Tuesday, April 23, 2013

As we predicted

No heartbeat at u/s today and no real growth since last week.

So after two ultrasounds (the latter a high res one to confirm), a d&c, lots of blood loss, serious vomiting and nausea and gut wrenching cramping followed by 4 Advil and a nap, I'm ready to call it a day.  

I'm still dizzy but mostly feel ok now.  Dr said the clot was enormous and had my uterus all distended which accounts for the extra special cramping, so I'm glad I didn't choose to do this one on my own

But thank you all for rooting for us. It was so helpful and inspiring. I'm going to retreat and lick my wounds a bit, try to lose 10 lbs and get into some physical shape before I decide what's next. 

Monday, April 15, 2013

Today was odd

This was a very strange day.

After last Thursdays U/S that saw a large sac and nothing else (except there is still a lot of blood in my uterus) we collectively decided it was time to be done. So I scheduled another high res u/s and a d&c for today, essentially back to back.

I never made it to the d&c. Instead, there was a fetal pole and a heartbeat. But not an especially rapid one. It's likely to still go south based on the low hr (it's 65 - it's really low), but I was certainly in no position to terminate this pregnancy today.

The sac is low, almost near my cervix, and there is a lot of blood above it, but my cervix is log and closed and nothing is coming out.

The head of obstetric ultrasound who told me I was miscarrying two weeks ago was a bit abashed, but it still is a real long shot. All I can say is that my body Really wants to hold on to this pregnancy. And maybe that and a lot of luck will get us by.  I'm doubtful, as the prognostic indicators are not great, but his is already such a long shot on top of a long shot, I don't even know what to think any more. 

Thursday, April 11, 2013

More of what we already knew

So here we are.

My body, by every possible measure, thinks I am very pregnant.  I have a 20 mm sac in my uterus and HCG levels well above 20,000.  I'm also nauseated, exhausted, craving protein and dying of thirst.

So yeah, I'm pregnant.

But not really.

Because, you see, there is nothing in that fast-growing sac.  Not a damned thing.

At this point, there really should be something. What's maddening (and very surprising to my RE, who is at one of the largest clinics in NYC and has been doing this for a while) is that my betas are and continue to be textbook doubling.  My gestational sac growth is perfectly on track.  But the sac is empty.

So I have scheduled another high-res ultrasound for Monday afternoon to confirm what we already know, and then am waiting to hear back from my OB to schedule a D&E.  At this point, there is enough tissue and other stuff in there that my RE is worried that I will end up in the ER if my body ever decides to do this on its own.

I haven't cried much, mostly because I just don't think it really helps me at all and I don't have the energy.  Except I did today.  After dry heaving in the RE's exam room, I pretty much lost it.  It's really brutal to feel like shit from hormones due to a pregnancy that isn't really anything at all. And then after I got to work to find that I had mis-remembered the time of a meeting that I was supposed to run and so was 30 minutes late, I first yelled at the coworker who informed me of that and then very nearly started crying in my office.

I'm pretty much on the ragged edge.  Things are starting to slip (paying bills?  not happening.  Cooking dinner?  Not so much.). Some people might wait for their bodies to just deal with this naturally.  Others might wait 2-3 weeks to confirm that no embryo magically appears.  I'm frankly not that interested in magical thinking at this point.

I need this to be over.


Monday, April 8, 2013

In other news...

I took my tiny little baby boy to the dentist today.  And he was very brave and has almost all of his teeth (missing 2 molars, but all others are accounted for).

It's amazing. One minute he weighed less than six pounds and I could hold him in my hand and this morning he used a power screwdriver to disassemble an airplane (don't worry -- it's a TOY power screwdriver.  It only could hurt him if he put it in his eye/ mouth/ear....).  And we walked all the way to the dentist, nearly 10 city blocks away.

Right now, B is exceptionally snuggly.  When he is scared or upset he runs to me and says "want to hug mommy" and then he wraps his arms around me and squeezes.  He likes giving kisses -- I usually leave the house for work with a fair amount of toddler slobber on one or both cheeks -- and likes getting kisses, which suits me just fine.

He has started saying things that are just funny -- he is always saying he needs "to go over there and check on something" which cracks me up every time.  He says "Remember when we (insert something from 3 hours or 6 months ago)" and then proceeds to tell me all about it.  We went to a fancy exotic pet store last week and saw a snake eating a mouse.  So we've been talking about that quite a bit.  And he makes this very earnest snake face with his eyebrows up and his tongue coming in and out of his mouth.  It's pretty much hysterical.

I told him Oscar the Grouch (who he knows from his diapers) lives in a garbage can and likes things that are stinky and dusty and poopy, and that caused so many giggles that he had the hiccups for several hours. And then we had to listen to I Love Trash several times.

He has taken to asking "what's that" about 10000 times a day, even pointing to things he knows in his books.  (Yes, B, that's a car. The same car in the same book we've read 100 times this week.)  It's fun to see his mind and his vocabulary continuing to expand. It also makes reading a book exhausting.

This morning, on our walk to the dentist, we saw a dump truck dumping, a digger, a man with a hose and a sweeper truck.  It was possibly the most exciting morning commute EVER. I have never seen so much excitement.

We've been learning how things grow, and so had some forced bulbs in the house (hyacinths, mostly, as I like the smell) and he loves looking at the buds on the trees and how the are turning into leaves and flowers.  He can identify a daffodil and a crocus and a tulip (although the flowers on those aren't out yet) and every once in a while will apropos of nothing pull out the word "forsythia."

He's increasingly physically confident.  He can open most doors, reach all counters (he is almost 38" tall), and is now fully leaping off the furniture.  It's both amusing and terrifying. And he's a great climber.  We've also recently acquired a helmet and so now he has started using his scooter in the park.

Of course, he's still stubborn and a mediocre listener and has periods of really really annoying whining. And he's decided that peeing on the floor is a hoot. And he hits other kids sometimes and also sometimes hits me and seems to think it is hysterical (and then I panic think I have a child who lacks empathy), but as it turns out, he's just a large, rambunctious two year old with pretty mediocre impulse control.

I can't believe I have a little boy who can ride a scooter, and has enough teeth to go to the dentist.  And who can ask for kisses on the cheek.

However this other thing turns out (and all signs are bad), I'm amazingly lucky to have B in my life.


Thursday, April 4, 2013

Number 3! But with extra bleeding! UPDATED

So, as I feared, the nascent gestational sac is still quite small and pretty much empty.  Oh, and it's very much in the wrong place, closer to my cervix than anything else.

I knew this was going sideways last evening, when I lost about a pint of blood and had bad cramping.  No amount of googling stories about how that didn't really mean anything to the fate of a pregnancy could convince me that this was going to work.

The awesome thing is that the US detected a lot MORE blood in my uterus.  In fact, it's full.  Cervix is still long and closed, though, so this could take a while.  The only thing that's for certain is that it's going to be messy.

To explain how truly awesome my evening was last night, I have to paint a bit of a picture:
- My husband is in Paris, and getting on a plane at 3am EST to return home.
- I am hosting my cousins and their 19 month old for a playdate.  And my cousin's wife? Of course she is 7 months pregnant.
- I start to feel cramping so retreat to the bathroom.  Blood.  And lots.  I dig up a pad from somewhere in the bathroom and wait until they leave.
- While bathing my son, I spend most of the time watching him while sitting on the toilet hoping I don't pass out.
- I get him to bed and call the RE's office.  I get the really annoying medical fellow who, when she is done hearing my tale of woe and giving me instructions, says "OK, have a great evening"
- I'm still worried about an ectopic and am soaking through a pad an hour, so call her back two hours later.  I'm wondering how I will make a trip to the ER, so I get my babysitter ready to come over if I need her.  She is a saint. (But I feel very awkward.) Thankfully, the bleeding slows by 11 so no ER trip necessary.  But I have a moment of panic that I am internally bleeding and am going to be found dead in a pool of my own blood.
- I'm also out of pads, so wondering what I am going to do.  Then I remember I have a nearly endless supply of diapers!  And nighttime diapers! And pull-ups!  I get a variety of diapers, the scissors and some cloth medical tape ready in case I need to do some emergency arts and crafts.
- I have nice sheets that are white, so I decide the best solution is to sleep on the extra waterproof crib mattress pad.  It's not that comfortable, actually, as it is designed to be fitted around a crib mattress.  But thankfully I don't destroy it or my bedding.

So, yeah.  Loads of scary blood, pregnant people, solo parenting, and a lack of sanitary products. Oh, and I pretty much lost the pregnancy, although we knew that was happening.  Was over all a fabulous evening.

Today, my husband is home and I am going to curl up and do nothing.  Except maybe eat a cupcake.  And cry.  Because I am nearing the end of my rope and I am about to turn 43.  It was not supposed to happen this way.

UPDATE:  Sonafab*tch. My HCG went from 2199 on Monday to over 8000 today.  My stupid body doesn't know I am miscarrying. More bloodwork today and then may have to help this along.  Motherf*er. Can this not be easy???? 

Monday, April 1, 2013

Ugh and double ugh: Udated

Been having some intermittent sharp pains/ dull achiness on the right side and since I was going in for bw this morning, mentioned it to the nurse.

US shows nothing.  And by nothing I mean nothing obviously in my uterus (where there should be a sac visible by now) and nothing definitive in either tube/ ovary.  I'm going to the fancy u/s (with the pregnant women, where they definitively diagnosed my m/c last year) at 11am.

Shit shit shit.

More later.

UPDATED:
Fancy u/s shows what may be a very small gestational sac in my uterus.  Nothing obviously awry anywhere else and no sign of bleeding anywhere.  Beta is 2199, so rising appropriately.  So I'm pregnant, but we can't really find it yet.

Option 1- a perfect gestational sac shows back up on Thursday with a yolk sac and other stuff.  All proceeds as we hope.
Option 2 - no sac anywhere/ sac shows up somewhere else.  Ectopic dx.
Option 3 - gestational sac there but small and continues to measure behind until it's all over.

I'm going to hope for Option 1 and bet on Option 3.