, so it could still happen. I had my last miscarriage at almost 14 weeks, and my first at 7 weeks, so I still have weeks and weeks to go before I feel in the clear on that. I still don't really anticipate that I will have a baby at the end of this. I am not feeling all that pregnant this week. I feel like I will go to my next appointment and that there will be no heartbeat.

Of course, who knows if I will even be able to go to my next appointment? I'm dealing with a gigantic insurance situation right now. I technically have private individual insurance until January 28th, but there is no maternity coverage (didn't think I'd be needing it!) I applied in December (before I knew I was pregnant) for insurance through the state because I would pay quite a bit less for my monthly premium thorugh the state insurance plan. Also, I know that they have maternity coverage. So when I went for my dr. appointment last Friday, I told them that I needed to get the card from the state and that I would fax them a copy as soon as it arrived. I didn't tell them that I had other insurance because I knew that the other insurance company wouldn't cover it anyway. The dr's office begrudgingly agreed to wait to get the card, but told me that I needed to have a copy of it before I could see the dr. for my next appointment. I've called the state every day since last Wednesday, usually three or four times a day, and I can't get the caseworker to call me back. So I only have 10 1/2 days to a) get my caseworker to call me back and get her to fax the information to my drs. office b) receive a copy of my card in the mail and fax it to the office or c) get enough $$ to pay for the visit out of pocket, plus the first visit (NOT going to happen). I'm also supposed to go get that bloodwork done before my next visit, and I can't get that done either until this insurance thing is straightened out. I don't know if I am going to have it done anyway, but at this point, I don't even have the option of deciding whether or not to do it.

Time goes by SOOOOOOOOOOOOO slowly during early pregnancy. It seems like I've known about this pregnancy forever, and it has only been 15 days.

- Andie (5W1D)

I went to the dr. today

It is NOT an ectopic pregnancy. The midwife saw a sac in the uterus. It looks like I'm about 5 weeks along, which is pretty close according to my LMP (technically, I'm 4W4D.) She also saw a normal to a little large cyst on my right side that could be cause for some of the pain. She also said that I have a pretty bad bladder infection, which also could be causing the pain on the right side. I also have a little "spot" that could have been a subchorionic hemmorrage, but she said that it looks like it is resolving itself now instead of starting. It is pretty close to the baby, and I asked her if that was a problem and she said that it shouldn't be. I'm not sure if I believe her, but whatever.

I also am supposed to go to the lab and get a beta hCG and progesterone check, but I'm going to wait until Monday to do it, if I do it at all.

So now it is just a waiting game. And it's a long wait too. I've got to get past the 7 week ultrasound check for the heartbeat, and then past 13 weeks to get past the date of my last miscarriage, and then I'm going to do amnio around 15-16 weeks and it will be a few weeks after that before I know anything. So I've got about 4 months before I'll feel like this pregnancy is going to go o.k.

- Andie (4W4D)

So he knows . . . .

I wasn't going to tell my husband about this pregnancy. We had a long talk about a month and he told me how difficult it would be for him if I got pregnant again. We had talked about it briefly on and off for the last year, but I didn't understand until that night how much he really did not want to have another baby. So I figured that this pregnancy would probably be over soon, and that it would just cause him more stress to tell him, and that it just be better to not tell him.

But then he asked me if I was, and I sat there for a few moments debating about telling the truth or lying, and I finally decided to go with the truth.

I am still not feeling very positive that this is a viable pregnancy. I think that this pregnancy is most likely an ectopic pregnancy. I have several symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy. Unfortunately, it is tough to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy until 7 weeks. I wasn't even going to tell my doctor, but I finally decided yesterday to give them a heads up about the situation. The dr. wants me to come in on Friday. They probably will do a blood test, but at this point, all that will really tell me is that I'm pregnant, and I already know that. They'll probably schedule an ultrasound for 6 1/2 weeks too. And tell me to go to the ER if I have severe pain or bleeding. I'm a little annoyed that I have to go to the dr. this week anyway. Nobody can tell me for a couple weeks if this pregnancy is viable, and I think that the dr. appointment is going to cause me more stress than I already have.