Friday, September 30, 2011

Closure

So I had a doctor appointment yesterday. It originally was booked as my prenatal and pap exam but when that no longer was necessary it turned into a followup appointment.

He had sent in a request for an ultrasound appointment for me at my last appointment, 2 weeks ago, and I hadn't heard from anyone to set this up but since I had been bleeding for the last 2 weeks like I was having the worst period of my life (granted still not a lot of pain or discomfort) I had assumed that it was a sure thing a miscarriage had happened and not being a doctor but loving my google searches had decided it was a full miscarriage so it didn't really bother me not to have them do the ultrasound.

Apparently, I still need the ultrasound just in case it wasn't complete....so much for self diagnoses. He sent in a second request yesterday and marked it urgent. They actually called me this morning and I'm going in this afternoon.

Secondly, we had a nice discussion on the fact that I am in fact RH-, something that I vaguely remembered but wasn't positive on until now. Why is this important? Well now that I've had a miscarriage (would have happened after I gave birth the first time too) my body has potentially built up antibodies to destroy RH+ bodies. The reason I say potentially is because I currently have NO IDEA what D's blood type is and neither does he. I have donated blood before and if necessary I could have called up the blood bank for my blood type at any point, D has never donated. I thought his mother would know....she doesn't. So he called his doctor yesterday and can't get into a lab without a request from a doctor and he can't get into his doctors until October 17th!

Why is this a big deal to me? Because if D is RH+ I will require injections of Rh immunoglobulin (RhIg), a blood product given to help me by "minimizing my reaction to the Rh positive red cells". No big deal about the injections, as they aren't suppose to cause me any problems but if I get pregnant before getting the injections I have no how my body will react and I have the potential of having another miscarriage immediately after my first one.

I realize that I may not even be ovulating yet but the idea that I could be and not knowing if D is RH+ is not making me want to have sex anytime soon. Which ALSO pisses me off because now I'm having to postpone trying to conceive until mid October or November is I don't get the results and then injection (if necessary) soon enough.

I'm planning to try and impart a sense of urgency onto D about this and see if he can go to a walk in or something for the body test sooner.

I'm also crossing my fingers that he's RH- and then this won't even be an issue!!!!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Kicking a Habit

I never thought of myself as someone that was addicted to a drug, and will admit that I couldn't understand women that would continue to smoke during their pregnancies (and still don't, actually) but when faced with cutting out caffeine I'm having a really hard time.

When I found out that I was pregnant in August I immediately quit drinking coffee cold turkey. The first day was hard, lack of concentration and pounding headache by the end of the work day. The weekend was my second & third days which made them bearable as I rarely drink coffee on those days because I have the opportunity to sleep in and take naps if necessary. I'm also not staring at a computer screen for 8+ hours. When Monday rolled around I was back to the lack of concentration and pounding headaches, and since Advil - my usual headache & pain remedy, was out of the question, I was running around looking for Tylenol.

For some reason the idea of replacing caffeine with Tylenol didn't sit well with me and then I started reading that its actually OK to consume 200mg or less of caffeine a day (which is just under 16oz of coffee) so I justified my morning coffee and went back to drinking it. Technically I also would have chocolate and other products with caffeine some days, on top of the morning coffee, but chose to ignore that.

When I miscarried I couldn't help but think "OMG if I had only stopped drinking coffee...". Now rationally I realize any number of things could have caused me to miscarry and the fact that I was moderating my coffee intake it probably WASN'T the cause but I really don't want to run that risk again.

I had NO PROBLEM stopping my one glass a night of wine, or starting to take a daily prenatal vitamin when I'm TERRIBLE with remembering to take vitamins, all in the name of a healthy pregnancy and baby. So why can't I let this coffee thing go? You would think that I would take this opportunity to stop before I get pregnant again so that I can deal with the withdrawal symptoms before they are compounded with the exhaustion of pregnancy, but I'm sipping on a Venti Pike from Starbucks as I type this.

Hello my name is Carmen and I'm a coffee addict...

Any tips on quiting?!?!

(I realize this is pretty much a private blog with a readership of 4 at the most so I guess this is more of a rhetorical question at this point...)

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

How is this NOT amazing

I saw this photo on Facebook and needed to share and pass on the article, abosultely amazing...



Read more about this picture and article that was published in 1999...apparently I've been living under a rock...

Friday, September 16, 2011

Coping

Last night pretty much confirmed that this is in fact a miscarriage. I'm full out bleeding like I was on my period and require a tampon (I hope its okay that I'm using a tampon because everyone online mentions wearing a pad and I don't OWN pads). I still need an ultra sound I guess to determine if its a complete miscarriage though.

I'm surprisingly handling it really well, I guess it was so early that I had yet to be attached to the idea and had prepared myself for the possibility of loss. Aside from my sleepless night on Tuesday where I still clung to the hope that it was just an abnormally large "spotting" incident I am actually okay with it all. No urge to cry, no depression.

Is it weird that I almost feel guilty that I'm NOT that upset? If anything I feel like I should apologize to my in laws that they aren't going to be grandparents yet! Even though I know its not my fault....

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Not what I was expecting

So this is DEFINITELY not what I thought my second post would be about, regardless of how prepared I was for this outcome. I guess I was finally starting to accept the whole "I'm really pregnant" thing so was caught off guard.

**Please be aware that this may be TMI for some people***

Tuesday night I woke up to go to the bathroom only to be greeted with clots and brown "old" blood discharge. It was a lot more then what I would expect from normal 'spotting' but not as bad as the amount expected for a miscarriage. Not to mention that it wasn't 'fresh' blood.

To say that I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night was an understatement, as I was completely exhausted I called in sick to work and phoned my doctor's office to make an appointment. I couldn't get in until today which didn't relieve my worrying about the unknown but I didn't experience any further discharge for the rest of the day so I started to think that perhaps it was all good. My body just needed to rid itself of some old blood that had been sitting there since implantation or something else, and rather then do it slowly it got rid of it all at once.

Until I went to the bathroom just before bed and the discharge was back, still not 'fresh' but its there and is still here this morning. Its not heavy like my usual period but I feel more and more that this is not going to end in a happily.

I just got back from my doctor's appointment and I still don't have a confirmed answer as I have to have an ultrasound now (waiting to hear when that is!) but he was not hopeful. Along with the clots, which apparently are not a good sign, my hormone levels that came back from my lab work were a lot lower then expected, more like 4 weeks then the 6 weeks that they were suppose to be. This further adds to the likelihood that my pregnancy miscarried a few weeks ago and my body is just getting around to 'flushing' me out now. Until they do the ultrasound they won't know for sure.

My doctor has informed me that having a miscarriage has put me in a higher risk category (I was already higher then normal because I was 30 which was news to me since I thought I had until 35!) and will be referred to an OB-GYN as soon as I'm pregnant again.

I suppose there is a small chance that everything is still fine and obviously I would prefer it to be still 'okay' but I knew this would be a risk and at least I know now that D and I are fertile so we will start trying again as soon as I figure out when my next ovulation period is and hopefully it will happen quickly and stick this time.

Didn't expect this blog to turn into a "Trying To Conceive" one but that's life...throwing you curve balls.

Feelings that I'm currently experiencing:
  1. Disappointed that we need to start again and that I will no longer be due around the same time as my friend (who also just found out she's expect).
  2. Resigned to the fact that this is life and there really wasn't anything I could have done. Putting me in the higher risk category has now removed my reduced to ONE cup a day coffee consumption. Guess I'll need to start weening this addiction now so that I'm not suffering headaches when I can't take Advil! (Please note that I use to drink multiple cups a day and when I first found out that I was pregnant I cut it out completely, suffered from headaches, read that it was okay to have 200mg of caffeine a day while pregnant and so brought back ONE morning cup during the work week - there is a small part of me that wishes I had disregarded the Internet and 'What to expect when expecting' advice and never went back to caffeine but I realize that I can't play the what if game)
  3. Reluctant as I am NOT looking forward to telling my in laws, as they were the only people we have told so far that I was on the fence about. My MIL is a little overly emotional and I do not want to listen to her cry about something I haven't really cried about! Nor do I want her obsessing the NEXT time I'm pregnant about what I'm doing and if the baby is okay.
  4. Relieved that Facebook friends and work colleagues do NOT now that I was pregnant. We had chosen only tell a handful of people that we were comfortable sharing the bad news with and I'm glad we decided that because it would definitely suck having to update your facebook status as NOT pregnant and I absolutely hate the insincere condolences from people that rarely talk to you.
  5. Optimistic that the second time will be the charm and now we just need to wait.
Is it terrible that I'm annoyed that my tarot card reader, who I have been going to for years now and find her very reliable, recently said (I went to her 2 weeks ago but didn't tell her I was pregnant because my friend that was with me didn't know) I would get pregnant quickly (check), that I thought it would take a long time but D was very fertile (check) and that I would have a very easy pregnancy.....(ummm). When I asked if she saw miscarriage and problems she said that it looked like a easy pregnancy. (So basic NO check) I realize that an educated woman, who is an accountant by trade, should not be putting her hopes into predictions from tarot cards but it is what it is. I believe in stuff like that and her so I keep going back to this think "it can't be a miscarriage, I was suppose to have an easy pregnancy" and then I think "but maybe the reason she didn't know I was pregnant 2 weeks ago was because my miscarriage had already happened and that the NEXT pregnancy would happen quickly...October!?...and THAT one will be easy." Crazy I know, but that's what goes through this girl's head.

So that's where we are at right now.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

And so it begins...

To say I was surprised when I watched the second pink line appear on the stick I was holding would probably be a bit of an over statement but it definitely took a while to sink in, in fact three weeks later its still sinking in!

So how did I get to this point?

D and I got married this June and immediately after we threw away any form of birth control. In fact I had stopped taking my pills 3 months earlier, mainly because I had run out of my prescription and was too lazy to go to the doctors for another one when I knew we would start trying after the wedding but it also gave my body time to adjust to not taking them, something I had been told was important to do, whether that's accurate I don't know.

We, or should I say I, decided that we wouldn't wait after the wedding to start trying to conceive, although originally I thought we would put it off until the fall of 2012 so that I wouldn't give birth until after I had finished my accounting designation. My main reason for wanting to start sooner then later is that I am 29 years old and I had NO IDEA whether either of us were fertile. I didn't want us to wait another two years before we started only to find out after months of trying that we couldn't do it with out help. I also assumed that if we started now we wouldn't conceive for a few months.

D's mother took FOUR years to conceive and I knew that my mother, in her thirties, started having difficulties (miscarriage) between my sister (two years younger then me) and my brother (seven years younger then me). We also knew there was a possibility that it wouldn't take long and we were completely prepared for that out come too.

After the wedding when I say we started trying that merely meant no protection....I didn't actually know when I ovulated so it was really no surprise that my period showed up in July but August was different, I actually calculated when my optimal week would be and made sure we tried during it.

Regardless, when I sat down to pee on that stick 3 weeks ago it wasn't because I was late and thinking I was pregnant. Nope, it was because I had promised D that I would not drink while we were trying to conceive EXCEPT during my period, and since that was about to arrive in the next day or so and I was planning to go out for dinner with my in-laws I figured I would check things out with a First Response test to see if I would be enjoying a glass of much wanted wine with my SIL.

I'm the impatient type and couldn't wait until I got home, 5 minutes before I left work I went to the bathroom fully expecting to get a negative...I didn't feel pregnant and who actually gets pregnant this soon!? I was completely convinced that I was NOT that girl so as I watched the urine make its way down the strip, the first line coming up bright pink and then the second appearing a lot fainter all I could think was ARE YOU F'N KIDDING ME?!

As soon as I was in the car I called my sister to get her opinion..."What are the chances that I could have a FALSE positive?!" I didn't know what an evap line looked like so I wasn't sure if that's what it was or if maybe the test was just faulty. She reminded me that I didn't live in a city with a wide range of places to by tests, so why didn't I just go buy a digital one? Good point!

Before going home I stopped at the grocery store, bought a Clear Blue digital test that promised results 5 days before your expected period and quickly headed for our house. Since I had already peed less then an hour ago I started guzzling water when I got inside and headed for the bathroom. D probably thought I had lost it but I NEEDED to know....have I mentioned that I'm impatient?

I suppose telling you that this test read "Pregnant 1-2 weeks" is pretty anticlimactic at this point but there you have it. Two tests for different brands confirming that I would NOT be having that much wanted glass of wine for at least another nine months and I couldn't be happier.

I am completely aware that things don't always go as plan and miscarriages are quite common, because of that fact D and I have agreed to only tell our close friends and family, people that we are prepared to share sad news with not just happy news, until we are further along.

At this point I am not sure if the three months point will be the lucky number or if we will wait closer to 5 or 6. I guess we'll just have to wait and see but until then I feel comfortable in sharing my news with you.