35 1/2 weeks and thoughts on healing

Today was my weekly check-up and ultrasound. Everything still looks good, and my blood pressure is fine at 120/70. The ultrasound tech asked if the baby has been measuring small, because she was measuring around the 30th percentile today. She hasn't been, so that was a little worrisome, but the tech also said that for some reason, most of her people had been measuring small today, so we'll check her again in two weeks and make sure she's back on track.

Amniotic fluid is fine, heartbeat is in the 150s and she's practice breathing like crazy. She's been quite active, but I can tell that she's getting bigger because her movements are much more smooth rather than punchy (less room to move around.) According to the tech's measurements, she's about 5 lbs. 8 oz. now, which is only three ounces more than two weeks ago. (Of course, the weight is only an estimate.)

I asked them to look at the heart again because as you may remember, they weren't able to see everything all together at the Lev.el II u/s, the follow-up u/s, or the 32 week survey. The tech said today that everything looks perfect that she can see, so that's a relief.

Oh, I almost forgot... She's still vertex (head down)!!! And she doesn't seem to have moved position much since last week, so maybe she's done flipping. Maybe. :)

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I mentioned to T last night that this month marks two years since the beginning of my second pregnancy (my first miscarriage.) Two years. He was a little taken aback by that number because, you know, boys don't really ponder crap like that. On my way home from the doctor's office today, I teared up thinking about my three miscarriages. That show of emotion was just enough to remind me of the bond I have with most of you. We may go on to have babies after all of our troubles, and most of our family and friends may assume that that makes everything we went through to get there "ok," but there will always be a place in our hearts and minds where the pain and trauma is fresh, and the memory will not ever completely fade away.

Common Ground

It really is amazing how common miscarriage is.

I had lunch with a friend of mine today, and after a couple hours of chit-chat, she confided in me that she had been pregnant in January and had miscarried sometime in her 7th or 8th week. Of course, I then told her about my recent miscarriage and we went on to talk about how common it is.

I was also talking to someone else about miscarriage on the phone last night. She went through IVF treatments and now has a healthy baby to show for it, but we were talking about how infertility, miscarriage, and loss in all forms are things that are just not spoken about. It's really quite amazing to me that infertility, which affects so many, and miscarriage and loss (which affects 25% of women) are like dirty little secrets that people feel almost ashamed of.

Something that I'm having a difficult time grappling with is the almost... I don't know... competition (?) between women with different issues. Is it harder to have infertility issues that make it difficult or impossible to get pregnant, or is it harder to have multiple miscarriages? Does a woman who has a healthy child (or two, or three) have less validity to her grief over a miscarriage than someone who has no children? Is it fair for an infertile to judge a pregnant woman for complaining about her pregnancy symptoms using the "I would kill to be in her shoes" line of thought? Is it fair for fertile people to think, "you can just adopt," or "why are you so bitter?" about people who are infertile? Is it even fair to judge someone who is a great parent, has had no dealings with infertility, but who feels overwhelmed with their kids sometimes?

I'll tell you the truth. I've known people who've gone through IVF and then have gone on to have children. They still complain about the pregnancy symptoms. They even *gasp* complain about their KIDS sometimes after they have them. No matter what you've gone through, some of the symptoms of pregnancy are NO FUN. Some days raising children is NO FUN either!!

NO pregnancy is easy. You get nauseous. You get headaches. You have cravings. You worry about gaining too much weight. You worry about not gaining enough weight. Your skin doesn't fit right. You get stretch marks and varicose veins. Maybe you're constipated and get hemorrhoids. UGH. What's fun about that??

I guess my point in the end is that it's so easy to get lost in our own specific issues. I'm not trying to minimize the personal stories of each individual, but it seems to me that there is so much common ground. If there's something that I've learned from reading so many blogs, it's that the old adage about walking in another person's shoes really is true.

I've gained so much from reading other people's stories. I hope that now or in the future if I write something that you don't agree with, (and you can count on it) you can at least file it into your "common ground" file, and remember that the roads down which we all walk are really more similar than they are different.

Naming baby #2

Right now I have a file in my filing cabinet with my ultrasound pictures and other various paperwork from my miscarriage of baby number two. It's labeled "Baby 2." I've been reading a lot of different opinions on whether or not you should name a baby when you miscarry. I know it's a personal decision and I can do whatever I want, but I'm trying to decide what's right for me/us.

Obviously if we had named it by the time we lost it, we would call it by whatever name we picked, but since we hadn't, do we just keep calling it "baby 2?" I haven't approached my husband on this so I really don't know what his thoughts are. Honestly, like I said I still don't know what my thoughts are.

Since we won't ever know the sex, that leaves us with the sticky situation of picking an ambiguous name. Plus, we had names picked out for our first son, but I don't want to use any of those names in case we want to use them for a future baby.

I'm thinking I want to name it, though. I want to be able to say, "remember when I was pregnant with "_(insert name here)_?" Not, "Remember when I was pregnant with the second baby?"

It was a pregnancy. It was a baby. It was loved and wanted, and I guess it deserves a name.

Baby books

It occurred to me yesterday that I had come very close to starting a baby book for the little person that was growing inside me. I got two for my first baby so I had a spare book. I thought it would be nice to start writing in it early to record those "early thoughts" and excitement of the beginning of a pregnancy. I had the ultrasound pictures of the blob that I was given when the blob was 8 weeks and 6 days old. I would have put those in too.

I never got around to it...and now I'm so glad. Because what the hell do you do with a partially filled out baby book belonging to a baby who died? It's not like I could throw it out, and I certainly couldn't use it for another baby. So would it just sit there forever on my bookshelf and remind me of what I lost?

When my son woke up from his nap yesterday afternoon, I went into his room and scooped him into my arms, and held him really, really tightly, and I cried.

And then last night, I got out his baby book and I added the things that I had been "meaning to get to." I added some pictures we took in the hospital after his birth, and I taped our medical bracelets in, and I added pictures from his first birthday and wrote about the cake I made for him that looked like his favorite crab rattle.

And I know it won't keep him safe, but I feel better knowing that more of his life is recorded.

Then there's the second baby book that I never did write in... It's still sitting on the top shelf of the bookcase in the spare bedroom, empty. I hope, I hope, I hope I get to write in it someday.

Better check those iron levels

** TMI WARNING** This post is not for those with weak stomachs...

So, I've stopped bleeding. I feel a little weird about broadcasting that to anyone who wants to know, but the way I see it my blog would be totally uninteresting to anyone who hasn't had a miscarriage or lost a baby anyway, so you've all been there. So there ya go. Consider yourselves the (third or fourth) to know that it's been about a week and a half since my D & E and I have successfully stopped bleeding.

Of course, in the process of the "spring cleaning" of my uterus, there was one particularly exciting day of cramping, huge clots and lots of gushing blood. I was not expecting that at all and I'll admit that it freaked me out. I'm a pretty level-headed person, but all the "call the doctor immediately if..." lists said that if you passed clots larger than a walnut shell or bled through more than a pad in 1-2 hours, to call in. I called, while sitting on the throne after having lost several major clots, and was asked if I could hold. Can I hold? Suuuuuuuure. Why not? I may be hemorrhaging, but the polite thing to say is "sure." So I was on hold. For 5 minutes and 48 seconds. Are you kidding me? I hung up and called back and my call was luckily answered immediately by someone else and I was NOT asked to hold this time.

I spoke with a nurse for literally 25 minutes (which is when I knew that they were at least a little concerned) and they scheduled me for an ultrasound the next morning at 8:30am. Long story not-that-short, the ultrasound showed that everything looked normal and I had only one clot left, which I then lost a day later.

Now it seems that I've stopped bleeding. That makes me really happy because it gives me hope that my body is now going to begin the process of making my uterus hospitable for another try at a baby. (Of course, we'll wait the recommended one cycle before we try again, but it's a step in the healing process for me.) Keeping my fingers crossed that I *really* get my period in 4-6 weeks...