Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts

Thursday, February 06, 2014

Family under construction: part 4 - miscarriage



On January 3rd we went for the blood work and tests. All seemed good.

On January 7th I started feeling weird… I was irritable, couldn't really eat anything but fruit and sleep was horrible. On January 9th I woke up of a horrible nightmare. I dreamt that I had a stillbirth and that when my DH saw the dead baby he threw it out and stole a baby from someone who didn’t wanted her baby but he was caught and had to return the baby. I woke up sweating and with my heart beating so fast I was physically ill. My DH woke up early to take his mother to the hospital, I told him about the dream and that I wasn't feeling well.. I started to feel some pins and needles on my belly button and pubic area… he said that it probably was nothing and to lie down and rest.


I couldn't help but worry all day long, I called my mom telling her I wasn't feeling OK and that I was upset because my DH seemed to think I was overreacting. My mum said to go to the doctor to calm me down so at the end, at around 6pm I convinced DH to go to ER. 

We went to ER, I was supposed to be 12 weeks by now so they tried to do the ultrasound on my belly but the doctor couldn't see anything. At that point my DH just crumbled down… doctor did a vaginal ultrasound and there was no heartbeat… baby measured 8 weeks 4 days. I just had a silent miscarriage.


It seemed as if baby stopped development somewhere between 9 – 10 weeks.

My DH went pale; he took it so bad… I didn't know what to think… I was blank…no brain waves. Doctor explained this was fairly normal. That about 40% of pregnancies ends in first trimester. That she recommended a D&C as soon as possible because the placenta kept growing and my body was carrying on with the pregnancy. I actually still felt pregnant… nausea, breast tenderness, all the signs were still there. She gave us the paperwork to proceed with the D&C and told us to come back next day early in the morning for the procedure.



We went back home and I was still not reacting to it... I felt just as if it was happening to someone else. I thought about it, I tried to rationalize it, I tried to find reasons, but the only think I could think of is that I have been so stressed out because of family during the time the pregnancy stopped that I could only focus my anger on that situation and on a particular person.

We went to the hospital the next morning and got ready for the D&C. I was admitted to the hospital and a nurse gave me some tablets to insert vaginally that will start contractions. I inserted them and in 2 hours it all begun. At the beginning it wasn't painful but in the next two hours pain became quite strong. At this time they took me to the operating room and applied to me general anesthesia.  When I woke up I was in the recovery room, the nurse told me everything went just fine, later on the doctor came and said procedure went well and that she managed to remove the sack completely and that I should be up and running soon.

Back in the room I was in some pain so they gave me painkillers but I was bleeding a lot. They were supposed to release me that afternoon but because of the bleeding they kept me in for another full day. I was released on Sunday evening and doctor gave me a control appointment for January 23rd. They said bleeding would continue for a couple of days but if bleeding was intense, I should go back to hospital for check-up.

My DH and my brother stayed with me all the time at the hospital and at home. My DH had to go back to work on Monday but my brother requested some days off and stayed home with me for three days because doctor said I should rest and not over exert myself during the first 3 days, and obviously they didn't trusted me to rest.

Family and friends send us messages and wanted to come and see me… 
I am the kind of person that doesn’t like to have people around when I'm nervous or in pain so I asked them not to come for a week… I asked several times. 

All of my friends respected my wishes and my family as well… my mum was in Paraguay visiting her brothers and she wanted to come straight away but I told her not to move her flight forward and she also agreed, only one person didn't and I wasn't pleased at all… 

I felt that it was my time to get adjusted and I didn't want to have to accommodate other people or to be smiling to other people or to be pitied… I hate being pitied and I hate to be asked over and over again if I’m fine or not… Of course I wasn't fine! Stop asking! So this person got the worst side of my mood … but I'm not sorry. I warned them. I won't apologize. Filters off from now on.

Five days passed (by the time I'm writing this) since the D&C and I only have cried once, and I cried because I was upset not because I was sad. I cried yesterday because a friend came over and my DH and my friend were talking in front of me of the miscarriage and that it was lucky it was sooner than later, and that it wasn't really a baby yet but just a squid or a blob and that it will be over soon… and I just couldn't cope with that. I got so angry because even though I understand that it was better for it to be at 12 weeks than at 20 weeks or more, it wasn't just a blob… I really wanted that baby, and it has been difficult to get to the pregnancy part and it wasn't just “that simple” so I asked my friend to leave the house and I told at my DH that it wasn't just a blob and that his words hurt, and I cried out of frustration. But I only cried once. That was two days ago.

I’m feeling better now. I'm still bleeding but not so much and pain is not so bad now, I’m still cramping but an ibuprofen is enough to calm it down. I still have trouble sleeping but the doctor prescribed some sleeping pills and they helped a lot.

I’m not sad. I’m upset. I’ve been raised to win. I have always been the first or the best in what I was set upon to do. And this to me felt like failure. And I’m not used to failure. I'm a bad loser.

I would have been entering my second trimester on January 23rd.  On that day, we planned to put Bilbo (my wonderful dog) in a shirt that read "Big Brother" to announce our pregnancy. Unfortunately, that will not happen because I had a miscarriage.  

The only reason I'm even posting about it here is because there are women who go through this and don't talk about it and because I'm one of them. I don’t talk about it so I decided to write about it.  

It is worst for a woman to know she can get pregnant then have a loss, than a woman who can't get pregnant at all because one way or another they'll eventually write it off as something they can’t do. It’s an emotional roller coaster, your emotions are on high the moment you find out, and then you crash.  It’s hard. It’s hard on a marriage.  It’s hard on you emotionally.  After, you’re never really the same; you're always worried that something bad will happen.  



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Family under construction: part 3 - trying again


Our first IUI failed. We decided to try again immediately so the third day from the start of my period we begun with the hormone shots again… had the trigger shot on November 3rd and the AI procedure on November 4th.


The second 2WW were worst that the first one. Every time I went to the bathroom I was expecting to see signs of spotting, signs that something was wrong.  Then I decided to do some research online about what to do to help implantation… and I follow the advices that sounded best to me… I stopped exercising, rested as much as possible, I ate pineapple cores the first 5 days after IUI, took my prenatal pills and started to eat and drink as if I was already pregnant (no alcohol, no raw meat, etc…).


http://www.imagesbuddy.com/images/129/2014/01/waiting-for-you-boy-and-girl-hands-graphic.jpg


On November 18th I took my first pregnancy test and it came with a faint positive…. But positive nonetheless for the first time ever... I could believe my eyes… I took the test at 4am because I wasn't able to hold my pee no longer and when I woke DH to check he said that it looked as if it was positive… so I called my doctor first thing and they said to wait two more days and test again…. TWO MORE DAYS!

I was going crazy… so on November 20th I took the second test at 7am…. And it came back positive again and darker this time…. I couldn't believe it yet… so I went straight to the pharmacy with the pregnancy test and asked the girl at the counter what she thought about it…. Funny thing, the pharmacy was full of grandma’s (it was early in the day, like 8 am) and they all said it was a positive as big as a house and all the grandmas came and greet me on the news… I was SO HAPPY! I've got my BFP! I was going to be a mum!


I called my doctor and he said to go for the first ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy in two weeks (another two dreadful weeks…) On December 2nd we went for the ultrasound and Dr. Hijano said he could see the sack but couldn't see the baby… he said that implantation might have been late and to come back in 10 days for another ultrasound…

I was so nervous and scare… those 10 days were hell… On December 13th we were back to his office and this time the ultrasound showed the baby and we heard the heartbeats! We were so relieved and so happy! We called our mothers and let them know… my mum cried and cheered and all you would expect from a future grandma… my brother was so happy and already planning to which concerts he will take his future godson or goddaughter… I asked them not to tell yet because people said that the first 13 weeks are very delicate and I wanted to be past that period to be telling all the world… but my wishes weren’t granted… more on that later.

Dr. Hijano asked us if we wanted him to do the follow up of the pregnancy but we weren't sure because we wanted to have the follow up in the Hospital Quirón which was closer to our house... biggest blunder... we later realised.

I called the hospital and got an appointment with an OB (not my usual one because she was fully booked until the end of January) on December 23rd. According to the IUI procedure the baby should has been 9 weeks by that time but when we had the appointment the Dr. said that the baby measured 8 weeks 2 days and we were able to hear the heartbeat again. That was so nice… 


But I wasn't sure about the doctor. She didn't say much, she didn't explained much, and she only said that I had a myoma of 2-3 cm but not to worry because that was “normal. She sends us for the test for the first trimester and gave us our next appointment for January 23rd, one month after.

My DH said he liked the doctor that she seemed nice… I didn't quite like her because she wasn't informative enough and she seemed distracted all the time… she even wrote her name instead of mine in the test order!

So Christmas came and with it a lot of stress due to family “situations”. Family were scattered during the holidays. We are used to have big family parties for the holidays but this year we ended up being only 4 at Christmas and my mother-in-law didn't even wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with us… which added to the stress of the holidays.

On January 3rd we went for the blood work and tests. All seemed good.

But...

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